Brazil (part 3)

After hanging out in Manaus for a couple days we made our way to Presidente Figueiredo. This place is beautiful and right in the Amazon. There are many waterfalls and caves to discover and it is fun!

Our bus ride up there was cool, my first time seeing the jungle.

Many people ride the bus from Manaus and then they get dropped off near their homes. Here a lady is greeted from a boy and two dogs....just incase you couldn't tell:)

The view from our hotel window.

Our window shutters.

The view looking up to our room. Very nice hotel and we loved it.

The dirt road leading to the trails for waterfalls and caves.

Our guide Herman (sidenote: his father liked the German after an author). Very nice guy and we would recommend him to anyone.

Our guide telling us to always stay on the trail and we shouldn't run into any animal life. Another rule is all people must be out of the jungle by 6:00pm and cannot enter until 8:00am. This is to protect the visitors from the animals that live here. Anywho after this lovely speech Herman wanted us to get a better view of the first  waterfall and told us to follow. That is when Ty turned to me and said "right after telling us to stay on the trail we are leaving it", we both laughed.....little did we know.

Here Ty is trying to get to Herman for the photo, awkward right? Didn't want to slip and fall in the rushing water so had to be very careful.

I was a pansy and didn't want to follow so I took a picture of the water, looked like rootbeer. We were told that it is from leaves and other plants degrading.

Well at that point Herman was convinced that I needed to see the waterfall and kept telling me to come. Ty told me to toss the camera to him and then he extended his arm for me to hold to get where they were.  I went to grab his arm but then he was pointing by my foot. I looked and saw a green rope, 'I don't remember seeing that rope before'....I am such an idiot. When Herman yelled 'COBRA COBRA' I seriously thought I was toast. Thanks to my cousin Kimberly I screamed 'Oh my POOH MAGOO' and took off running. Come to find out that's not the best thing I should have done. I turned around and saw that the snake had lifted its head off the ground 2 feet and was staring at Ty. Herman told Ty to slowly back away but he could only take a step back because of the rushing water behind him. Thankfully the snake decided to go to the trees and to leave Ty alone. That is when I screamed for Ty to take some pictures all the while I kept looking in the trees and then at the ground again looking for any more.

Look real close and you can see the white of the belly. The snake was about 5 feet long. That night we said a prayer of thanks that the snake didn't bite Ty.

A neat-o staircase on the trail

Our fist caves. Herman was a little worried that we had seen a snake so close and gave more instructions. He told me to stay calm, ya right. Then he told us that panthers like to stay in the caves. If we did run into one to stay as a group and not turn your back on it. Also if it looked like it was going to attack to make yourself real big and scream at it. This info scared me and did little to cause an reassurance, thank you Herman.

The brown clumps are bats hanging out together. The bats would move their wings and it looked like the ball of bats was pulsating.

At this waterfall a jacare (alligator) lives. We looked for a bit but couldn't find the guy.

Trying to find panther prints, but there were none.

Bunch of spider webs. Herman said that it looked like a scene from India Jones and the Temple of Doom. Once again Herman you are not making my anxiety go down any.

The tree roots looked awesome! But we made sure that we were stepping on roots and not snakes:)

This tree protects itself from animals climbing it by producing spikes. Once again Herman pulls a funny and tell us that we need to keep an eye out for wild hogs. These hogs can travel up to 100 in a group and they will attack you. The scene from Old Yeller comes freshly to my mind. Herman told us that we will need to climb trees to stay safe IF we see any. I told Herman that I have no upper body strength and if I will be toast. Ty translated. Herman the guide responds solemnly, 'si'.

Herman showing us a mushroom and then he took a bite out of it. He told us it wasn't poisonous....but he picked up the left over pieces and carried them home. I personally believe he was making sure that it wasn't full of poison.

So we saw a couple of these. The big white thing hanging off the tree is an ant nest/hive. Then if you look right below it, you can see a very dark pile, that nest belongs to termites. We saw lots of these.

So the tree here is pretty neat. The indians would us a rock or even a hand and hit against the roots to communicate with each other. If I remember right the sound travels 3 or more miles. Herman lightly tapped on it and I was surprised at how loud it was. The guides are asked not to hit the roots anymore because it is destroying some of the trees.

This is a side look at the roots, they are pretty skinny. Herman told us how a young child was lost in the jungle for 5 days and when the child was found they were hiding the the little cove of the tree rotos. Animals will also use the protection.

It is crazy how the trees roots and branches go everywhere. At first glance it looks like a big old nasty snake. Herman said that people mistake a branch for a snake and the other way too. 

The primary forest is the one that has been there literally forever. The secondary forest is where the forest is branching out and claiming its stakes. Here is a big and very old tree in the primary forest.

Herman made sure we got a picture with it:)

Beautiful waterfall with caves

At this particular cave and waterfall is where an Indian lived because he was banished from his tribe. There are gashes on the rock where he would sharpen his knife. Human and Animal sacrifices were made here because they believed this place was sacred.

Herman told us that we were going to go inside the cave a little bit but there was a restriction on how far we could go in. He took off his shoes and socks and said we could do the same thing. There are bats that live in there and he didn't want to get their poop in his stuff. Well we didn't want to walk in barefoot so we decided to leave the shoes on and roll up the pants. Styling I tell ya.

A big old nappy spider in the middle. About the size of a little plate. Yep poor Ty had his arm held tightly throughout the tour of the caves. Herman kept pointing out the spiders and then bats kept flying past us. I think Ty's arm went through the ringer in that cave.

Looking out of the cave, pretty right.

Look at the roots. The trees are literally on rocks and then the roots are going down or up to wherever they can find soil.  So here is a tree right on the edge of a cliff and the roots are running down. Cool!

These are the seeds that monkeys like to eat.

Another waterfall.

So at this spot is where a popped a squat like a true amazon woman while Herman rolled something up to smoke. You wanted to know that uh?:)

Well as you can see Ty and I are apparently angelic or something.

Here we are on the edge of a cliff, can't tell though with all the green stuff.

Here is one of the waterfalls we saw earlier but this time we were on top. Here is a side picture.

This one Ty is hanging his arm over the edge and looking down.

Entrance of that particular  hike.

I a twig that came with me on top of my hat.

This tree literally walks around the jungle. Look at those roots!

This tree is being taken over by another tree. The other tree grows on the side of the at first and steals all the nutrients and food. Then it makes its way into the tree and takes over the home.

Old tree on the left and the right is the leach.

This waterfall was BEAUTIFUL!

We loved the mist coming up from it.

Once again the water totally looks like rootbeer.

This is right below the waterfalls and people come here all the time to go swimming. They like to run off this plateform and dive into the water.

Herman brought Pringles and crushed them up and threw them in the water. We waited for a couple seconds and then he threw some more in. These little fish, about 6 inches long, were eating them right up. The crazy thing about the fish is that a part of their heads were glowing. At one point something really really really big started to surface and then went back down. Herman thinks it was a real big fish, like I am talking 2.5-3 feet long and 2 feet wide, eating the small fish. Reason #21 not to go swimming there.

Ty pointing out a rope that the people use as they are tubing and swimming down the river.

Another tree growing on a rock and how the roots find soil.

Another waterfall. This was our first time actually seeing people at the waterfalls and swimming. The days before we ran into one girl swimming in the river. Manaus residents like it up here, its their get away from the city. 

Speedo man, loverly

A trail of red ants that went forever. The line that they made was pretty cool.

Here is the largest coconut tree plantation in all Brazil. You can see the rows in the background. So Cool.

So this part of the state received a lot of water and that up rooted a lot of trees like this one.

Here you can barely make out some kids, one wearing blue shorts. They were slacking across the river.

A crazy tree growing on the side then shot straight up.  We absolutely loved loved loved this part of the trip, definitely a highlight of our whole trip.