Authentic Brazil

 Yesterday we spent 4 hours in Boca de Valeria, a small Amazonian village. Getting off the tender, we were greeted on both sides of the foot path by about 100 villagers wanting to hold our hands and show us their pets. The various pets were sloths, iguanas, monkey, turtles, parakeets, a Tucan etc. For every photo taken you were expected to pay one dollar!  Picture a boatload of tourists traipsing through the village. 

I made eye contact with a woman and her mother watching us from their house on stilts and she was very insistent that I come into her house to look around. I decided that she was sincere in her invitation so I climbed up the stairs and went in. Of course it was all open air - no door or windows. They were christians by the pictures on the wall. It was divided into 4 rooms. 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a sewing room with a Singer sewing machine and a chest freezer for all the fish they catch. I assumed the power came from a generator. It had a thatch roof and a porch on all sides. She proudly showed me their fruit trees out back. I asked to take a photo of the 2 women and paid them a dollar. I was the only one in our group who got this experience. 

Gen and I decided after that to climb into a hand made boat with a small motor on the back for a cruise up a small tributary for $5 a person. Vic was our driver for the half hour ride. After a while we noticed that the boat was taking on water and Vic was scooping the water out with a cut off plastic coke bottle!  

Up the river we visited a rustic hotel that is only accessible from the water and further down the river we stopped at a place with a very steep incline that led to Vic’s village. We got out of the boat and we’re told we could walk up the steep incline or for $1 we could hop on the back of a motorcycle to go up. We took the motorcycle!  What a ride it was in the rain of course. It started pouring so hard we were dropped off at a church where we could get out of the rain for about 20 minutes. At that point we were down to only one motorcycle. The driver took Gen down to our river boat and I prayed in the church that he would return to take me down too. Sure enough he did. We climbed back onto our leaking boat and returned to the village ending up being 11/2 hour trip. No one else in our group had such a grand tour!

The saddest part of the village were the emaciated dogs. All skin and bones. All the people were clean and well dressed and fed. 

I must go for now. Pictures to follow.