Pole to Pole with Silversea - Manaus to Dakar

 4/14

A lovely in transit day at the Amazon EcoPark.  On the way we passed many more gas stations.  Love this one with the mini-mart.

First we went to where a local lives and saw him making meal from a potato.

Then we went to the monkey rehab area.  The big monkeys are woolly monkeys and one uakari monkey.  This is a sanctuary.  Some were monkeys abandoned that had been pets.  Love the baby.  The one looking at the door is called Skinny.  When she came she was very skinny, not so much now.  If someone is in the building she waits for them to come out.  If they don't bring her something they said she gets really mad.  

  

We went to the lodge and took a jungle walk.  

The tree on the left has a type of ant in it that you let them on you and then squash and kill them and they are a natural mosquito repellant.  

Some cute woolly monkey videos.

This is the tree our botanist Chris talked about in one of his lectures.  The ants come out when the tree is tapped. They have a very painful sting.

4/15

Our last day in Manaus. Today I did Jungle Trekking with a Survival Note.  Retired military led the hike.  It was a small group.  Just 10 of us and 4 of our expedition staff.  I actually learned quite a bit.

On the way we went under the Rio Negro bridge, which we have been under a lot.  It opened in 2011 and cost over 1 billion to build.  The other photo shows the iron in the soil.

During the hike we stopped to taste fruits of the Amazon.

Maracuya - like passion fruit

A bean fruit 

  

Brazil nuts.  So much better fresh like this. 

Pacay 

Jinipapo                                                   Cacao and Cupuacu

  

This vine has water.  You look for a vine that is brown and the bark peels off easily.  There are similar vines with a milky inside that is toxic.

May have been a little warm today.  We said we are getting all the bad stuff out of our skin.  

  

An even better video of the bullet ants.

They made fire a few ways.  This one amazed me.  Not to be tried in most conditions.  You use steel wool, two batteries and wow...fire.

4/16

Beautiful sunrise this morning on the Amazon river.

Today we anchored near Furo dos Botos.  We took a zodiac to shore to see the church, community center and school.  The school was new in 2023 and it's gorgeous.  

Then we took a zodiac down a tributary that was full of branches and wood.  But, it was a great ride.

Crimson-crested woodpecker

Blue-gray tananger

 Yellow-headed caracara

Crested caracara

Three-toed sloth and if you zoom you can kind of see that it has a baby.

Buff-necked ibis

Red - capped cardinal

Orange-fronted yellow finch 

Ladder-tiled nightjar

Tropical kingbird

Ron and Marcus sure make someone feel special with their photos.  Photo by Marcus.

4/17

On our zodiac tour on Saturday I took a picture of some birds.  I shoot on auto and it was way overexposed, but looks like a watercolor painting.  I did confirm with Scott yesterday that it is a Bare-necked fruitcrow.  

Last zodiac tour in the Amazon at Aquiqui. 

Terns

Squirrel monkeys

Black vulture

Roadside hawk

Pigs!

Black-collared hawk

Water buffalo

Jacana

Dragonfly

Hoatzin

Spot-breasted woodpecker

Grapeleaf passionflower

Beautiful boats

Dusk views

The next three days are sea days and unless there is something very exciting I will be taking a break from the blog.

4/21

A wonderful, relaxing 3 days at sea.  Took a class for my camera and found out my settings were a mess and I have no idea how I got any decent photos at all.

Today in Fortaleza we rode dune buggies.  Shorter ride than at Natal, but steeper dunes.  After coming back to the ship, Leah and I took a taxi to a mall and I got a few things that I was running out of. 

Fortaleza

I rode with Alex from the Expedition Team.  We actually met last year when I did S. Africa.  

The first steep hill our driver used my phone, while driving, to take a video!

We like the Segway security

My cabin and the ship with Fortaleza

We have started the 5 day journey across the Atlantic to Tokeh, Sierra Leone where we will be on Saturday.  I will add if anything exciting happens on the sea days, otherwise I will try to add on the 27th.  

4/23

A fun second sea day!

We had lunch on the pool deck, a German lunch.

Before crossing the equator we had the King Neptune celebration for pollywogs becoming shellbacks for the first time crossing the equator on a ship.  I got off easy with kissing the fish and the shot.  Today was kiss the babies belly (Greg), kiss the fish and get covered with goop.  Malcolm and a group of pirates rounded up the pollywogs who must complete the ceremony before we crossed the equator.

  

We were going to get to do an equatorial plunge into the Atlantic on the equator, but the swells did not cooperate.  They tried for a long time.  

As an alternative we had a fire hose party on the pool deck. 😛😁😂

Peter, Andres, Lea, Manoo, Malcolm

While Peter was attempting to get us a platform to jump from he got a call from Bernardo to pick up some seaweed, sargassum, that was floating around. He then shared the critters that were in it and then returned it to the ocean. 

4/24

Today is the halfway point of my trip.  I visit 4 continents on this trip and it's fitting the halfway is halfway across the Atlantic where we are beginning Africa and Europe and have finished Antarctica and South America.  

This evening we had the Venetian club cocktail party.  I've written about this before, but this time the people with the most days had 494, 571, 733, 793 and 1020!!!  I received my 100 day certificate, which I will actually reach on May 4th.  

4/25

I missed the large group of spinner dolphins today, but did get this red footed booby the other day.

The photo Esteban took from the Venetian Society last night with the Captain, myself and Joshua.

The dolphins I missed today.  Thanks to Esron for the photos.  This is only a fraction of the dolphins seen.   Ron gave me a fabulous video, but it will not load.  

Goodnight from the doldrums in the Atlantic.

4/27

Dinner last night.  I don't when I've laughed so much.  Part of our expedition staff, Greg and Malcolm are both from Australia and could be a comedy team.

Today was our first day in West Africa and I decided I should start a new page...