Scott & Jen in South America: March 2012

Months earlier, we had planned our route to land in Trinidad for Carnival. Although Rio de Janiero is best known for its famous Carnival celebration, after doing a little searching, we decided Trinidad would be a better place for us. Less crowds, cheaper, safer, English-speaking… and (they say) the festivities are just as crazy as Brazil. We had an absolute blast in our few days here… truly a sight to be seen!

J’Ouvert Festival

Upon arriving at the hotel, we found out about something called the J’Ouvert Festival (pronounced joo-VAY). J’Ouvert is a long tradition in the Caribbean islands and always take place in the early morning of the Monday preceding Fat Tuesday (Carnival). Its origins go back to the time of emancipation in Trinidad, when the freed slaves first started celebrating Carnival. (More on wikipedia here.) To participate in J’Ouvert, you have to align yourself with one of the local groups, or “bands”. Each band has a platform truck playing calypso music and a second truck close behind serving drinks. The bands start at different locations throughout the city and wind their way through the streets marching, dancing and throwing mud and paint on one another. As you can imagine (and see from the pictures below), it’s an incredibly fun time! We were able to join on to a band called “Bamboo Patch” and met our group at about 3:00 AM. The event goes on through sunrise and into the early morning, and signifies the official start of Carnival!

Finally, at about 9 AM, we arrive back where we started. We head back to the hotel, shower off all the mud and paint and go straight to bed! It’s time to rest up for the next couple days of Carnival !

Fat Tuesday (Carnival)

A big part of the celebration takes place in the parade that winds its way through the streets and leads up to the main stage.

Because we couldn’t easily carry around the big camera we could only get some pictures/ videos from our small pocket camera… a bit blurry but enough to give you a flavor of the festivities!!

The main stage

Finally, each Carnival group gets their big moment on the main stage where they are at TV, judged and cheered on by everyone in the crowd.

Next and final stop, Curacao!

We would go from the bustling city of Rio on the coast to the heart of the Amazon rain forest--Manaus, Brazil. Manaus is situated where the Rio Negro (the black river below) flows into the Amazon River (the brown river below).

Instead of staying in Manaus (which is basically an industrial, run-down port city), we were able to find a lodge situated along one of the tributaries of the Rio Negro… the Amazon Eco Park.

It wasn’t long before we happened across some super-sized bugs. I put my toe in this picture to give some perspective on how friggin’ big this ~~bird~~ flying insect was! Luckily, it was no longer alive!

During our three day stay at the lodge, we had access to a variety of activities along the Amazon. First up, piranha fishing! We used raw steak as bait, and just dipping the steak below the surface would attract several piranha that would quickly take a bite and swim away (we had to re-bait the hook over and over!). Most were too smart to get snagged by the fish hook but we did manage to catch a couple.

“Hellloooooo"!!!”

The next day we would go to a population of wild monkeys:

Kung Fu Monkey!

Our guide told us that this monkey was the leader… we got the impression he didn’t like us very much. :)

At night we went cruising through the tributaries looking for Cayman… smaller-looking alligators. Our guide had a big flashlight that he would sweep across the water. They were easy to spot with their orange eyes glowing above the surface! We caught one on video:

More cruising through the tributaries looking for wildlife and just taking in the scenery:

A local boy pulled a sloth off a tree so everyone could get a closer look and hold it

Wild parrots swooped in to try to steal food from the open-air eating area. Smart little guys!

The next day we would get an up close look at the ‘meeting of the waters’… where the Amazon flows into the Rio Negro. Because the rivers originate in very different parts of the Amazon, by the time they meet, they have very different compositions, temperatures, velocities and colors! They don’t fully mix until several miles downstream.

More life along the Amazon:

Gas station on the Amazon River. Where we were, the river was over a mile wide.

Many people travel waaayy down river on large, open-air boats and sleep on closely-spaced hammocks. From Manaus, it’s a solid 4 days to get to the river’s end at the Atlantic Ocean.

The city of Manaus:

Our last day, we would learn a little more about the way people live in the jungle.

Grooves cut in to a rubber tree and the process of curing it over hot smoke. Manaus used to be (in the 19th century) an extremely wealthy city as it had a world monopoly on the rubber trade. However, once rubber seeds were smuggled out of Brazil the boom was over and the city has since fallen from grace. Natural rubber is still one of the regions biggest exports and many local people still collect it the old fashioned way.

The cassava root is one of the tropics’ largest food source. It grows everywhere but must by peeled, shaved into small pieces and roasted over a fire before it can be eaten: