BGrange Photography

Hello again,
sorry for the delay once again, it has been about a week since I last spoke to you all (if you can call blogging a conversation). We are safely back in the northern hemisphere. Arriving in Miami last thursday the three of us (Warren, Rob, and myself) split up, Warren headed down to Naples, Rob back to La, and I headed to West Palm to visit family. Our last week in Manaus we packed full of exploring the near by area. After getting back from the river boat on monday, we went up river to a place call the Ecopark. It is a Eco resort a couple hours west of Manaus, an island where they bring in monkeys that were being sold in the pet trade and reintroduced into the wild. They put food out for the animals once a day (a bit of a tourist trap), but avoid human interaction in order to stop the monkeys from relating people with food. With help from our new friends Gero, Milton, and Aldamar, we were able to go there for just an afternoon and see the monkeys. Ecopark is a truly beautifle place, with rainforest surrounding the grass huts that make up the resort, and prestine white beaches along the water. The monkeys tend to stay away from the acutal resort, but a short walk down a smaller river leads you to the feeding ground, where you can see them jumping from tree to tree all over the place. Supper photogenic!
From there we went another 2 hours west on the river to a floating house on the river. Here is where a woman lives who feeds and swims with the river dollphins. Looking like a hillbilly cousin of the dolphins we all know, they would come up out of the merkey water and eat right out of your hand! Standing in the water, the boys that were there feeding them would feel around under the water, to know when one was there, while slapping a fish on the surface. By doing this they could get the dolphin to come right out of the water to get the fish. On the way back was another amazing amazon sunset, with storm rolling in behind us. We got to watch the lighening storm while we took the long boat ride back to Manaus.