Hello everybody!
I am writing from an (at this moment) extremely hot brazilian city called Santarém. I can literally feel sweat dripping from my legs AS WE SPEAK..and now its 8 o clock PM...
Santarém is a beutiful city with a lot and a lot of red sand. And animals: dogs, cats, (gamar), cows and horses on the street. The house we live in have a rabbit that is loose in the house, who ate my papers today when i was asleep, and another of Daniels aunts had a dog that took off a few days ago, and hasnt come back yet. In Sweden that would have been TRAGEDY at least for most people I know (talking bout the dog now, folks, not the rabbit), but here they just wait for it to come back. If it ever will come back.
We live in a house with Daniels aunt Rosa and her family with three children. Its great! and they really do take care of us. We never walk around in the neighbourhood or to town, it seems they go everywhere with car.. But so far we havent experienced or seen any kind of robbery or anything in the city.
The city is situated in the Amazonas forest, where the rivers Amazon and Tapajós meet. So far we have only went swimming in the Tapajós river.
Yesterday we went to a little zoo in the rainforest which was totally cooooool. We saw a lot of birds and little monkeys both wild and in cages. It was such a thrill knowing that I was actually IN THE Amazon rainforest. The very heart of this world.
My portuguese is improving. I was such a nervous wreck the first day when it seemed i didnt understand a word anyone said (hardly anyone speaks english) but to this day i feel much more secure and am actually able to do a tiny bit of talking with the locals. (There are almost only locals here by the way, i havent seen any other tourist yet)
This first week has been a week to get to know the area of Santarém, adapt to the culture, try new foods, practise the speaking and just relax. Next week we will travel to another city called Parintins where festivities will be held. The journey takes about 20 hours with boat, and we have been told to bring...(hengmatta??) to sleep in.
Daniel has been ill today, but is already better, and I got scratched in the face yesterday by a monkey. But it didnt bleed so i dont think i got rabies. thank god.
We have also visited Alter do Chão, that is a famous beach area near Santarém. We had to take a "canoa" out to the little sand-island and it was great to just relax under the trees and look at the birds, and people swimming in the river. It usually is sand all the way out, but this period the water is really high, why everybody is going there in those little canoas. In Alter do Chão I also ate my first Tapioca! We have also tried farinha, farofa, feijão, various fish dishes and the famous drink Guaraná. I have liked all of it so far, but realized that the brazilians eat a lot of..plain white bread. And flour. They put farinha on everything and everything.
Thats it for now, i dont know if this is going to be published because i got a fail message now, see you guys later! ciao
