Our Last Days in Brazil

I have spent the morning importing photos and pick favorites to share. These photos are up to date as of yesterday. I last wrote on Friday. We spent that day in Manaus and it was HOT. It seems much cooler out here on the banks of the river. There is a breeze most of the time that cools things down. We are here during rainy season so nearly every day, at least once a day… and sometimes multiple times a day… the rain pounds the aluminum roof to loud that we have to shout to hear one another. But once the rain sweeps in (and we dash out to the clothes line to pull off the semi-day clothes) and cools the air down. On the days that it doesn’t rain, it becomes very muggy and we sweat more than normal.

When we were in town Friday Phil and Cindy purchased a modem from a cell phone company for internet at their house. I spend part of Friday night and most of Saturday-- first trying to get it to work at all, then trying to get it to work on Cindy’s laptop. It worked great on my computer but was being rebellious to hers. I am happy to report that it has finally agreed to cooperate at we are enjoying internet with views of the Amazon River.

Saturday evening we loaded up Chuck and Laurel’s bags and headed to Manaus. Their flight didn’t leaved until 1:30am so we stopped to visit Pat and John Sharp, good friends of Phil and Cindy, and made a quick stop at one more 24 hour grocery store before going to the airport. We left them to check in about 11pm. The generator turns off every night at 9:30pm so we have gotten use to going to bed about then. But we had about an hour drive to the water taxi then another 20-30 minute boat ride to our beds. We were very tired when we finally were about to crawl into bed after 1am.

Sunday we recovered from out late night out by reading books and napping. It was lovely.

Monday I taught my photo class and then Cindy and I hiked up to the orchard on the ridge. We found 17 cupaucu (pronounced koo pa su) fruit, 6 lemons, and some citrus fruit that we are not sure what it is, but it was very sweet and yummy. I have loved tasting, gathering and learning about all of the different kinds of fruit.

It rained most of the day on Tuesday. I painted the kitchen cupboards. Mom and Cindy made a quilted table runner.

Yesterday we went to town for a few supplies that were low, saw the famous Opera House (funny you should have asked about that yesterday, Janelle) and were home by 3:30 just as the rain clouds opened up the flood gates. I had scheduled with my photo class to do a demonstration, but with the rain we were limited. We talked about lenses and I let them play with my equipment. Then we took some crazy guy photos.

Today I have spent the morning going though photos and getting you caught up. We only have two days left and head into Manaus on Saturday evening to catch out flight out early Sunday morning.

Here us slide show #1 of our Trips to Manaus