I have finally made it back to French Guiana after leaving Manaus, our supposed final destination on sunday afternoon. Turns out- if you thought leaving French Guiana was difficult, getting back to it is even worse! Anyway, Manuas /Manaus, I still don't know which one is which was a cool place to end our mini-Brazil adventure. Finally a hostel with other tourists! Much though I love Olivia and PollyA dearly, after 10 days mostly on a boat, a bit of conversation with some randomers was refreshing. To celebrate our first night we headed out in search of a cheeky glass of rose, only to be told by the most popular bar in the main square, No, we don't have any. What do you have, we asked? Beer. Anything else? More beer. Anything else? Well, I guess we could do you a Caiprinha and I push. Beer it was then. I hope you all have the rose chilling in the fridge for when I get home!
The next day we checked out the famous Teatro Amazonas opera house. The guide was dry-ola and the Opera they were rehearsing was interesting at best. It seemed to involve some sort of lesbian marriage of cats and some men drinking beer inbetween-Weird. The actual theatre was very european and luxurious though, weird in the middle of the Amazon. We spent the rest of the day drinking weird fruit juices and eating more fatty coxinhas, checking out the banana market (with no bananas) and a park with its own species of monkey! Our guide in the park was banterous and without him we would never have spotted the alligators, turtles, sloths, monkeys and iguanas that he pointed out. He was also a big fan of english football... He looked a bit confused when I told him my team was Hull. He paused for a second, "ahh yes, hull city, the tigers! They play in Black and Orange." It was a proud moment... although admittedly I should have mentioned that its Amber, not Orange. He then continued to walk us through the jungle trails singing you'll never walk alone and something about bubbles which is apparently something to do with west ham. It was most surreal.
PollyA left us on the friday night after giving me a cheeky haircut and then we were down to two :(
Most people were confused why we had come to Manaus and didn't want to do a jungle tour. Er, coz we live in the jungle, thats why.. A week on a boat was my cultured ness for this holiday and in Manaus we wanted to make the most of being in a big city for a change- cue shopping day! I am now fully stocked up on coloured jeans and flip flops for when I come home- Hope there is room in the rucksack.
We left Manaus on Sunday after a cheeky few hours at another river beach as you do. Met Lucy at the Belem airport at 2 in the morning and slept there. Was rudely awaken at 8:15am by a security man or someone who told us, it is inappropriate to be lying down at 8.30, apparently you should be sat up by this time. He proceeded to demonstrate what sitting in a chair looks like. Thanks. When he found out we were English the conversation got even more ridiculous when he went on a rant about how the English are renounced for being proper and eating small sandwiches and being ladylike. OH how we have ruined the reputatin of our nation :S We trudged to check-in, only to find the flight had been cancelled. TYPICAL!!
Instead of a big apology from customer services, what we got was a grunting lady that handed us a piece of paper and pointed us to a taxi. When is the plane going to be, we ask? She looked as if this was the most stupid question anyone could ask! Maybe at 12 tomorrow, but maybe before, or perhaps after. IDeal. Thanks for clearing that one up! The upside of all this is the hotel we were sent to was the Hilton with free food, internet, gym, pool, etc. I had an actual bath and felt the cleanest I had felt in months! We made the most of all the buffets, but then had to spend the same amount of time making the most of the gym to avoid feeling guilty.
We awoke early the next day ready for the 12 (supposedly) plane. At 10am the hotel kindly informed us that we would be staying another night and the plane would leave on wednesday at 7, only a casual 43 hours later than planned. Right, back to the pool.
It was great having an extra little bit of holiday, however, it did mean I missed some work and private tutoring and classic me I had no way to contact the people so I hope they are not too angry. But anyway! I am back now, and frantically trying to think of some ideas to keep my classes entertained for the last two weeks. 14 days from today I will be saying goodbye to st. Laurent for the last time- and I have to admit, I will not really be sad in the slightest. So excited to see everyone and feel like a clean person with a social life again. !!!
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