Tripping on Malaria Meds

The past few days at sea have now gone by pretty fast and as I am writing this we are traveling up the Amazon river. Its a strange feeling almost like it isn't real but looking into the tan water and seeing so many trees on either side its safe to say we are in the jungle. Everyone is on Malaria medication now and they give you pretty crazy dreams that make for great conversation at breakfast.

In Global Studies, the class that everyone on the boat takes we learned of all the crazy types of species including vampire bats, cyanide spitting caterpillars, spiders the size of your hand and a kissing fly that bites your lip and makes your brain swell up. So that makes things a bit more interesting but still I cannot wait to get out into the jungle and explore. The tomorrow we will arrive in Manaus and I will spend the day exploring the city. The coolest thing about Manaus is that it has a population of 1.7 million and the only way to access the city is by boat or plane, no major roads connect the city to the rest of Brazil. The next few days I will be doing an overnight Amazon riverboat tour which I am really excited for and the last day I am doing a jungle hike required for my conserving endangered wildlife class. All in all i'm super excited and i'll let everyone know how it goes in a couple of days!

-Steven

First Port: Dominica!

>> Back on the ship now after 2 days in Dominica. The island was incredible to say the least and I would love to return someday. Dominica is an interesting place and its history is truly special given its location in the Caribbean. Christopher Columbus landed here on his first voyage meeting the natives and eventually moving on with his journey. Dominica is named for the day Columbus arrived, Sunday which in Spanish is "Domingo". The island resisted the slave trade for quite some time since its pretty south and off the beaten path of the regular trade winds. Eventually the French prevailed and the island was used for sugar cane and bananas. Upon receiving independence, tourism has really been the most viable option. Bananas is a big export for them but trying to compete with monopolies like Chiquita Banana is near impossible. Also Dominica doesn't really have a big airport so in order to get here by plane, you must make a few stops and fly in on a smaller jet. The Chinese have given Dominica $120 million a year for recognizing their government in Beijing and denouncing the government in Taiwan. That might not seem like a lot but for an island with a population of 70,000 it is.
>>
>> The first day we woke up bright and early to see us dock but the ship arrived in port a bit earlier than expected. After a wonderful breakfast, I was off on my first trip called Emerald Pool and Wati Kabuli river tubing. The drive to the Emerald Pool might have been my favorite part of the trip. Lush rain forest everywhere and amazing mountains and cliffs seemed surreal. Our cab driver told us he has a PHD in driving. In Dominica that means "pot hole dodger". Some of the roads were nice but much of the drive was spent weaving through the road. The Emerald Pool was a beautiful waterfall into a crystal clear pool. The water was a bit cold but so refreshing. After that we travelled to the Wati Kabuli river and got in our tubes to travel about 3 miles. It was great fun, a bit touristy but we all had a good time. The water was clear and warmed by the sun it was more of a lazy river trip. After making it back to the ship, we walked into the capital, Roseau and had lunch. Rice and chicken with bananas was pretty good and filled me up. We headed back to the ship after wandering the town and ate dinner on the boat. That night nearly everyone on the boat went to a placed called Krazy Koconuts to have some fun. It was good, what I expected but it was basically a ton of white kids invading a club. Probably didn't set the best example for America but its pretty hard to not be a tourist when you really just are one.
>>
>> The second day I wanted to do some Scuba so I got off the boat at 8 and while attempting to negotiate a cab to go to a dive shop when I ran into a friend who I had talked to a few days earlier and ended up hitching a ride with him. It turned out to be the best decision so far. We met up with 5 other SAS kids hopped in the shuttle and rode to Aldive. Our guides were great very friendly and the equipment was nice. We rode out on the small dive boat to a place called Dangle Bend and got ready for the first dive. After a buoyancy check and safety stuff we descended down a gigantic reef wall. We reached a max depth of about 90 feet deepest I have ever been and slowly made our way to the surface. Their was lots of fish and coral life, the thing about diving on reefs is the closer you get to the coral the more you see. So as you put your face right up in the coral you can see so much more going on. Its really something out of this world. Overall the first dive was amazing. For the second dive we moved done the coast a bit to Champagne Bay, which was a place where a lot of people went snorkeling so it was relatively shallow. We started further out and got down to 50 feet and then making our way towards the shore seeing all sorts of fish including eels, a seahorse and tons of fish. Champagne Bay is known for the bubbles it emits from the volcanic activity under the island. After the dive we had a great lunch in town and then walked about Roseau until it was time to head back to the ship for our departure.

Dominica was really something, I wish we had one more day so I could do some hiking but I feel like i'll be back one day...

First Day of School!

Hello again! This is coming to you from Dominica! It's a pretty small island between Antigua and St. Lucia that is 99% volcanic rock and 1% limestone. It's incredibly mountainous and basically covered entirely in rain forest. I really wish I could upload pictures but we just don't have the internet data speeds to do so. It took us 2 days to travel here from Nassau about 450 nautical miles. Classes started on Saturday and we only had 2 days of it since we are now at our first port. Saturday I had gender and society taught by a professor from Cornell University, it is going to be a really interested class since we discuss all the different countries we visit and how they vary socially and culturally in regards to gender. Sunday I had global studies which is the class that everyone on the boat takes. Our teacher is so goofy and energetic, he must spend hours doing his powerpoint presentations because every slide has crazy transitions and sound effects. Needless to say it keeps things interesting. Next I had conserving endangered wildlife with this british guy who has a sweet accent. The first class all we did was look at pictures of birds and he is some sort of bird aficionado, I'm really hoping we don't just cover birds because that will be very very boring. The last class I had was politics of development. This is probably the class I am most interested in because although we had to buy 8 books, we will we discussing each country in regards to its development. Why and how it has developed the way it has and what it is and can do. Nearly all of the countries we will be visiting are extremely poor so to learn the reason and what can be done is something I want to know.

We arrived in Dominica early this morning at about 6:30. I will be back probably tomorrow to let you know how the first day was!

Even though the ship is docked I still feel like were moving...

-Steven

First Day of School!

Hello again! This is coming to you from Dominica! It's a pretty small island between Antigua and St. Lucia that is 99% volcanic rock and 1% limestone. It's incredibly mountainous and basically covered entirely in rain forest. I really wish I could upload pictures but we just don't have the internet data speeds to do so. It took us 2 days to travel here from Nassau about 450 nautical miles. Classes started on Saturday and we only had 2 days of it since we are now at our first port. Saturday I had gender and society taught by a professor from Cornell University, it is going to be a really interested class since we discuss all the different countries we visit and how they vary socially and culturally in regards to gender. Sunday I had global studies which is the class that everyone on the boat takes. Our teacher is so goofy and energetic, he must spend hours doing his powerpoint presentations because every slide has crazy transitions and sound effects. Needless to say it keeps things interesting. Next I had conserving endangered wildlife with this british guy who has a sweet accent. The first class all we did was look at pictures of birds and he is some sort of bird aficionado, I'm really hoping we don't just cover birds because that will be very very boring. The last class I had was politics of development. This is probably the class I am most interested in because although we had to buy 8 books, we will we discussing each country in regards to its development. Why and how it has developed the way it has and what it is and can do. Nearly all of the countries we will be visiting are extremely poor so to learn the reason and what can be done is something I want to know.

We arrived in Dominica early this morning at about 6:30. I will be back probably tomorrow to let you know how the first day was!

Even though the ship is docked I still feel like were moving...

-Steven

Super Awesome School!

Hey everyone! Well we are officially circumnavigating the globe! So far it has been great and even better than I expected. I arrived in Nassau and made it to the hotel at about 1pm on Thursday, my taxi driver was Scottish which was strange but nonetheless interesting. Met about 20 people at the airport so the rest of the day was spent relaxing on the beach and at the hotel which had a totally awesome water slide. That night about 6 other people and I caught a bus to downtown and proceeded to walk about 2 miles to this restaurant that ended up having some incredible seafood. After dinner we went to Senior Frogs for a bit, the drinks were really overpriced so we ended up staying for only about a half hour and then headed back to the hotel to get some sleep, I was wiped out from having slept about only an hour the past 2 days.

The next day my random roommate and I woke up and packed leaving for the dock at 11am. Seeing the ship during the daylight was an incredible feeling knowing that we were so close to boarding it. We waited in line for about an hour going to customs and passport registration before finally boarding the ship. The ship is an impressive piece of machinery all in itself. It is the fastest passenger vessel in the world. It's fairly small especially when compared to all the other cruise ships in the harbor but its also really nice. My room is small but it has lots of storage and has a really nice big window. My roommate is from Rochester, New York and he is really great. In every room there is a picture on the wall and on the back their are dozens of notes from past participants giving tips and advice about the different countries and the ship, some are more appropriate than others but a lot are good to know. So far this has exceeded my expectations, everyone is so excited and nice and we all cannot believe that after so much planning we are finally on the boat. We left Nassau last night because about 27 people had been waiting around for their Brazil visas. Although we have left almost a day behind schedule it can be made up because the ship is so fast. Classes start today! I'm exited to start getting into shipboard life and getting my "sea legs".

So far it has been a great time, hope you all are doing well.

-Steven

Off to Nassau

Leaving for Nassau tonight! Couldn't be more excited for this trip my bags are
packed and i'm ready to go.