April 17 Thursday What a Great Day!

3:30 AM Wake up call.

Kathya (Kotcha) woke me up, waited for me to dress and stayed with me in the living room while we waited for my ride. We slept on sofas until the car arrived. I was first to be picked up and I got the lucky front seat. lol Last laugh on me... (joke coming later.)

4:10 AM

We are on our way to Steve's house. The driver made the same wrong turn as our driver on Monday, but this time I had a better knowledge of the city, so I was able to naviagte the roads better and we made it. Then it was on to Mike's house. He overslept and it took 2 phone calls, and about 20 minutes of ringing the door bell to get him up. Then on to Dean's palace. Not a mere casa but a friggin mansion. (No wonder he was always picked up first-it wouldn't be good making the rest of us jealous) Mike said "spoiled brat" and our driver, Antonio, who knew no English laughed out loud. (Fransico had the day off from us)

5:30 AM

We arrived at Dean's after I finally figured out how to read the address.

5:55 AM

Arrived at the Ferry but we missed the 6AM ferry as they begin loading at the half hour. It was full so it left early.

6:30 AM

We are second in line of passenger cars, but there are all types of trucks and long beds waiting. We start to load.

7:00 AM

We leave and within two minutes I am sleeping.

7:15 AM

What am I doing? I wake myself up because I am crossing the Rio Negro, one of the rivers that forms the Amazon. What an experience. We couldn't see much because of the rain, but who cares.

After that I lost all sense of time and never even looked at my watch again.

Our destination was Novo Airo, the town where Mirza, Dean's host, had her first Judgeship, 19 years earlier.

The rain was horrendous, our driver is so fast. We hydroplaned so badly once and the first thing I look for are trees. (remember how I happy I was to get the front seat - not so much any more). I thought we were going off the road.

Antonio got the car under control and I know we were all happy. We stopped for breakfast at Restaurante 3 Irmoas (3 brothers).

Mike wasn't feeling well and I gave him the front seat. He was soon fast alseep and had no idea how fast Antonio was driving. Not that any of us were safe. No seatbelts in an 8 passenger station wagon. We all talked about it later in the trip and knew if we had an accident we were history.

It was several hours later that we arrived. The place we went to looked like a restaurant. Mirza went ahead and never came back. Roberto and Antonio were with her, but all four Americans were hanging out on the steps taking photos of a stray dog.

Mirza came out and yelled to us to come on. Imagine our shock when we walked through the shop to the other side to the deck out back to see 4 or 5 fresh water dolphins getting fish from Mirza. How do you say Holy S**t in Portuguese???

We swam for an hour or more. There dolphins were so rubbery-like baby doll plastic from when I was a little girls (the squishy baby dolls).

It was the most amazing experience, since the birth of my children. In the States, I never really wanted to swim with dolphins because of the whole 'caged animal' thing. Dolphins held hostage for profit. And I know some of you who will read this have done it and I don't judge, I personally never wanted to do it.

But this experience was the best. They were wild dolphins. They could come or go as they wanted. They chose to be near the dock for the fish. When we had no fish, they played amongst themselves.

We then toured Mirza's house. After an hour or so there we headed to the ferry for another 4 hours by car. We stopped in Novo Airo and had lunch. Guarana Bare. Yum. This is a type of soda (just looks like a beer bottle) and more fish.

After we got to the port city, which reminded me of my ideas of Tijuana Mexico (having never been there, I have no clue). Mike and I got out of the car and walked the 1/2 mile or so to the front of the line. We almost missed the ferry because Mirza pulled her 'judge' badge out and got us to front of the line to make the ferry, or else we would have waited for another hour or so.

We were supposed to go to another Rotary meeting but we arrived late to the restaurant. The four of us, plus Francisco (I guess he didn't have off) had pizza. We had beer - but our driver didn't. It was a fun night and if we could have persuaded Francisco, we would have stayed out later, exploring the town.

Home late.