Today will be our last full day at the Ariaú. And while I do not think I will return here, I have had a wonderful time and will leave with fond memories of this nearly deserted resort. We woke up to heavy rain.
Globo has a corrugated steel roof, so when it rains you really hear it. But as the porches are well-covered we just opened all the windows and enjoyed the downpour. After all, when you are in the world’s foremost rain forest, how can you complain about the rain?
We had a special excursion planned for this morning. The regular trip was to another, slightly larger, native village. But Anna, the radiologist from Rio and her daughter Maria, really wanted to do one of the optional trips. They had to have four people for it, so we agreed to go. In the end, Josh and the whole Ukrainian family went, too. We had two excursion for the morning: first, we would swim with the dolphins, and second, we would see an actual indigenous group show us some of their “rituals."
I had some reservations about the dolphins. John wondered if they were penned in and that is how we would get to swim with them. I I hoped not. And, as it turned out, I need not have worried. They were not imprisoned, but merely bribed.
We took the “canoe” out into the middle of the Rio Negro. There was a small platform moored out there. We disembarked. They put life jackets around our waists. The look was not flattering to anybody, particularly me, so I wisely deleted those photographs. We went into the water. One of the guys from the hotel had a cooler filled with fish. He tossed a couple in the river. At first nothing happened. Then we started to see little breaks in the water. At this point, we all went in.
Pretty soon a whole pod of dolphins, aware that this was a free buffet, were swimming around us. The guide was expert at getting them to jump out of the water to get the fish.
One of the unique things about this species of dolphin, besides the fact that they like fresh water, is that they are vaguely pinkish, particularly on their bottom.
After a while, they kept checking us out even when we did not have any fish handy.
After a while, the fish were all eaten and the dolphins did not see much point in sticking around. As they left, we did too.
We traded our canoe for a speed boat here and we headed up the Negro and to the other side. The trip took about forty minutes. Along the way we saw some of the classic blue and white Amazon boats. Larger versions of this craft carry residents from one Amazonian city to another. Small ones, like the one below, carry tourists.
We finally pulled up to the shore. We walked up a flight of steps that had been carved into a small sandstone bluff. At the top we found something that looked like a Tlingit long house, but made mostly out of grasses.
We went inside where we were greeted by a man who seems to have some kin of leadership role in the group. He explained that they would be sharing the music and dances that they performed when visitors from other tribal communities came.
A group of young men were lined up to perform first.
Some of the women just waited for their turn in other dances.
Although the music and dancing were great, John was even more fascinated by the youngest children from the tribe.
For the last dance, some of the dancers came up and chose some of the visitors to dance with them. Nobody wanted me apparently, but John was picked right away.
They danced around the gathering space and then outside.
The tribe makes various handicrafts and we did some shopping at the store they had set up. Here is Anna, the doctor from Rio, in the center, and Francisco, our guide, on the right.
We were allowed to wander about the village. It was obvious from the clothes on the clothesline that they wear western dress most of the time and save this traditional garb only for visitors or ceremonial occasions. We even saw a satellite TV dish. But we were not under any illusions that we had wandered so deep into the Amazon that we were meeting people untouched by Western ways.
We saw some pets in the village including dogs and some birds.
Finally, we had our pictures taken with the group before we left.
We returned for the same old stuff for lunch. After that, we thought we would relax in our room. But John brought a roll back with him, and before we knew it, we had visitors. Lots of them.
They are pretty insistent on getting anything they can, and somehow they seem to have learned that getting close is sometimes rewarded.
We decided to pass on the afternoon trip and just spent a quiet remainder of the day enjoying our Amazon tree house. We leave early tomorrow for Manaus and from there to home.
