Amazon = Amazing

These are a few excepts from my journal:

Nov. 3, 2007 - I went to the favelas (poor and dangerous community) and danced with the kids there and listened to some stuff about NGOs and took a bunch of pics. it was amazing, definately one of the high points so far. It was soooo unlike the movie, i didnt see any guns or drugs and i felt safe the entire time. they were pretty nice cloths and the buildings were pretty nice. it wasn´t at all as the movie. then yesterday we went to christ the redeamor, a big statue at the top of rio, again pretty cool. after we had free time so i went to one of the beaches with some friends and then did a little shopping on the beach (people sell stuff all over and come up to you on the beach, it get´s a little annoying but you can also get pretty lazy. Last night we went to a samba club and heard live music, it was soooo awesome, i drank and danced and went out on the balcony and just hung out with everyone. Today i did pretty much the same thing. Tonight i might go to a beach soccer game and then my professor is having a dinner on the beach tonight, which sounds really fun.

Nov. 7, 2007 - so i just got back from my boat trip. a lot of the time on the boat i spent reading, tanning, or napping in my hammock. on the trip i: hiked through the amazon where the guide showed us tarantulas and where at one point i had to plug my ears because we were passing an ant nest that the ants would crawl in your ear and lay eggs in your brain, went piranha hunting and unfortunately didn´t catch anything, fed and swam with pink dolphins, visited an indian village, and went crocodile hunting and held a 2 footer in my hands. it was all utterly amazing. tomorrow we leave for 3 days to go to a scientist field station.

Nov. 10, 2007 - I just got back from a biology field station in the middle of the Amazon. We hiked through the Amazon, learned all about different bugs and plants, espeically ants because it was one of the scientists speciality. Some people saw a snake but I had decided that hiking at night was a little too dangerous and turned back already. I also went swimming in what they called a pool but it was really just a blocked off stream. The whole time I was out side, I slept in a hammock with a bug net, no walls in the entire camp except 2 showers and 2 toilets, which got invaded by ants right before we left. It was sooo amazing, I´m thinking about getting information about it and will prolly keep it in my plans for the future.

Nov. 17, 2007 - hey so the last 5-6 days i was at an ecotourism place, it was pretty cool. I stayed at a community for a night and learned everything i possibly could about them. I also got drunk pretty bad 2 nights, which was really fun until the next morning when i was not feeling too hot. Now i´m staying at a really nice hotel. We have a free day today so i´m gonna do some shopping and swimming and just relax. I don´t have time to read all of the info but i will when i get back on tues.

It definately was the best three weeks of my life. At the time I kept on thinking "how does life get any better?"