Two of my really close friends from school are getting married/engaged this month, my best wishes to Jojo and Vikram. Here's to a lot of happy and fantastic years ahead !
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Some more Pics
1. San Sebastian Square - We watched a lot of games here 
2. Walker and I at the square
Day 6 - Time to leave the rainforest.
The last day in the Amazon rainforest began pretty early, we woke up to a breakfast of crackers with Guiaba jam, freshly cut pineapples and coffee with milk and sugar.
We then headed out to a settlement of the Amazonian natives. Some of us felt a little uncomfortable infringing on their settlement as curious tourists but it looked like by this time they were used to a lot of tourists anyways. We got to see farms where Mandioc and Pineapples were grown, I had never seen a Pineapple tree/plant/bush before. Its like a small bush with Pineapples in the middle, its something really unique especially if you've thought "Where do pineapples come from ?." We also saw a fruit from which it was possible to extract a red paste to be used as face-paint. The locals had a small store where they were selling some merchandise, that seemed like the only thing they would get out of this deal.
We then headed back to the lodge and hung out there for a little bit, just watching soccer, eating lunch. I felt a sense of quiet and happiness. It felt like us, the group of 15, had really bonded over this short 3 day experience in a new country in the middle of the rainforest and it was something that made me feel really happy, this was a special experience. Roger from London, Zoran from Croatia, Erin and Kano from Canada, Lisa and Andrea from Miami, Nic from Orlando, Jan from Germany, Mic, Josh and Scott from D.C and the four of us, we didn't know if we'd ever run into each other again. We chatted with each other over a delicious lunch about our next plans, where we were headed to and what games we were watching next,
After that it was time to head back to Manaus, we collected a group tip for the guides and gave it to them. We then got into one of the super-fast boats we had arrived on and headed out back to the harbor. It was a 40-50 minute ride and throughout the ride I could just not stop thinking about the serenity and the beauty of the Amazon rainforest. To me, it felt like a different planet, it was unlike any other place I had been to, water everywhere with stretches of Forest in between. A kind of a separate world with its own rules and laws, living there is a universe away from having a desk job in an American city. A place that I would highly recommend you check out if you get the chance.
On the way back to Manaus we ran into an Indo-Kazakh (Vikram and Dina) couple who were living in Bangalore. Me, Boochi and Keerthi were chatting in Tamil when Dina interrupted us with "Are you guys speaking in Tamil ?", that was how it started. It was fun for me to meet someone from abroad who was living and working in India, especially a girl(since India doesn't stand out as the safest place for women these days), and get their perspective about India. When I was in India 5 years back, there were not a lot of foreigners who lived in Madras. Dina told me Bangalore now had quite a few foreigners these days, especially those who moved there from Spain to teach Spanish and decided to stay on afterwards. I found that very interesting and to be a good sign for India's development. She did mention a couple of problems w.r.to the cultural change and "a lot of staring" which I can only hope will improve with time.
Brazil were playing Mexico that day and we asked the cab driver on the final leg of our journey to turn on the radio for the game. We obviously understood none of the Portuguese commentary but the word that all we tourists were looking for was "gooooooaaaaaal", that never happened. Brazil managed to draw with Mexico and a lot of the locals were disappointed with the result. The Mexican goalie had an extremely good game.
That night I had access to wifi after almost 3 days, I spoke to the GF, typed out a couple of blog posts and spent time in the hostel. Walker and I headed out to the square for a short while that night but we decided to turn in early, the excitement of the last couple of days would take a long while to die down :)
We then headed out to a settlement of the Amazonian natives. Some of us felt a little uncomfortable infringing on their settlement as curious tourists but it looked like by this time they were used to a lot of tourists anyways. We got to see farms where Mandioc and Pineapples were grown, I had never seen a Pineapple tree/plant/bush before. Its like a small bush with Pineapples in the middle, its something really unique especially if you've thought "Where do pineapples come from ?." We also saw a fruit from which it was possible to extract a red paste to be used as face-paint. The locals had a small store where they were selling some merchandise, that seemed like the only thing they would get out of this deal.
We then headed back to the lodge and hung out there for a little bit, just watching soccer, eating lunch. I felt a sense of quiet and happiness. It felt like us, the group of 15, had really bonded over this short 3 day experience in a new country in the middle of the rainforest and it was something that made me feel really happy, this was a special experience. Roger from London, Zoran from Croatia, Erin and Kano from Canada, Lisa and Andrea from Miami, Nic from Orlando, Jan from Germany, Mic, Josh and Scott from D.C and the four of us, we didn't know if we'd ever run into each other again. We chatted with each other over a delicious lunch about our next plans, where we were headed to and what games we were watching next,
After that it was time to head back to Manaus, we collected a group tip for the guides and gave it to them. We then got into one of the super-fast boats we had arrived on and headed out back to the harbor. It was a 40-50 minute ride and throughout the ride I could just not stop thinking about the serenity and the beauty of the Amazon rainforest. To me, it felt like a different planet, it was unlike any other place I had been to, water everywhere with stretches of Forest in between. A kind of a separate world with its own rules and laws, living there is a universe away from having a desk job in an American city. A place that I would highly recommend you check out if you get the chance.
On the way back to Manaus we ran into an Indo-Kazakh (Vikram and Dina) couple who were living in Bangalore. Me, Boochi and Keerthi were chatting in Tamil when Dina interrupted us with "Are you guys speaking in Tamil ?", that was how it started. It was fun for me to meet someone from abroad who was living and working in India, especially a girl(since India doesn't stand out as the safest place for women these days), and get their perspective about India. When I was in India 5 years back, there were not a lot of foreigners who lived in Madras. Dina told me Bangalore now had quite a few foreigners these days, especially those who moved there from Spain to teach Spanish and decided to stay on afterwards. I found that very interesting and to be a good sign for India's development. She did mention a couple of problems w.r.to the cultural change and "a lot of staring" which I can only hope will improve with time.
Brazil were playing Mexico that day and we asked the cab driver on the final leg of our journey to turn on the radio for the game. We obviously understood none of the Portuguese commentary but the word that all we tourists were looking for was "gooooooaaaaaal", that never happened. Brazil managed to draw with Mexico and a lot of the locals were disappointed with the result. The Mexican goalie had an extremely good game.
That night I had access to wifi after almost 3 days, I spoke to the GF, typed out a couple of blog posts and spent time in the hostel. Walker and I headed out to the square for a short while that night but we decided to turn in early, the excitement of the last couple of days would take a long while to die down :)
Friday, June 27, 2014
Jun 28, 2054
Avi watches FIFA world cup with his grandkid,
Avi: "Kid, in 2014 the World Cup was in Brazil, the home of soccer. I was there !"
GK: Grandpa, you're so cool !
:)
Avi: "Kid, in 2014 the World Cup was in Brazil, the home of soccer. I was there !"
GK: Grandpa, you're so cool !
:)
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Some more pictures
1. Walker takes a pic of me taking a pic of him in the hostel. 
2. England fans claim Teatro Amazonas as their own
Day 5 - A typical day in the Amazon
We woke up at 5 am, there's not a lot of days in the year when I can say that. We quickly found that there was no water in the bathroom and luckily I didn't have to use the toilet !
So what were we doing up so early you ask, well the plan was to catch daybreak on the Amazon. So we did what we were so used to doing by now, we hopped onto our ferry with our 3-day 2-night package-friends (there were about 15 of us - 2 girls from Miami, a sweet couple from Canada, a German and a Floridian, a Brit and a Croatian, 3 guys from DC and us 4 from India) and headed out to a spot on the river from where we could see daybreak. We had to wait for about 20-30 minutes, no-one can rush the sun apparently. There was a huge cloud right in front of the sun and we were unsure if we'd see anything off the daybreak but we did. As daybreaks go, it was a glorious site, the reflection of the sun on the river was beautiful. After snapping up as many photos as we could(I'll post some of them here), we headed back still sleepy but now hungry too ! Thankfully a breakfast of eggs, coffee and coffee-cake was waiting for us.
After breakfast we hopped on to our boat and went on a hike in the rainforest. To reach the rainforest our guide basically had to machete some bushes and make a clearing for our boat to reach shore. It was quite the sight with Stefano waving the machete at the front of the boat, many a reference to Tarantino movies were made.
Once we were in the forest we engaged in some activities that might have been typical of the Amazon natives but highly unlikely. We smoked a tree, yes you heard that right. Apparently it was a tree that had herbal powers and a really nice scent, so Stefano cut off a twig for us which he then lighted and passed around as a natural cigarette. The smoke from the twig is not harmful to our lungs we were promised. To our surprise within the next 10 minutes all of us were naturally high, just kidding, I don't think any of us really felt anything other than some pleasant smoke in our throats.
We next saw some armadillo holes. We then climbed some vines to satisfy our inner primates. We found an ant-nest which had a scent to it and were told that rubbing the ants on our skin was a sort of insect repellent. Apparently insect repellents were made with extracts from the ant nest. Stefano found something on the ground that looked like a pine cone but upon cutting in half contained a larvae inside, he went on to explain that the larvae could serve a good snack. Luckily, none of us were hungry enough to eat a live larvae so the other guide was kind enough to show us how it was done, it made my day (not really).
We got back to the Lodge after that and some of the folks decided to take a dip in the Amazon water right outside the lodge. Thanks to my poor swimming skills I decided to stay on land but it looked like a ton of fun. Walker and Boochi jumped in too, later we learnt that the water was about 20 m deep where they had jumped in, they were terrified to learn that but also glad that they hadn't known about it earlier as it made their swim less stressful !
At around 3 pm we headed out to the forest again, this team it was the real deal, we were going to camp out in the Amazon rainforest. Typing that line out makes me excited so let me type that out again, we were going to camp out in the Amazon rainforest !
We headed out with 2 beers for each person and a bottle of Cashaca, the Brazilian rum. About 2 minutes after we left the lodge in our boat we heard shouts from the lodge and we went back. Apparently we had forgotten the lemon and salt needed to make the Caipiranhas and the lodge owner did not want us to miss out on the complete camping experience. Thank God for Brazilian hospitality.
We found the camping site which had a shack setup already. All we had to do was to eventually setup hammocks and sleep underneath the shack. We were making ourself cosy at this spot when another group of tourists from the lodge showed up, apparently they had a bigger group which meant we had to find a different camping spot. Luckily there was another camping site fairly nearby, this one had a slightly smaller shack than the previous spot. But it was perfect, for some reason which we never understood the second campsite had way fewer insects and when you camp outside that is a huge win!
First line of action was to get some seating ready, we found a couple of logs that we arranged around the fire. Second we passed some beer around and started chatting. Zoran our friend from Croatia taught us a Croatian soccer song which we would in a couple of days hear sung by thousands of Croatian fans in the stadium.
The guides first setup our hammocks for the night. Then they got started on dinner. Dinner was going to be simple, chicken and rice. The chicken had to be cooked over a fire and seasoned with what I believe was just salt. It took quite a while to make rice and cook the chicken(couple of hours) in the makeshift kitchen. In the meanwhile a few of us setup a manual Caipiranha assembly line, some of us were cutting the lemons, some were mixing the sugar and rum, some were crushing the lemons, you get the idea. Caipiranhas were then passed around to one and all. One round turned into two and then , just like that, the bottle was empty. We were a merry lot by then, just hanging out and having a jolly good time, we even had a round of introductions where each of us had to introduce ourselves and say something cool about us, it really was a great time !
The chicken was soon ready and boy was it good, rarely have I had a meal that tasted so good which was made with such few ingredients and cooking resources. Apparently cooking with the moist wood in the forest adds to the flavor of the chicken. Trust an Italian to make delicious food even in the Amazon :) After dinner some of the group decided to head to bed, it was only around 9 pm but felt like much later inside the jungle. The sounds of the jungle were already all around us.
Some of the more adventurous amongst us decided to play a game of "Never Have I Ever". I hadn't played that game before but once we started we kept playing it over and over again, for about an hour. Everyone seemed to be impressed that Walker and I had ridden on top of a bus before (they probably thought we were crazy) . Similarly we learnt some secrets about some really cool people whom we might never meet again in our lives !
After that we were done, we just slumped into our hammocks and tried to sleep. Personally, I have a lot of trouble trying to sleep in new places and the Amazon rainforest in a hammock was very new to me. It took me a couple of hours to first get used to the orientation of my new bed. The sounds of the jungle were next. Needless to say I kept waking up. There were sounds all around me and I had no idea what was making them, might have been the monkeys, the birds or the jaguars for all I knew. I think I must have gotten around 2-3 hours of sleep over a 8 hour period so I wasn't the most refreshed person the next morning, but who cares, I had just spent a night in the Amazon :)
So what were we doing up so early you ask, well the plan was to catch daybreak on the Amazon. So we did what we were so used to doing by now, we hopped onto our ferry with our 3-day 2-night package-friends (there were about 15 of us - 2 girls from Miami, a sweet couple from Canada, a German and a Floridian, a Brit and a Croatian, 3 guys from DC and us 4 from India) and headed out to a spot on the river from where we could see daybreak. We had to wait for about 20-30 minutes, no-one can rush the sun apparently. There was a huge cloud right in front of the sun and we were unsure if we'd see anything off the daybreak but we did. As daybreaks go, it was a glorious site, the reflection of the sun on the river was beautiful. After snapping up as many photos as we could(I'll post some of them here), we headed back still sleepy but now hungry too ! Thankfully a breakfast of eggs, coffee and coffee-cake was waiting for us.
After breakfast we hopped on to our boat and went on a hike in the rainforest. To reach the rainforest our guide basically had to machete some bushes and make a clearing for our boat to reach shore. It was quite the sight with Stefano waving the machete at the front of the boat, many a reference to Tarantino movies were made.
Once we were in the forest we engaged in some activities that might have been typical of the Amazon natives but highly unlikely. We smoked a tree, yes you heard that right. Apparently it was a tree that had herbal powers and a really nice scent, so Stefano cut off a twig for us which he then lighted and passed around as a natural cigarette. The smoke from the twig is not harmful to our lungs we were promised. To our surprise within the next 10 minutes all of us were naturally high, just kidding, I don't think any of us really felt anything other than some pleasant smoke in our throats.
We next saw some armadillo holes. We then climbed some vines to satisfy our inner primates. We found an ant-nest which had a scent to it and were told that rubbing the ants on our skin was a sort of insect repellent. Apparently insect repellents were made with extracts from the ant nest. Stefano found something on the ground that looked like a pine cone but upon cutting in half contained a larvae inside, he went on to explain that the larvae could serve a good snack. Luckily, none of us were hungry enough to eat a live larvae so the other guide was kind enough to show us how it was done, it made my day (not really).
We got back to the Lodge after that and some of the folks decided to take a dip in the Amazon water right outside the lodge. Thanks to my poor swimming skills I decided to stay on land but it looked like a ton of fun. Walker and Boochi jumped in too, later we learnt that the water was about 20 m deep where they had jumped in, they were terrified to learn that but also glad that they hadn't known about it earlier as it made their swim less stressful !
At around 3 pm we headed out to the forest again, this team it was the real deal, we were going to camp out in the Amazon rainforest. Typing that line out makes me excited so let me type that out again, we were going to camp out in the Amazon rainforest !
We headed out with 2 beers for each person and a bottle of Cashaca, the Brazilian rum. About 2 minutes after we left the lodge in our boat we heard shouts from the lodge and we went back. Apparently we had forgotten the lemon and salt needed to make the Caipiranhas and the lodge owner did not want us to miss out on the complete camping experience. Thank God for Brazilian hospitality.
We found the camping site which had a shack setup already. All we had to do was to eventually setup hammocks and sleep underneath the shack. We were making ourself cosy at this spot when another group of tourists from the lodge showed up, apparently they had a bigger group which meant we had to find a different camping spot. Luckily there was another camping site fairly nearby, this one had a slightly smaller shack than the previous spot. But it was perfect, for some reason which we never understood the second campsite had way fewer insects and when you camp outside that is a huge win!
First line of action was to get some seating ready, we found a couple of logs that we arranged around the fire. Second we passed some beer around and started chatting. Zoran our friend from Croatia taught us a Croatian soccer song which we would in a couple of days hear sung by thousands of Croatian fans in the stadium.
The guides first setup our hammocks for the night. Then they got started on dinner. Dinner was going to be simple, chicken and rice. The chicken had to be cooked over a fire and seasoned with what I believe was just salt. It took quite a while to make rice and cook the chicken(couple of hours) in the makeshift kitchen. In the meanwhile a few of us setup a manual Caipiranha assembly line, some of us were cutting the lemons, some were mixing the sugar and rum, some were crushing the lemons, you get the idea. Caipiranhas were then passed around to one and all. One round turned into two and then , just like that, the bottle was empty. We were a merry lot by then, just hanging out and having a jolly good time, we even had a round of introductions where each of us had to introduce ourselves and say something cool about us, it really was a great time !
The chicken was soon ready and boy was it good, rarely have I had a meal that tasted so good which was made with such few ingredients and cooking resources. Apparently cooking with the moist wood in the forest adds to the flavor of the chicken. Trust an Italian to make delicious food even in the Amazon :) After dinner some of the group decided to head to bed, it was only around 9 pm but felt like much later inside the jungle. The sounds of the jungle were already all around us.
Some of the more adventurous amongst us decided to play a game of "Never Have I Ever". I hadn't played that game before but once we started we kept playing it over and over again, for about an hour. Everyone seemed to be impressed that Walker and I had ridden on top of a bus before (they probably thought we were crazy) . Similarly we learnt some secrets about some really cool people whom we might never meet again in our lives !
After that we were done, we just slumped into our hammocks and tried to sleep. Personally, I have a lot of trouble trying to sleep in new places and the Amazon rainforest in a hammock was very new to me. It took me a couple of hours to first get used to the orientation of my new bed. The sounds of the jungle were next. Needless to say I kept waking up. There were sounds all around me and I had no idea what was making them, might have been the monkeys, the birds or the jaguars for all I knew. I think I must have gotten around 2-3 hours of sleep over a 8 hour period so I wasn't the most refreshed person the next morning, but who cares, I had just spent a night in the Amazon :)
Friday, June 20, 2014
Day4 - Part 2 - Adventures in the Amazon.
Our boat took us to the lodge where we were going to stay, it was smack in the middle of the rainforest. The lodge was basically a number of buildings made of wood with a wooden deck out in front. The deck had a couple of wooden chairs to soak in some sun (which was available in plenty). We were asked to douse ourself in bug spray in advance to avoid the little predators of the jungle.
Upon arrival, we were treated to a much awaited and scrumptous lunch. The lunch had a salad made of cucumbers, onions and peppers. There was also mashed potatoes, noodles, rice and something that resembled a chicken curry, if youre thinking thats a lot of starch/carbs you guessed right. We immediately made some friends, there was a friendly couple from Winnipeg, Canada(Erin and Frano I think) and a couple of other people from England, we had a good chat over lunch, substantial parts of which involved - which games people were watching, where they had come from before Manaus and where they were headed to next after Manaus. This we learnt would become the staple of conversations for the next 2 weeks. We also met Lisa from Miami(originally from Colombia) soon after, who we learnt is a Gator(UF alumnus) who was travelling with another Gator, this meant that our party consisted of 5 Gators, I know what better company could we ask for. Alas, to spoil the party there was also a Seminole(FSU alumnus) amongst us, Nic from Orlando, who would actually turn out to be splendid company as well !
After lunch we were shown our dormitory where we would spend the night, the dorm was a slightly big wooden building, it had 3-4 rooms with about 50 beds in total, each bed had a mosquito net above it to minimize the damage. We were told to take a 2 hour siesta but we decided to chat with our fellow travellers instead because each one of them was so cool !
After the 2 hour break we got into a similar wooden boat as before and I sat next to Roger from England. Now I would learn later that Roger has been to EVERY single World Cup since (and including) 1994, so that is 1994 in the US, 98 in France, 2002 in Japan/Korea, 2006 in Germany, 2010 in South Africa and now 2014 in Brazil. That was enough for me, I was sitting near a super-cool traveller, one of the coolest I´d met so far. He was full of stories from his travels and I was easily impressed by each of them.
Our boat was taking us to a fishing spot where we´d be fishing for Piranhas. Yep, you heard that right, we were going Piranha fishing in the Amazon. We had some chicken as bait for the Piranhas which we attached to our fishing rods. Each of us had a fishing rod and we were in a shallow part of the river. The bugs were giving us a full welcome by then, it was around 5 in the evening. I immediately felt some tugs on my rod and before I could get it out of the water my bait was gone. This happened a couple of times to us, those Piranhas are smart I tell you, we were losing chicken fast. We were told that the fish we caught would be served to us at dinner, in hindsight saving the chicken for dinner might have been a better idea. We ended up having quite a jolly time on the river, about ten of us were out fishing, there were a lot of fish jokes going around obviously. A group of three friends from DC joined our group a little late and they were enjoying it too. At the end of it we only had two Piranhas which Nic had caught, so not a lot to show for in terms of fish but definitely a ton of fun !
We headed back to the lodge where we started watching one of the games on a TV with satellite reception and basically waiting for dinner. All of a sudden we were told that we´d be heading out into the waters again. We were going to try and see some Cayman alligators. Now the Amazon is pretty cool during the day, but the sight as we headed out into the pitch black night literally blew our minds. We could see the night sky in all its glory, earlier in the year Alicia and I had learnt in the STL science museum that its impossible to see the night sky in all its glory in the cities because of all the lights in the city. This makes the sky appear lighter, I was told the amount of pollution plays a part in this too. But then in the Amazon there was little of both so the view was just unbelievable, we could literally see the Milky Way. Boochi was pretty loud in his appreciation of the view as well, it went something amongst the lines of ¨Shiiit MAN¨ ! I told myself, this is pretty freaking cool.
Now we were ready, on the pitch black waters in a wooden boat. All we needed to do was find some Caymans. The way we found them was cool, there was a little boy from the lodge at the front of the boat with a flashlight on his forehead, he would then shine his flashlight in sweeping edges across the water to look for something. If he found something interesting he would shake his head a couple of times and then the guy at the rear end of the boat would navigate in that direction. We´d then end up in shallower waters amongst some water plants and the guy in front would look more closely for the Caymans. We learnt later that what he was looking for was the reflection of the flashlight in the alligators eyes, thats how he would locate them. This happened a number of times and we were in about 3 -4 bushes before he ultimately spotted two Caymans. These alligators are tiny(less than a meter or 3 feet in length) compared to the ones Alicia and I saw in Florida last month. The boy in front actually scooped up two alligators from the water and handed it out to us to hold, Walker and Keerthi got to hold it and got some pictures with it. The boy also explained that these two were females with a display of the corresponding body parts !! I think, to me personally, the main draw was not the Caymans but just a night-drive out into the Amazon in the middle of the night.
We had some dinner and headed to our beds where sleeping under mosquito nets brought back some memories of visiting the Dominican Republic to see Alicia. It was then that I jotted down a couple more thoughts.
I was amazed at how the guides were able to navigate the huge river with its tricky branches that we kept swerving in and out of without the use of anything close to a GPS, their sense of direction is alive and kicking every day.
I had forgotten my bug repellent and my long cotton pants in Manaus, again I was dependent on Walker and Boochi for bug spray and I would have to sleep in my jeans the next night in some of the hottest and humid weather on the planet.
I recalled my conversation during dinner with Zoran from Croatia (he had a Croatia hat on the entire day) who was also a part of our 3 day 2 night group. He told me he tries to travel a bit, he later told me he had been to all seven continents including a number of cities in India that I personally have been waiting to visit. His daughter has visited all 7 continents before the age of 18. Again, another super cool guy that I would meet during the course of this trip.
I also recalled talking to Stefano during dinner, he mentioned how once to support himself he had made and sold pizzas to his friends for dinner. I made a note to myself to try and raise the level of my Indian cooking to a similar level so that I can do the same if need be.
After that, I think I was ready to head to bed, I´m sure you´d agree that it had been quite the day :)
Upon arrival, we were treated to a much awaited and scrumptous lunch. The lunch had a salad made of cucumbers, onions and peppers. There was also mashed potatoes, noodles, rice and something that resembled a chicken curry, if youre thinking thats a lot of starch/carbs you guessed right. We immediately made some friends, there was a friendly couple from Winnipeg, Canada(Erin and Frano I think) and a couple of other people from England, we had a good chat over lunch, substantial parts of which involved - which games people were watching, where they had come from before Manaus and where they were headed to next after Manaus. This we learnt would become the staple of conversations for the next 2 weeks. We also met Lisa from Miami(originally from Colombia) soon after, who we learnt is a Gator(UF alumnus) who was travelling with another Gator, this meant that our party consisted of 5 Gators, I know what better company could we ask for. Alas, to spoil the party there was also a Seminole(FSU alumnus) amongst us, Nic from Orlando, who would actually turn out to be splendid company as well !
After lunch we were shown our dormitory where we would spend the night, the dorm was a slightly big wooden building, it had 3-4 rooms with about 50 beds in total, each bed had a mosquito net above it to minimize the damage. We were told to take a 2 hour siesta but we decided to chat with our fellow travellers instead because each one of them was so cool !
After the 2 hour break we got into a similar wooden boat as before and I sat next to Roger from England. Now I would learn later that Roger has been to EVERY single World Cup since (and including) 1994, so that is 1994 in the US, 98 in France, 2002 in Japan/Korea, 2006 in Germany, 2010 in South Africa and now 2014 in Brazil. That was enough for me, I was sitting near a super-cool traveller, one of the coolest I´d met so far. He was full of stories from his travels and I was easily impressed by each of them.
Our boat was taking us to a fishing spot where we´d be fishing for Piranhas. Yep, you heard that right, we were going Piranha fishing in the Amazon. We had some chicken as bait for the Piranhas which we attached to our fishing rods. Each of us had a fishing rod and we were in a shallow part of the river. The bugs were giving us a full welcome by then, it was around 5 in the evening. I immediately felt some tugs on my rod and before I could get it out of the water my bait was gone. This happened a couple of times to us, those Piranhas are smart I tell you, we were losing chicken fast. We were told that the fish we caught would be served to us at dinner, in hindsight saving the chicken for dinner might have been a better idea. We ended up having quite a jolly time on the river, about ten of us were out fishing, there were a lot of fish jokes going around obviously. A group of three friends from DC joined our group a little late and they were enjoying it too. At the end of it we only had two Piranhas which Nic had caught, so not a lot to show for in terms of fish but definitely a ton of fun !
We headed back to the lodge where we started watching one of the games on a TV with satellite reception and basically waiting for dinner. All of a sudden we were told that we´d be heading out into the waters again. We were going to try and see some Cayman alligators. Now the Amazon is pretty cool during the day, but the sight as we headed out into the pitch black night literally blew our minds. We could see the night sky in all its glory, earlier in the year Alicia and I had learnt in the STL science museum that its impossible to see the night sky in all its glory in the cities because of all the lights in the city. This makes the sky appear lighter, I was told the amount of pollution plays a part in this too. But then in the Amazon there was little of both so the view was just unbelievable, we could literally see the Milky Way. Boochi was pretty loud in his appreciation of the view as well, it went something amongst the lines of ¨Shiiit MAN¨ ! I told myself, this is pretty freaking cool.
Now we were ready, on the pitch black waters in a wooden boat. All we needed to do was find some Caymans. The way we found them was cool, there was a little boy from the lodge at the front of the boat with a flashlight on his forehead, he would then shine his flashlight in sweeping edges across the water to look for something. If he found something interesting he would shake his head a couple of times and then the guy at the rear end of the boat would navigate in that direction. We´d then end up in shallower waters amongst some water plants and the guy in front would look more closely for the Caymans. We learnt later that what he was looking for was the reflection of the flashlight in the alligators eyes, thats how he would locate them. This happened a number of times and we were in about 3 -4 bushes before he ultimately spotted two Caymans. These alligators are tiny(less than a meter or 3 feet in length) compared to the ones Alicia and I saw in Florida last month. The boy in front actually scooped up two alligators from the water and handed it out to us to hold, Walker and Keerthi got to hold it and got some pictures with it. The boy also explained that these two were females with a display of the corresponding body parts !! I think, to me personally, the main draw was not the Caymans but just a night-drive out into the Amazon in the middle of the night.
We had some dinner and headed to our beds where sleeping under mosquito nets brought back some memories of visiting the Dominican Republic to see Alicia. It was then that I jotted down a couple more thoughts.
I was amazed at how the guides were able to navigate the huge river with its tricky branches that we kept swerving in and out of without the use of anything close to a GPS, their sense of direction is alive and kicking every day.
I had forgotten my bug repellent and my long cotton pants in Manaus, again I was dependent on Walker and Boochi for bug spray and I would have to sleep in my jeans the next night in some of the hottest and humid weather on the planet.
I recalled my conversation during dinner with Zoran from Croatia (he had a Croatia hat on the entire day) who was also a part of our 3 day 2 night group. He told me he tries to travel a bit, he later told me he had been to all seven continents including a number of cities in India that I personally have been waiting to visit. His daughter has visited all 7 continents before the age of 18. Again, another super cool guy that I would meet during the course of this trip.
I also recalled talking to Stefano during dinner, he mentioned how once to support himself he had made and sold pizzas to his friends for dinner. I made a note to myself to try and raise the level of my Indian cooking to a similar level so that I can do the same if need be.
After that, I think I was ready to head to bed, I´m sure you´d agree that it had been quite the day :)
Terrible swimmer on a sinking ship - Day 4 - Sunday - Jun 15, 2014 - Part 1
At the time when I took these notes, I was sitting on a boat in the Amazon. Now, that line by itself is pretty cool, but it doesn´t end there. The boat I was on was barely moving, we were in the middle of the largest river (by discharge and second by length) in the world, it looked more like a ocean at this point. On our side were forests teeming with unknown predators, remember this is the home of the Anaconda, the Caymans and probably hundreds of other possibly deadly species. So how did I, someone who can hardly swim 50m in an indoor pool to save his life, end up in this predicament ?
We had decided to a tour of the Amazon rainforest when we found out that all our games were in Manaus since it is the entrypoint to the Amazon rainforests. We arranged for a 3 day 2 night tour of the Amazon with a local tourist company, Iguana tourismo and we were all set to leave for the tour on Saturday.
We woke up around 7:30 am and we were supposed to leave the hostel for our first boat ride at 8 30 am. If there´s one thing thats common amongst all my friends it is the fact that we like to leave everything to the last minute. The tour operator had told us the night before that the compant only accepts cash payments, we decided to head to the ATM at 8 am, get some cash, pay the company and head out. Remember, at this point, I don´t have any plastic currency anymore(see previous post), I´m completely reliant on my buddies and the leftover currency(I still had quite a bit with me) that I had brought with me from the US. As luck would have it though, Boochis ATM card did not work outside the US and he had to spend what seemed like quite a while on the phone with the BOfA staff convincing them that he was not a drug peddler in Brazil using a stolen debit card. As this was happening I had to endure an impatient tour operator who was not pleased that we were holding up his tour. Well I guess things could have been worse, we got the cash, paid the company, we were shoved into a cab and arrived at the harbor. We were literally the last ones on the boat and once we jumped in the boat set off and we were on our way to the Amazon rainforest.
The first leg of the journey was pretty cool, it was slightly less than an hour by boat and we got to see what is known here as the Meeting of the Waters. Imagine this, two rivers flowing side by side, one river is completely dark, close to black (Rio Negro) and one river is pretty light, close to white (the Amazon.. Rio Soleimos to be precise). It was a pretty cool sight ! Apparently the two rivers have different temperatures, different speeds(the Amazon is almost twice as fast) and a different pH(I think the Amazon is less acidic). So these factors mean that the two rivers never mix but just flow side by side. This pattern is also evident in some of the local architecture we got to see with alternating stripes of light and dark wood.
The next phase of the journey was in a small van for about an hour. We all got into the van and headed out. It was quite the bumpy ride to say the least. This is also where we met our guide for the next couple of days, Stefano, who is originally from Italy. We learnt from him that a couple of weeks on that road would take us to Bolivia (if we survived the trip). Luckily our ride was not so long and we arrived at the spot where we´d transfer to our boats to get onto the mighty Amazon.
The transfer point was a tiny shack where we got to drink some coconut water just to relive some memories of India. We decided to play the expert there and showed some of our fellow travellers a cool trick, whenever you get coconut water ask the vendor to slice the coconut shell in half for you so that you can eat the delicious and healthy white coconut inside !
Stefano then informed us that we would next head to the lodge in the middle of the rainforest, we´d have to split up and travel in a couple of boats and were asked to choose whichever boat we´d like to travel in. Walker had learnt his lesson from the morning and was quick to pick out an ultra fast boat which quickly filled out. Boochi, Keerthi and I were still waking up and we missed the boat (pun intended). This meant we got on a slightly slower boat, which we later learnt would be our workhorse the next couple of days. This boat looked perfectly acceptable to us, it just lacked a roof and was all wood whereas the other one looked more like a speedboat with brighter colors. Our boat still had a motor and was travelling at a decent speed in the beginning.
As boat-engines go, they fail sometimes, and this was apparently a good day for our engine to fail. So there we were limping across the Amazon on a boat with a failed engine, about 10 of us, me probably the worst swimmer of the lot, no life jackets on the boat. Stefano asked us to take out a book and read, that was when I took out my notebook to jot down some notes about the day.
I had no idea how we were going to get to the lodge, we were ten minutes into an hours journey. There was a lot of water around us, unlike tiny rivers that some of us have canoed across, this one is huge, the largest river in the world ! There was also the fear of being toppled over by the wake from the other boats travelling at high speeds. Luckily there was a system where the boats would slow down whenever there was a stationary boat around, this was mainly to prevent the toppling over of the boats which belonged to the Native Amazonians who parked their boats on the river close to their houses. A form of discipline on the boat drivers part which was admirable and was keeping us afloat. Soon enough, one of the other boats from the same tour company spotted us and promised to send some help. I had no idea how we were to jump from one boat to another in the middle of a river without toppling the boats. I also had no idea about the kind of wildlife in the waters and on the shores on the side, needless to say the situation was a little tense in the boat. Memories of newspaper reports about tourists dying in a foreign country probably sprung up in a lot of our minds. I guess we did have some good luck that day however, we somehow limped our way to a local ´party shack´ in the middle of the river and we got off our boat and onto some solid ground ! Deep sigh of releif. The party shack had a pool table, a television to watch soccer and a couple of chairs one of which one of the tourists managed to break in 5 minutes. We just decided to grab a local refresco called Guarana(an Amazonian fruit) which we would keep chugging for the next week.
Pretty soon after that our replacement boat arrived and we were away on the waters again. This time on a much faster and safer boat and we actually made it to the lodge !
We had decided to a tour of the Amazon rainforest when we found out that all our games were in Manaus since it is the entrypoint to the Amazon rainforests. We arranged for a 3 day 2 night tour of the Amazon with a local tourist company, Iguana tourismo and we were all set to leave for the tour on Saturday.
We woke up around 7:30 am and we were supposed to leave the hostel for our first boat ride at 8 30 am. If there´s one thing thats common amongst all my friends it is the fact that we like to leave everything to the last minute. The tour operator had told us the night before that the compant only accepts cash payments, we decided to head to the ATM at 8 am, get some cash, pay the company and head out. Remember, at this point, I don´t have any plastic currency anymore(see previous post), I´m completely reliant on my buddies and the leftover currency(I still had quite a bit with me) that I had brought with me from the US. As luck would have it though, Boochis ATM card did not work outside the US and he had to spend what seemed like quite a while on the phone with the BOfA staff convincing them that he was not a drug peddler in Brazil using a stolen debit card. As this was happening I had to endure an impatient tour operator who was not pleased that we were holding up his tour. Well I guess things could have been worse, we got the cash, paid the company, we were shoved into a cab and arrived at the harbor. We were literally the last ones on the boat and once we jumped in the boat set off and we were on our way to the Amazon rainforest.
The first leg of the journey was pretty cool, it was slightly less than an hour by boat and we got to see what is known here as the Meeting of the Waters. Imagine this, two rivers flowing side by side, one river is completely dark, close to black (Rio Negro) and one river is pretty light, close to white (the Amazon.. Rio Soleimos to be precise). It was a pretty cool sight ! Apparently the two rivers have different temperatures, different speeds(the Amazon is almost twice as fast) and a different pH(I think the Amazon is less acidic). So these factors mean that the two rivers never mix but just flow side by side. This pattern is also evident in some of the local architecture we got to see with alternating stripes of light and dark wood.
The next phase of the journey was in a small van for about an hour. We all got into the van and headed out. It was quite the bumpy ride to say the least. This is also where we met our guide for the next couple of days, Stefano, who is originally from Italy. We learnt from him that a couple of weeks on that road would take us to Bolivia (if we survived the trip). Luckily our ride was not so long and we arrived at the spot where we´d transfer to our boats to get onto the mighty Amazon.
The transfer point was a tiny shack where we got to drink some coconut water just to relive some memories of India. We decided to play the expert there and showed some of our fellow travellers a cool trick, whenever you get coconut water ask the vendor to slice the coconut shell in half for you so that you can eat the delicious and healthy white coconut inside !
Stefano then informed us that we would next head to the lodge in the middle of the rainforest, we´d have to split up and travel in a couple of boats and were asked to choose whichever boat we´d like to travel in. Walker had learnt his lesson from the morning and was quick to pick out an ultra fast boat which quickly filled out. Boochi, Keerthi and I were still waking up and we missed the boat (pun intended). This meant we got on a slightly slower boat, which we later learnt would be our workhorse the next couple of days. This boat looked perfectly acceptable to us, it just lacked a roof and was all wood whereas the other one looked more like a speedboat with brighter colors. Our boat still had a motor and was travelling at a decent speed in the beginning.
As boat-engines go, they fail sometimes, and this was apparently a good day for our engine to fail. So there we were limping across the Amazon on a boat with a failed engine, about 10 of us, me probably the worst swimmer of the lot, no life jackets on the boat. Stefano asked us to take out a book and read, that was when I took out my notebook to jot down some notes about the day.
I had no idea how we were going to get to the lodge, we were ten minutes into an hours journey. There was a lot of water around us, unlike tiny rivers that some of us have canoed across, this one is huge, the largest river in the world ! There was also the fear of being toppled over by the wake from the other boats travelling at high speeds. Luckily there was a system where the boats would slow down whenever there was a stationary boat around, this was mainly to prevent the toppling over of the boats which belonged to the Native Amazonians who parked their boats on the river close to their houses. A form of discipline on the boat drivers part which was admirable and was keeping us afloat. Soon enough, one of the other boats from the same tour company spotted us and promised to send some help. I had no idea how we were to jump from one boat to another in the middle of a river without toppling the boats. I also had no idea about the kind of wildlife in the waters and on the shores on the side, needless to say the situation was a little tense in the boat. Memories of newspaper reports about tourists dying in a foreign country probably sprung up in a lot of our minds. I guess we did have some good luck that day however, we somehow limped our way to a local ´party shack´ in the middle of the river and we got off our boat and onto some solid ground ! Deep sigh of releif. The party shack had a pool table, a television to watch soccer and a couple of chairs one of which one of the tourists managed to break in 5 minutes. We just decided to grab a local refresco called Guarana(an Amazonian fruit) which we would keep chugging for the next week.
Pretty soon after that our replacement boat arrived and we were away on the waters again. This time on a much faster and safer boat and we actually made it to the lodge !
Some pictures !
These are some pics from Boochi´s phone of our excellent trip so far,
1. This was our spectacular view for the England Italy game
3. Walker discusses an engrossing story in the middle of the Amazon.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Day 3 - Jun 13 - Part 2 - The Big Game
So there we were, all four of us, in our game gear, a couple of us had England shirts on and the rest had Brazil shirts, and we headed out to the stadium. There were two spots where we could get buses to the Stadium so we walked towards the bus stop and got into the bus without much trouble. 20 minutes later the bus dropped us off about a mile away from the stadium. We got off the bus and we got beers for the walk.
The walk to the stadium was full of England and Italian supporters by the roadside. The England fans decided to take over a number of the local bars with their St George flag(I think thats what its called, the white flag with a red cross). The flags had the local affilitations written on them for eg Stoke City etc. We arrived at a Shell gas station right across from the stadim which was literally overflowing with singing England and Italy fans. Lots of noise - honking, chanting, singing, hooting, booing, you name any kind of human sound, it was all there. It was probably one of the most lively parts of the trip. It was also at the gas station that we decided to go a little crazy, we purchased some more beer and some game gear, I left the gas station with some long yellow and green hair :)
We finally flowed like a human into the stadium, the security outside was a breeze compared to TSA and we were inside pretty soon. The stadium seats 45,000 which is pretty decent for a soccer stadium and the facilities were excellent. It is a brand new stadium built especially for the World Cup with a lot of money(what happens in the stadium after the World Cup is a matter of worry for the protesting locals) The best part was when we found our seats, you see we had gotten the cheapest tickets possible so we weren´t hoping for anything great, but, we got great seats. Right behind one of the goals and about ten rows up, perfect position to watch some great goals ! Perhaps the only not so great part about the seats was that we were in the biggest Italian section.
The Italian fans lost no time in making themselves at home, loud booming chants of ITALIA ITALIA filled the air. A couple of England fans in our section were trying hard to silence the Italians with some team songs from their collection but it was proving to be too hard. The big England section was right across behind the other goal and they seemed to be making their own noise. Later, I was to learn that the locals decided to get behind Italy as well, apparently the England coach´s discontent about playing in hot and humid Manaus with an untested stadium had not gone well with the locals and they decided to show him whos the boss on the day that it mattered.
The attendance for the game was 39000. The game itself was excellent, I´ll save you the match report, BBC probably has a better version of it. The highlight of the game for me was watching Gerrard and Pirlo play live, some of their visionary passes were a delight to watch for any soccer enthusiast. Gerrard, like a couple of other England players, was cramping up towards the end of the game. Pirlo looked as cool as he always does and was controlling the game in his flamboyant yet somehow subtle style of play. England´s first goal was on our end, it looked like great team work with Sturridge finishing off a nice cross. The second goal for Italy was on our side as well, it was more predictable and we saw Balotelli getting into position for the cross and he then scored like clockwork. After that goal we saw Joe Hart get mad at a ball boy for not giving him reserve balls quickly, that was fun to watch :) And then after what felt like a couple of minutes, just like that, Italy had won.
We then headed back to the square where we had a couple of sandwiches, we learnt that the egg sandwiches here have sausage in them as well. The England fans in the square looked really sad compared to the night before. The Italians were suddenly visible in huge numbers and they were showing everyone how to party. We walked through a bar with about 200 people standing outside, hanging out and having a good time. The irony was when we saw a bunch of about 50-100 cops standing quietly in the side amidst all the din, just making sure that nothing went out of control.
At the end of the day, looking back, the match lived up to all the hype sorrounding it, I had watched a truly world class soccer game at the highest level possible and had a ton of fun with a lighter wallet.
Some of the thoughts that went through my mind that day were - the World Cup consumes a ton of alcohol and I´d guess theres a ton of sex as well, it could be quite a public health exercise and a test of the local systems of administration. I also realized I was truly enjoying the experience of staying in a hostel while travelling. Another one that might be good for the future is to not put all your credit cards in one wallet and if possible to not take the credit cards with you all the time, just travel with the days quota of money. Simple lessons that most already know but if not remember its never too late to learn anything :)
The walk to the stadium was full of England and Italian supporters by the roadside. The England fans decided to take over a number of the local bars with their St George flag(I think thats what its called, the white flag with a red cross). The flags had the local affilitations written on them for eg Stoke City etc. We arrived at a Shell gas station right across from the stadim which was literally overflowing with singing England and Italy fans. Lots of noise - honking, chanting, singing, hooting, booing, you name any kind of human sound, it was all there. It was probably one of the most lively parts of the trip. It was also at the gas station that we decided to go a little crazy, we purchased some more beer and some game gear, I left the gas station with some long yellow and green hair :)
We finally flowed like a human into the stadium, the security outside was a breeze compared to TSA and we were inside pretty soon. The stadium seats 45,000 which is pretty decent for a soccer stadium and the facilities were excellent. It is a brand new stadium built especially for the World Cup with a lot of money(what happens in the stadium after the World Cup is a matter of worry for the protesting locals) The best part was when we found our seats, you see we had gotten the cheapest tickets possible so we weren´t hoping for anything great, but, we got great seats. Right behind one of the goals and about ten rows up, perfect position to watch some great goals ! Perhaps the only not so great part about the seats was that we were in the biggest Italian section.
The Italian fans lost no time in making themselves at home, loud booming chants of ITALIA ITALIA filled the air. A couple of England fans in our section were trying hard to silence the Italians with some team songs from their collection but it was proving to be too hard. The big England section was right across behind the other goal and they seemed to be making their own noise. Later, I was to learn that the locals decided to get behind Italy as well, apparently the England coach´s discontent about playing in hot and humid Manaus with an untested stadium had not gone well with the locals and they decided to show him whos the boss on the day that it mattered.
The attendance for the game was 39000. The game itself was excellent, I´ll save you the match report, BBC probably has a better version of it. The highlight of the game for me was watching Gerrard and Pirlo play live, some of their visionary passes were a delight to watch for any soccer enthusiast. Gerrard, like a couple of other England players, was cramping up towards the end of the game. Pirlo looked as cool as he always does and was controlling the game in his flamboyant yet somehow subtle style of play. England´s first goal was on our end, it looked like great team work with Sturridge finishing off a nice cross. The second goal for Italy was on our side as well, it was more predictable and we saw Balotelli getting into position for the cross and he then scored like clockwork. After that goal we saw Joe Hart get mad at a ball boy for not giving him reserve balls quickly, that was fun to watch :) And then after what felt like a couple of minutes, just like that, Italy had won.
We then headed back to the square where we had a couple of sandwiches, we learnt that the egg sandwiches here have sausage in them as well. The England fans in the square looked really sad compared to the night before. The Italians were suddenly visible in huge numbers and they were showing everyone how to party. We walked through a bar with about 200 people standing outside, hanging out and having a good time. The irony was when we saw a bunch of about 50-100 cops standing quietly in the side amidst all the din, just making sure that nothing went out of control.
At the end of the day, looking back, the match lived up to all the hype sorrounding it, I had watched a truly world class soccer game at the highest level possible and had a ton of fun with a lighter wallet.
Some of the thoughts that went through my mind that day were - the World Cup consumes a ton of alcohol and I´d guess theres a ton of sex as well, it could be quite a public health exercise and a test of the local systems of administration. I also realized I was truly enjoying the experience of staying in a hostel while travelling. Another one that might be good for the future is to not put all your credit cards in one wallet and if possible to not take the credit cards with you all the time, just travel with the days quota of money. Simple lessons that most already know but if not remember its never too late to learn anything :)
Day 3 - Jun 13 - Part 1 - The buildup to the BIG GAME
Its been a while since the last post but don´t worry I´m still alive and well AND full of stories :) Its taken me quite a while to write this one since I´ve not had access to a computer for a couple of days and when I have had access its been shared access so its been hard to find some solid time to write a blog post. I´ve been taking notes in a notebook everyday just to not lose track of the fresh thoughts so dont worry, nothings lost.
So this post is about Saturday - Jun 13, the big day, probably the biggest day of our trip. England play Italy in Manaus, two quality teams with a rich footballing history, two great players of this generation, Gerrard and Pirlo and we were gonna be there to witness it in person. Did we make it to the game ?
The day started early, Boochi and Walker arrived the night before from Miami and were up in no time for breakfast, all four of us(Keerthi joined us at the hostel) then headed out to a local museum here in Manaus.
The museum was quite interesting, a mixture of art and history, its not the most impressive one I´ve ever been to but it was definitely nice to catch up on some local history. The museum was staffed by young cheerful student-volunteers who seemed eager to interact with the tourists, most of them spoke good English and communication was not really an issue. I learnt from them that there that there were two other visitors to the museum from St Louis. Can you believe that, two other visitors in a city in Brazil on the same day from St Louis, I thought it was a pretty neat coincidence, maybe I´ll run into them sometime during my stay here ;)
We got lunch at the vegetarian buffet place again and then decided to watch the Colombia game in the square. The square was pretty busy with a whole bunch of Colombian supporters. Watching a game in the square is always fun and just like what you see on TV news reports. The crowd reacts to every move of the team, so theres a lot of aaaah´s and oooh´s and there is a good correlation between the volume of the crowd and the tempo of play, in short never a dull moment especially if Brazil are playing !!
So back to the square, we decided to get a couple of Caipiranhas before the game. Caipiranha is a cocktail made of Cashaca, lemon and sugar, a Brazilian equivalent of a Mojito according to Alicia( aka the-GF). The daily deal at the hostel is 2 Caipiranhas for R$5(US $2.5) which I think is a pretty sweet deal(pun intended).
So loaded with two glasses of Caipiranhas, Walker and I set out for the square which is literally right outside the hostel. The atmosphere was pretty electric and I wanted to capture it on camera for posterity´s sake so I took out my camera, it was a little tricky, caipiranha in one hand and camera in another but I managed somehow, a pretty average photo. When I put my camera back in I immediately noticed that I was missing my .. wallet.
So Walker and I headed back to the hostel to check if I had left it there, I had paid for the drinks so there was a chance it was still there. But alas, nope, it wasn´t at the hostel. We then decided to search the square, again no luck. I thought it might be a good idea to notify the cops and see if they had any ideas and maybe that would help if I had actually dropped it, maybe someone was kind enough to return it to the cops. So there we were, two guys from India in Brazil, Caipiranhas in hand, talking to the cops, trying hard to explain what had happened in our broken Spanish in a Portuguese country. I had forgotten what the Spanish word for a wallet is so I had a tough time but eventually they found a cop who could speak a little English so we told him what had happened.
The cops found a car for us to take us to the police station and file an official complaint. So we got into the car, I still had the drink in my hand, needless to say it was quite an experience, a trip to the police station (its called the DIP) in a different country, sitting in a police car with an alcoholic drink in hand. So I finished the drink on the way over and placed my cup on the floor of the car. We eventually got to the police station in 15 minutes. It was now getting close to the start of the big game. It was around 12 50 pm that I lost my wallet and by the time we were in the car it was around 1 40 pm. We had planned to leave for the stadium around 2 30 - 3 pm so that we could avoid traffic and get there well on time. The key to the locker which had the game tickets was in my wallet, so breaking the lock open was another item on our to-do list.
So we reached the police station and the driver opened my door, immediately - SHATTER, my glass drink cup on the floor of the car fell onto the road and was shattered to pieces, needless to say it was quite the entrance sequence. Another young and friendly Brazilian volunteer at the police station helped translate my complaint and I was done with the whole process pretty quickly and of course they had the game on TV in the police station as well so we didn´t lose much of the game either, Colombia were not disappointing their fans. I´m not sure how helpful filing the complaint will be but then it was probably a good idea to at-least try.
We then quickly headed back to the hostel and I frantically emailed the credit card companies telling them I had no access to a telephone and that my wallet was lost, I was frantically hoping that they not use my credit/debit cards. The best part of the hour was when I found a spare key to the lock on my bed, this meant that I didn´t have to break it open and this could save us some precious time, so we got our tickets out, I put on my Brazil jersey and we headed out to the game.
So this post is about Saturday - Jun 13, the big day, probably the biggest day of our trip. England play Italy in Manaus, two quality teams with a rich footballing history, two great players of this generation, Gerrard and Pirlo and we were gonna be there to witness it in person. Did we make it to the game ?
The day started early, Boochi and Walker arrived the night before from Miami and were up in no time for breakfast, all four of us(Keerthi joined us at the hostel) then headed out to a local museum here in Manaus.
The museum was quite interesting, a mixture of art and history, its not the most impressive one I´ve ever been to but it was definitely nice to catch up on some local history. The museum was staffed by young cheerful student-volunteers who seemed eager to interact with the tourists, most of them spoke good English and communication was not really an issue. I learnt from them that there that there were two other visitors to the museum from St Louis. Can you believe that, two other visitors in a city in Brazil on the same day from St Louis, I thought it was a pretty neat coincidence, maybe I´ll run into them sometime during my stay here ;)
We got lunch at the vegetarian buffet place again and then decided to watch the Colombia game in the square. The square was pretty busy with a whole bunch of Colombian supporters. Watching a game in the square is always fun and just like what you see on TV news reports. The crowd reacts to every move of the team, so theres a lot of aaaah´s and oooh´s and there is a good correlation between the volume of the crowd and the tempo of play, in short never a dull moment especially if Brazil are playing !!
So back to the square, we decided to get a couple of Caipiranhas before the game. Caipiranha is a cocktail made of Cashaca, lemon and sugar, a Brazilian equivalent of a Mojito according to Alicia( aka the-GF). The daily deal at the hostel is 2 Caipiranhas for R$5(US $2.5) which I think is a pretty sweet deal(pun intended).
So loaded with two glasses of Caipiranhas, Walker and I set out for the square which is literally right outside the hostel. The atmosphere was pretty electric and I wanted to capture it on camera for posterity´s sake so I took out my camera, it was a little tricky, caipiranha in one hand and camera in another but I managed somehow, a pretty average photo. When I put my camera back in I immediately noticed that I was missing my .. wallet.
So Walker and I headed back to the hostel to check if I had left it there, I had paid for the drinks so there was a chance it was still there. But alas, nope, it wasn´t at the hostel. We then decided to search the square, again no luck. I thought it might be a good idea to notify the cops and see if they had any ideas and maybe that would help if I had actually dropped it, maybe someone was kind enough to return it to the cops. So there we were, two guys from India in Brazil, Caipiranhas in hand, talking to the cops, trying hard to explain what had happened in our broken Spanish in a Portuguese country. I had forgotten what the Spanish word for a wallet is so I had a tough time but eventually they found a cop who could speak a little English so we told him what had happened.
The cops found a car for us to take us to the police station and file an official complaint. So we got into the car, I still had the drink in my hand, needless to say it was quite an experience, a trip to the police station (its called the DIP) in a different country, sitting in a police car with an alcoholic drink in hand. So I finished the drink on the way over and placed my cup on the floor of the car. We eventually got to the police station in 15 minutes. It was now getting close to the start of the big game. It was around 12 50 pm that I lost my wallet and by the time we were in the car it was around 1 40 pm. We had planned to leave for the stadium around 2 30 - 3 pm so that we could avoid traffic and get there well on time. The key to the locker which had the game tickets was in my wallet, so breaking the lock open was another item on our to-do list.
So we reached the police station and the driver opened my door, immediately - SHATTER, my glass drink cup on the floor of the car fell onto the road and was shattered to pieces, needless to say it was quite the entrance sequence. Another young and friendly Brazilian volunteer at the police station helped translate my complaint and I was done with the whole process pretty quickly and of course they had the game on TV in the police station as well so we didn´t lose much of the game either, Colombia were not disappointing their fans. I´m not sure how helpful filing the complaint will be but then it was probably a good idea to at-least try.
We then quickly headed back to the hostel and I frantically emailed the credit card companies telling them I had no access to a telephone and that my wallet was lost, I was frantically hoping that they not use my credit/debit cards. The best part of the hour was when I found a spare key to the lock on my bed, this meant that I didn´t have to break it open and this could save us some precious time, so we got our tickets out, I put on my Brazil jersey and we headed out to the game.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Day 2 !
Yess!! I made it to Brazil and really smoothly too, well if you don´t count the turbulence in the airplane. My flight from Miami left ontime, the flying time from Miami to Manaus is five hours, I will take that as relatively easy, remember it takes me two ~12 hour flights to fly home from the US.
I had splendid company on the airplane, an extremely friendly Canadian guy, is that redundant information, Canadian AND friendly ? Well anyways, with plane conversations sometimes you get good company and this will surely rank amongst my best. When the plane landed in Manaus it was immediately clear that the plane was full of foreign tourists, the line for Brazilian citizens at immigration was literally empty. Immigration was a breeze, I was out of the airport 20 minutes after landing which is heaven compared to the nightmare that US immigration is, I still get nightmares about my 2 hour standing wait the last time in Chicago. Personally I feel India could learn a lot from Brazil too, the staff were extremely courteous, the facilities were great. Obviously I´m not sure if this is how it is all the time or if it is a special effort for the World Cup, but in any case I was impressed with what I saw.
I had someone waiting from me from Iguana Tourismo with a sign and all I had to do was jump into the cab and get out at the hostel. I´m really thankful to Ricardo for putting this together, dealing with taxis upon arrival I think is one of the most stressful things tourists usually have to deal with.
My initial impressions of Manaus were, this looks eerily similar to Madras - India where I´m from. The infrastructure is slowly being setup, roads are not super wide, traffic is pretty flexible(you don´t have to stop at red lights at night sometimes, you can proceed with caution in order to avoid a heist from a car pulling up on the side at a stop signal is what I learnt.) and the pace of life is generally slower than the US. The stadium looked pretty impressive from outside, my driver Carlos was pretty practical about the World Cup being held in Brazil, of course Brazil clearly has a lot of social problems he said but we also love football and the cause of these problems is not the World Cup, I know it is a touchy subject and there are arguments on both sides.However. he seemed extremely well informed about the budgets of recent construction projects by the government and how estimates had been outrageously exceeded in a number of occasions, I wonder if its just him or if Brazilians in general have a heightened sense of awareness about social/political problems, I think awareness is definitely a good sign and it makes it harder for the government to get away when they botch up, again my thought here was - great lessons for India.
The hostel I´m put up at, Local Hostel - Manaus, seems to be an amazing place so far. It seems to be extremely well organized and the company of other tourists here(mostly backpackers from Europe) has been good too. I had to pay R$ 327 for 3 days in a ten person dormitory which is air-conditioned, I think the rates might be lower after the world cup. The breakfast comes included with the room and there is a kitchen and living area that is open to all visitors. The toilets and showers are clean and the staff are extremely friendly. I was speaking to one of the staff this morning, she told me she had started working here after a year in France in the hotelling industry and this was the idea of one of her friends who was also working there this morning and is extremely friendly too.
This morning I got a sneak peak of the city, it seems to be a fairly smallish city and it might be hard to find things to do here for ten days without the World Cup I think. I got to visit the Theatras Amazonas which is a beautiful Opera House. I got to watch the performers of the Opera rehearse, I stayed there for about an hour and I thought they were really good, again I am not the most knowledgeable about the Opera but I´d sure check out their show, I´ve learnt there are free performances at 9 pm every night. The architecture of the place which was setup in 1890 is simply brilliant and definitely worth a visit if you are around.
I met up with Keerthi who is Boochi´s brother and who got here after a mammoth 48 hour flight from India. Madras->Bombay->Johannesburg->SauPalo->Brasilia->Manaus !!! We got lunch at a place which is .. ´100% vegetarian´, I don´t think I´ve seen that sign outside India, the food was pretty good, bodes well for my friend Walker who does not eat any meat. It is a buffet but you pay by weight with the rate being R$ 30 per kilo(2 pounds, if youre American).
We then watched a splendid game in the hostel lobby where the Dutch ripped the defending champions Spain apart in their first game of the tournament, the final score was 5-1 ! I was on constant email contact with a Dutch buddy and boy was he happy, a slight consolation some might say for the defeat in the Final 4 years ago ! It was great watching the game with a small group of people from around the world(mostly England) and to realize everyone around the world, irrespective of race/language/religion share the same spirit while watching a game of football huddled around the television, says a lot for the power of sport and I´m hoping to see more of it :)
I had splendid company on the airplane, an extremely friendly Canadian guy, is that redundant information, Canadian AND friendly ? Well anyways, with plane conversations sometimes you get good company and this will surely rank amongst my best. When the plane landed in Manaus it was immediately clear that the plane was full of foreign tourists, the line for Brazilian citizens at immigration was literally empty. Immigration was a breeze, I was out of the airport 20 minutes after landing which is heaven compared to the nightmare that US immigration is, I still get nightmares about my 2 hour standing wait the last time in Chicago. Personally I feel India could learn a lot from Brazil too, the staff were extremely courteous, the facilities were great. Obviously I´m not sure if this is how it is all the time or if it is a special effort for the World Cup, but in any case I was impressed with what I saw.
I had someone waiting from me from Iguana Tourismo with a sign and all I had to do was jump into the cab and get out at the hostel. I´m really thankful to Ricardo for putting this together, dealing with taxis upon arrival I think is one of the most stressful things tourists usually have to deal with.
My initial impressions of Manaus were, this looks eerily similar to Madras - India where I´m from. The infrastructure is slowly being setup, roads are not super wide, traffic is pretty flexible(you don´t have to stop at red lights at night sometimes, you can proceed with caution in order to avoid a heist from a car pulling up on the side at a stop signal is what I learnt.) and the pace of life is generally slower than the US. The stadium looked pretty impressive from outside, my driver Carlos was pretty practical about the World Cup being held in Brazil, of course Brazil clearly has a lot of social problems he said but we also love football and the cause of these problems is not the World Cup, I know it is a touchy subject and there are arguments on both sides.However. he seemed extremely well informed about the budgets of recent construction projects by the government and how estimates had been outrageously exceeded in a number of occasions, I wonder if its just him or if Brazilians in general have a heightened sense of awareness about social/political problems, I think awareness is definitely a good sign and it makes it harder for the government to get away when they botch up, again my thought here was - great lessons for India.
The hostel I´m put up at, Local Hostel - Manaus, seems to be an amazing place so far. It seems to be extremely well organized and the company of other tourists here(mostly backpackers from Europe) has been good too. I had to pay R$ 327 for 3 days in a ten person dormitory which is air-conditioned, I think the rates might be lower after the world cup. The breakfast comes included with the room and there is a kitchen and living area that is open to all visitors. The toilets and showers are clean and the staff are extremely friendly. I was speaking to one of the staff this morning, she told me she had started working here after a year in France in the hotelling industry and this was the idea of one of her friends who was also working there this morning and is extremely friendly too.
This morning I got a sneak peak of the city, it seems to be a fairly smallish city and it might be hard to find things to do here for ten days without the World Cup I think. I got to visit the Theatras Amazonas which is a beautiful Opera House. I got to watch the performers of the Opera rehearse, I stayed there for about an hour and I thought they were really good, again I am not the most knowledgeable about the Opera but I´d sure check out their show, I´ve learnt there are free performances at 9 pm every night. The architecture of the place which was setup in 1890 is simply brilliant and definitely worth a visit if you are around.
I met up with Keerthi who is Boochi´s brother and who got here after a mammoth 48 hour flight from India. Madras->Bombay->Johannesburg->SauPalo->Brasilia->Manaus !!! We got lunch at a place which is .. ´100% vegetarian´, I don´t think I´ve seen that sign outside India, the food was pretty good, bodes well for my friend Walker who does not eat any meat. It is a buffet but you pay by weight with the rate being R$ 30 per kilo(2 pounds, if youre American).
We then watched a splendid game in the hostel lobby where the Dutch ripped the defending champions Spain apart in their first game of the tournament, the final score was 5-1 ! I was on constant email contact with a Dutch buddy and boy was he happy, a slight consolation some might say for the defeat in the Final 4 years ago ! It was great watching the game with a small group of people from around the world(mostly England) and to realize everyone around the world, irrespective of race/language/religion share the same spirit while watching a game of football huddled around the television, says a lot for the power of sport and I´m hoping to see more of it :)
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Avi heads to Brazil - Fifa WC2014 - Day 1
So the day is finally here, after months of planning and preparation Jun 12, 2014 is here. After months of talking about it, today is the day I head out to watch soccer at the home of soccer. It was a couple of years ago that I personally realized that Brazil might be the perfect place to watch a soccer world cup, and if I was in the US that would work out great geographically too. Also, I think I'm at a phase in my life where I can set aside the money and time to do something crazy like this, so why not. Well there are tons of reasons why not but I'm glad it worked out and now here I am, on my way.
Many thanks to Diwakar (henceforth referred to as Walker) and Ravi (henceforth referred to as Boochi), I think the planning for the trip went pretty smoothly and all three of us put in our part which gives me a good feeling in itself. I met Walker and Boochi while getting my Masters at UF and I'm glad I did. They both speak Tamil and they went to college with some of my buddies from high school, not sure why that's important but its just a fact.
So today has been pretty eventful already and I still haven't left the US. My flight from St Louis left at 6 am this morning which meant I had to wake up around 3 50 am. I parked my car on a street right next to the train station, by my calculations I should have only one parking ticket when I get back which should work out to $10 for 10 days of parking, not too shabby eh ?
This morning while double-checking my documents I realized that I was missing something which might be important on the trip back, I tried to find it in my inbox but I couldn't find it, so I've emailed something about and hopefully I hear back, best case scenario no-one asks about it, worst case I might find it a little hard to enter the US. I'm sure it will work out fine.
So how do I have access to a comfortable chair, a cup of ice tea by my side and a desktop computer with a huge monitor you ask. Well, I decided to go crazy a little bit and buy access to a day pass to the American Airlines lounge i.e Admirals' Club. My reasoning was I could print out the documents in my inbox and get to relax for a little bit, a 6 hour layover can be tiring when you leave at 3 50 am, I can get some sleep, etc etc. Yes, I know, I could have done without it but this way I know how this works and whats in it. So the next time I think about visiting one of these lounges I 'll know whether its worth the trouble or not. So far, its been quiet and feels like a separate world inside the airport world. Will I do it again, probably not, unless, I have to print something really important or I don't have to pay for access to the lounge :)
Well folks, five hours to go before my plane heads out from Miami to Manaus. There are posters for the world cup all over the airport and I even saw some performers in skimpy clothes dance along the terminal to some pretty loud beats , no idea how that happened but it was awesome !
Also I feel that the Miami airport is very different from the St Louis airport. For one, its way more international and that is clearly evident. St Louis with its one international departure to.. wait for it.. Canada is as international as a veggie burger at Hardees. Both STL and MIA aiports have their pluses and minuses but I like how the TSA staff at the MIA airport are more friendly and seem to understand that the whole security check thing is a pain in the ass, I would even label them slightly more relaxed. The staff at the STL airport seemed more uptight to me. I might be wrong and there might be reasons for both but these are just my impressions from what I see, just like the rest of this blog :)
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day. Here's to a wonderful world-cup !!
Many thanks to Diwakar (henceforth referred to as Walker) and Ravi (henceforth referred to as Boochi), I think the planning for the trip went pretty smoothly and all three of us put in our part which gives me a good feeling in itself. I met Walker and Boochi while getting my Masters at UF and I'm glad I did. They both speak Tamil and they went to college with some of my buddies from high school, not sure why that's important but its just a fact.
So today has been pretty eventful already and I still haven't left the US. My flight from St Louis left at 6 am this morning which meant I had to wake up around 3 50 am. I parked my car on a street right next to the train station, by my calculations I should have only one parking ticket when I get back which should work out to $10 for 10 days of parking, not too shabby eh ?
This morning while double-checking my documents I realized that I was missing something which might be important on the trip back, I tried to find it in my inbox but I couldn't find it, so I've emailed something about and hopefully I hear back, best case scenario no-one asks about it, worst case I might find it a little hard to enter the US. I'm sure it will work out fine.
So how do I have access to a comfortable chair, a cup of ice tea by my side and a desktop computer with a huge monitor you ask. Well, I decided to go crazy a little bit and buy access to a day pass to the American Airlines lounge i.e Admirals' Club. My reasoning was I could print out the documents in my inbox and get to relax for a little bit, a 6 hour layover can be tiring when you leave at 3 50 am, I can get some sleep, etc etc. Yes, I know, I could have done without it but this way I know how this works and whats in it. So the next time I think about visiting one of these lounges I 'll know whether its worth the trouble or not. So far, its been quiet and feels like a separate world inside the airport world. Will I do it again, probably not, unless, I have to print something really important or I don't have to pay for access to the lounge :)
Well folks, five hours to go before my plane heads out from Miami to Manaus. There are posters for the world cup all over the airport and I even saw some performers in skimpy clothes dance along the terminal to some pretty loud beats , no idea how that happened but it was awesome !
Also I feel that the Miami airport is very different from the St Louis airport. For one, its way more international and that is clearly evident. St Louis with its one international departure to.. wait for it.. Canada is as international as a veggie burger at Hardees. Both STL and MIA aiports have their pluses and minuses but I like how the TSA staff at the MIA airport are more friendly and seem to understand that the whole security check thing is a pain in the ass, I would even label them slightly more relaxed. The staff at the STL airport seemed more uptight to me. I might be wrong and there might be reasons for both but these are just my impressions from what I see, just like the rest of this blog :)
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day. Here's to a wonderful world-cup !!
DR Thoughts 1
These are some of my thoughts (in no particular order) from my trip to the Dominican Republic to visit Alicia.
- Alicia, Jeff and I were walking back from Malika's house to where Jeff was put up. It was pretty dark outside, I'm fairly certain the power was out. Jeff remarked David Sedaris would have something funny to write about this walk, this cemetery that we just passed, the sparks on the power cable, and the fact that we walked across, this really dark road in the middle of the night ! I'm guessing he probably would have.
- Alicia, Jeff and I were walking back from Malika's house to where Jeff was put up. It was pretty dark outside, I'm fairly certain the power was out. Jeff remarked David Sedaris would have something funny to write about this walk, this cemetery that we just passed, the sparks on the power cable, and the fact that we walked across, this really dark road in the middle of the night ! I'm guessing he probably would have.
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