Amazonia

Yes, I am still alive!  How sad is it that it's 2:30am and I haven't slept since about midnight...  Things have been crazy.  In happy news, we accepted an offer on our house (after an insane half week of showings!) and are praying that everything goes smoothly.  Only drawback?  We're going to have about a six day gap between closing on our old house and new house.  Eek!  And of course, that's the busiest time of the year for school.  Thankful nonetheless, but I can't stop thinking about all those little things...  Will we stay in a hotel?  What are we going to do about movers?  What about the cat?  How much stuff will we need to keep with us?  Blah blah blah.  You get the picture.  Thus the sleeplessness, which led my mind onto other things...like, "Oh--I haven't updated the blog in forever (even though I uploaded a ton of pictures when we had all the snow days)!" 

So let's back it up to the first week in February!  After months of preparation, shots, and malaria pills, Jason had the opportunity to go on a peacock bass fishing trip in the Amazon, beginning in Manaus, a tiny little town in Brazil.  After a commercial flight and a brief stay in the Brazilian town, the group squished onto a private plane.

So private that you could reach up and touch the pilot...eek!

I'm sure I don't have these in the right order, but the pictures were too cool to not share.  Brief synopsis:  They basically pay guides (some of them being about 12 years old!) to assist you with fishing.  The guides are from remote villages right off of the Amazon and often don't speak any English.  Rather than bunking with the tourists, they would actually hang their hammocks up in the edge of the jungle, with all the wildlife.  Here's one of the guides holding the holy grail of fishing...the peacock bass.

They would dock the bunkhouses along the beach each night and make a fire (to keep away jaguars, etc.), cook, then everyone would retire to bed.

One cabin was the mess hall.  

Jason relaxing in a hammock 

Can't remember the name of this, but it's where the river meets another tributary and there is a visible line between the two.  Pretty crazy!

It sounded like he was a bit disappointed that they didn't see nearly the wildlife we were expecting, such as monkeys and rare birds (only saw a few at all), but on the other hand that may be a good thing.  The biggest threat actually ended up being caiman, which apparently get huge, and they did see their fair share of piranha. 

They were hooked up with other groups of guys, but here are the actual men from Jason's group.

Along the way, they got to sample local fauna and food.  Here's a cacao seed they tried, freshly macheted from the tree.

Hanging out during the heat of the day still required long sleeves and pants, thanks to the intense sun and possible mosquitoes.

Dining al fresco...Amazon style.  Watch out for worms in your peacock bass :(

The inside of the cabins were nicer than what I was envisioning (mind you, this is 4-5 star stuff...seriously!).  There was even a toilet, but with Jason's luck, theirs didn't exactly work.

dolphin who swam alongside the boats for awhile

While they fished during the day, the cabins would all be connected like a train and transported to the evening's destination.

Guide with another peacock bass

Back in the little town ready to take off to Manaus and return to civilization!  The village children's favorite pasttime is running behind the plane on the little dirt runway.  I wish I'd have known they were in a village and we could've packed something for the kids...but Jason did have a weight/size limit that was very small, so it may not have worked anyway.

I was so, so grateful that he made it back intact, GI system okay, malaria free.  It was a rough week on the home front without Daddy here to help at night with the boys, but I'm glad he had some "man time".  He's glad he took the opportunity and went on this once-in-a-lifetime trip, but I'm pretty sure he'd never do it again.  And I am just fine with that!  ;)