Celebrating my 21st birthday

First off sorry for taking so long to update about Brazil, our internet on the boat is pretty reliable but our email really only works when it feels like it. At least mine does it took me 4 days to get the Brazil email to send. So now that it sent, my birthday was on the 8th. Nothing like celebrating your 21st birthday in the middle of the Atlantic ocean but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. It takes 9 days to get from Manaus in the Amazon to Tema, Ghana in Africa. The 8th was our day off and was also the day we passed over the equator in the ocean. It was marked as procedural protocol day on our calendars but we all knew it was Neptune's Day. We were woken up at 8 by a bunch of the crew dressed as Roman warriors and our dean painted green and apparently Neptune. Everyone met out on the deck to complete the ritual that you must do in order for King Neptune to deem you worthy to cross the equator. Since it was my birthday, just about the entire boat sang happy birthday to me and I went first. First they pour liquid fish guts on you which smells but wasn't that bad, then you jump strait into the pool get out, kiss a fish, kiss the rings on Mr. and Mrs. Neptune and then get knighted. Then comes the optional head shaving which I of course did. Never shaved my head before and won't ever do it again but it'll grow back in 3 weeks so whatever. I think about 7 girls shaved their heads and that I think is a big deal. After that we can an awesome taco lunch and chocolate cake. The rest of my day consisted of napping, reading scheduling a massage for the following day and getting ready for dinner at 6:45. About 20 of my new friends joined me for special occasion dining. It's $30 a person and thats a deal considering what we got. A 5 course meal that had appetizers, shrimp cocktail, greek salad, broccoli soup, then salmon, prime big or tenderloin for the entree and finally cheesecake or creme brulee. The creme brulee was incredible by far the best i've ever had and everything else was great too. Everyone had ordered me a mint chocolate vanilla ice cream cake too and that was so awesome. Also the dinner came with champagne. Sorry to make everyone jealous but hey it was my 21st. It was a great birthday but I do wish I could've shared it with all of my friends in Boulder too.

Today is the 10th and we'll be in Ghana on the 13th, i'm doing a 4 day 3 night home stay in a village. It was done through facebook sponsored by kids from previous voyages who said it was by far the most significant trip they had during the entire trip. That gets me pretty excited.

Next update we'll be on our way to South Africa!

Hope you are all doing great.

-Steven

Fwd: Celebrating my 21st birthday

Begin forwarded message:

From: Steven Lowy <steven.lowy.s12@semesteratsea.org>

Subject: Celebrating my 21st birthday

Date: February 10, 2012 3:24:54 PM GMT-01:00

First off sorry for taking so long to update about Brazil, our internet on the boat is pretty reliable but our email really only works when it feels like it. At least mine does it took me 4 days to get the Brazil email to send. So now that it sent, my birthday was on the 8th. Nothing like celebrating your 21st birthday in the middle of the Atlantic ocean but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. It takes 9 days to get from Manaus in the Amazon to Tema, Ghana in Africa. The 8th was our day off and was also the day we passed over the equator in the ocean. It was marked as procedural protocol day on our calendars but we all knew it was Neptune's Day. We were woken up at 8 by a bunch of the crew dressed as Roman warriors and our dean painted green and apparently Neptune. Everyone met out on the deck to complete the ritual that you must do in order for King Neptune to deem you worthy to cross the equator. Since it was my birthday, just about the entire boat sang happy birthday to me and I went first. First they pour liquid fish guts on you which smells but wasn't that bad, then you jump strait into the pool get out, kiss a fish, kiss the rings on Mr. and Mrs. Neptune and then get knighted. Then comes the optional head shaving which I of course did. Never shaved my head before and won't ever do it again but it'll grow back in 3 weeks so whatever. I think about 7 girls shaved their heads and that I think is a big deal. After that we can an awesome taco lunch and chocolate cake. The rest of my day consisted of napping, reading scheduling a massage for the following day and getting ready for dinner at 6:45. About 20 of my new friends joined me for special occasion dining. It's $30 a person and thats a deal considering what we got. A 5 course meal that had appetizers, shrimp cocktail, greek salad, broccoli soup, then salmon, prime big or tenderloin for the entree and finally cheesecake or creme brulee. The creme brulee was incredible by far the best i've ever had and everything else was great too. Everyone had ordered me a mint chocolate vanilla ice cream cake too and that was so awesome. Also the dinner came with champagne. Sorry to make everyone jealous but hey it was my 21st. It was a great birthday but I do wish I could've shared it with all of my friends in Boulder too. 

Today is the 10th and we'll be in Ghana on the 13th, i'm doing a 4 day 3 night home stay in a village. It was done through facebook sponsored by kids from previous voyages who said it was by far the most significant trip they had during the entire trip. That gets me pretty excited.

Next update we'll be on our way to South Africa!

Hope you are all doing great.

-Steven

Brazil and the Amazon

>> The past 4 days in Manaus, Brazil were awesome. We spent 4 days and 3 nights and going into it, I really didn't know what to expect from the city. Manaus turned out to be an incredibly vibrant and busy city. The first day was spent exploring the entire city. It was so busy, cars and people everywhere a lot more than I thought there would be. With a population of 2 million there are 500,000 cars so the traffic was terrible. We walked around the markets and random streets trying to find banks that would accept our debit cards. The first 2 banks we went to ended up with us breaking the atm machines, they wouldn't accept our cards and started to restart themselves and it was so funny because the banks were packed with people who got so pissed waiting for us. Finally we found an HSBC and got cash. The exchange rate was about 2 to 1 and things seemed a bit cheaper depending on what you were looking for. Electronics were way more than in the states but food was pretty reasonable. We headed for the opera house which is the historical building you have to visit in Manaus. The Teatro Amazonas or Amazon Theater was built during the rubber boom and was entirely imported from Europe. The inside of the theater was absolutely breathtaking. Wood and marble covered everything and chandeliers were everywhere. The tour was about a half hour long and well worth it, I will definitely have some good pictures but they won't do it justice. After the theater we asked our guide about a place for lunch and it ended up being only 5 minutes away and really really good. It was a buffet style Brazilian steakhouse so you would get your sides from the buffet and then all the meat came strait off the grill. The meat was soo good, sausage, filet, ribs the best part was you paid by the kilogram so you could get as much or as little as you wanted. After lunch we walked around the city for the rest of the day going to a rubber baron's house that was turned into the governors house. My question is how do become a baron in anything?
>
> That night we went to a really nice dinner at another Brazilian steakhouse and it was awesome. Again it was buffet style but with way more options and even better meats. I tried chicken heart and I wouldn't eat it again. We were there for the whole night and I had to leave early the next for my river boat trip so we went back to the boat to get some sleep. The next day I was up bright and early meeting with my riverboat group to head out into the rainforest on our overnight trip. The first thing we did was go to the meeting of the rivers the Rio Negro and the Amazon which was really cool. One is black and one is brown and they literally meet together and it looks really awesome. The temperature difference was crazy too one was hot an one was cold. After that we travelled the shore and did a canopy walk. Right at the beginning of our walk were 2 little monkeys playing in the tree and basically posing for everyone who was taking pictures. They were so cute and basically made my day. Next we walked along the trail down to another section of water to see the giant lilly pads. They were probably about 3 feet in diameter so pretty huge, also there was a cayman which is a smaller crocodile who climbed out of the water to see what we were doing. After the canopy walk through the jungle, we got back on the boat to begin our 5 hour ride to the village we were visiting. It was a great time for naps and a nice lunch since our hammocks were set up. We finally arrived at the village and had about 2 hours to walk around and meet some of the people. It had a population of about 200, a lot of kids and a school. I played soccer with some kids about 10 years old. Then I met Iago who became my friend and followed me around the rest of our time there. We toured a house and talked to the resident with our translator. She told us about life there and our guide talked to us about how the people basically live stress free. They don't have many material possessions and they realize they don't need them just their health, family and friends. It was very inspiring to see they way they live. Then it was time to leave and say goodbye to my new friend. Our boat headed out and as it got dark we hopped into smaller boats and went looking for Caymans. After a while we found one and all got to take pictures holding it. It was cool but at the same time picking an animal out of its habitat so that we can all take pictures with it totally freaks it out and is really just selfish tourism. After that we headed to a white sand beach that i'm pretty sure was man made and had a luau. It was really fun and the food was great, we played a bunch of games like limbo and musical chairs before learning some samba and heading back on the boat to get ready for bed. Apparently mosquitoes really hate the black water so they were never a big issue. I think I only got one bite but I made sure to put bug spray on constantly. That night a few of us couldn't sleep due to the incredibly loud snoring from the crew and some kids so we stayed up until about 4am stargazing and talking long exposure shots of the moon and surrounding clouds.

The next morning we woke up around 8 and had a nice breakfast of sausage and eggs. I'm not a coffee drinker at all but the coffee we had tasted like chocolate milk it was awesome. After that we headed out to swim with the river dolphins. It was a lot of fun, they are wild animals but pretty much know whats going on playing with the guys who were feeding them and swimming all around us. Got some good pictures of them they're a bit smaller than other dolphins and have really small eyes but are incredibly intelligent animals. They have bigger brains than we do. Then we fed these giant endangered carps in a holding tank they had. We would swing fish from a pole and they would jump and rip it off. They are really really strong, all the girls had to have the people working there hold on to the poles as well so they wouldn't get pulled in. Then we went Pirhana fishing, unfortunately out of 30 people no one could catch one. I was pissed, got a lot of bites but no fish. Our last event before heading to Manaus was a jungle walk. While walking through the rainforest you have to be really attentive as to where your stepping so you can actually look up and see the incredible vegetation, otherwise you'll just stare at your feet and try not to trip on anything. We didn't see much wildlife but about a 2 inch spider landed on one of our guides I guess it was really poisonous so good it landed on him and not someone who would have freaked out. We tried brazil nuts fresh from the tree, they have the texture of coconut but taste like an almond. After that we made it back to the riverboat and made our way back to Manaus. It was a really fun trip but I was ready to get back to the ship, that night we went out to a club that was like a 5 minute walk from the ship.

Day 4, for each class we take we must do 2 field trips with the professor and mine was for my conserving endangered wildlife class. My teacher is really obsessed with birds so I wasn't sure how this trip was going to be. It was at a nature reserve in the rain forest so it was pretty cool to walk through all the trees. The reserve was located on the outskirts of Manaus so it was about an hour drive. It was a different type of rain forest than the kind I saw on the riverboat trip. We saw lots of birds and some spiders but other than that not any animals. The rainforest has an incredible assortment of species but it is not densely populated which I never realized. We spent about 2 hours before we had to head back to the ship at 3pm. Back on the ship I heard all of my friends stories many who I hadn't seen the whole time we were there. Some did multiple overnight trips on riverboats and in eco lodges in the Amazon and quite a few went to Rio de Janeiro. I was a bit sad I wasn't able to go to Rio but now my goal is to make it back there someday.

Brazil and the Amazon was an amazing experience, it went by so quickly like all the ports will but it was really a great experience to visit a place where many don't go and I place where I will probably never return. It is crazy to think that we travelled up the Amazon river and into the rainforest and now we are on our way to Africa