Ghana!

So the next stop is Ghana! I am excited about going there and learning about the culture and doing a number of service activities in the country. I have several service trips that I am going to be a part of and am excited to do another overnight in this country. I am looking forward to being able to learn more on my journey around the world. Below is the official flag of Ghana.

Here is a map of Ghana and the port that we are stopping at is Tema which is at the lower end (right side).

I hope that I will be able to see some of the presentations that the special students from Mrs. Hagan's third grade class. It will be fun to see them. My father's birthday will be just after Ghana but he will be on a cruise so since I can't post any videos for his birthday unfortunately or if I do then I am good but happy early 50^th dad!

Manaus Day 2 and 3

Day 2: We went to the rubber Museum about an hour's boat ride from the ship and it was rather nice to have the air go past us keeping us cool. The rubber plantation was really something different as they told us what the people there experienced under the owners. Most suffered from malnutrition and disease because they were required to make a large amount in order to just feed themselves properly for the week which was not always the case. They had to carve into the trees to get the rubber sap from there and then work in the huts to create the rubber for hours on end.

From there we headed to the eco resort where we were given our rooms and lunch. It was very nice and pleasant. We even had a nice greeter. (Not a person by the way. It was this special bird)

Yes the parrot! Colorful and red isn't he?

This was a bit of what the area was like. The cabins have three beds, two on the bottom and on in an attic area which is where I was sleeping at.

This is a cayman! Yes he lives in the waters that you see the cabins above bordering. We weren't allowed in the water that they lived in but these cayman all live here. I saw seven at one time while I was here and that was when they were feeding them.

I went fishing with the group later on for guess which native fish? The piranha! The bait we used was raw pork to try to catch them. I was successful in catching one but in my attempts to get him aboard the boat were kind of funny because I yanked a little hard and he flew on the roof of the boat and got loose of the hook but one of the guys got him before he could get back in and showed me. So I didn't a picture with him but here is the one I caught.

It was still an awesome experience to be able to fish for piranha. On the way back to the resort, we actually managed to find a cayman during the night and it was so awesome for them not only catch one unharmed but be able to show us without harming the cayman.

Day 3: After a nice night, I relaxed in the morning before we checked out of the resort but not before scaring one of my roommates with this in her bed. (So bad I know but it was so funny!)

We soon left and went to a restaurant on the water to eat before taking us to see the lily pads which were a sight to see in the amazon.

From there we were taken to the meeting of the two rivers. The amazon and rio negro rivers meet up in a spot that looks like this.

The Rio Negro is on the left (Amazon is the darker color water on the right) and looks completely light brown like it has been polluted but that is not the case. The river itself is very acidic naturally and not very many known species are found in there which is around 700 species found in the Rio Negro River. The Rio Negro is also less dense than the Amazon River and is 2 degrees Celsius less than the Amazon. Also the Rio Negro current is slower than the Amazon River so there appears to be a solid border keeping the two rivers very noticeably split. The experience of doing this was amazing and I liked it a lot.

I apologize but there is nothing for day 4 in manaus because unfortunately i got very sick the night i got back from this trip from some food so i was bedridden on our last day in Manaus, Brazil so i did not get to do anything or watch our ship leave manaus. :( It was sad for me but i am better and we are heading for Ghana! 10 days till ghana! Email me! miranda.denny.s12@semesteratsea.org

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Manaus Day 1

Day 1:

Today I went on the city orientation tour of Manaus and it was a pleasant tour but the overall weather was very humid so I was uncomfortable part of the time. We went to the Teatro de Amazonas which is the opera house in Manaus. It has an old Portuguese architecture design. Much of the nicer buildings in the area were generally from when the Portuguese colonized Manaus a few hundred years ago. Most of the buildings around the area are just boxes shaped and very boring type buildings however there was a church styled in almost a Victorian style architecture.

It was quite amazing but I have to say that in Manaus, every street is jam packed with vendors and just people selling stuff from fruit to souvenirs and everything in between. We did actually visit a fish market that sold so many different types of fish that I couldn't even count the amount of different types from the Amazon!

The big highlight of everything was the very interesting statue just outside the Teatro which is significant because it reflects the places that actually sailed to and helped shape Manaus to what it currently is today. It was such a fascinating experience to look at this statue and see who traded. (It is Europe, Asia,and America )

Eating the amazon was an amazing experience of being able to cook using the exotic fish of the amazon. I went to a culinary institute called Senac in Manaus. There, I was able to not only observe the making of the dish but also was able to assist in cooking the dish. The fish we cooked was Pirarucu (pronounced Pi-ra-ru-su)

We had this fish three different ways, fried, broiled and soaked in a sauce. We used many different ingredients including a native herb that numbs your tongue from the three different peppers that were being used. In the end I tried a very good extra virgin olive oil that tasted like peppers but it was very good.

As we went through the cooking process we created many dishes from one thing so our finished product looked like this plate below J