On the way from Belém to Manaus

The flag of the departement of the Amazon in Brazil reminds a bit of the flag of the USA

  
Some medication to get my left ear to hear again

Here someone tried to make an american style diner

fancy a 28 centimeter superman burger?

Manaus – when it was rich! Now it is very poor!

C&A – the only international brand (a dutch company) is very dog friendy – they are allowed to cool down in the entrance air conditioning breeze!

This pictures all all from the center – and if it makes to much an impression of a pretty city than that’s my fault for only showing the few nice spots! I’m begging for forgiveness. This city is very very poor. There are a lot of vendors in the street who just try to buy your gold or sell you a bottle of water.  Here I saw people not only missing one or two tooth, many having only one or two left!

For english please skip this part….

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Ya llegamos a Manaus. Es uno de eses lugares que me dio mucho curiosidad desde mucho tiempo. Que puede uno esperar de la ciudad más grande en la mitad del Amazonas? Más grande significa dos millones de personas!

Estoy en el camino de conocer el centro histórico, pero en eso momento con un plan específico: Solucionar el problema con mi oido izquierda, no puedo escuchar más, es totalmente tapado. Pjotr, mi doctor de Bogotá ha dicho, que así no puedes volar. Bueno, nos volamos esta mañana. Y vamos a volar 4 veces más antes de llegar a Bogotá y vamos a volar la próxima vez en tres días! Por esta razón decidí de ir a un medico de una! Ahora estoy en un lugar que Google maps me propongo como doctor en ingles con unas reseñas de 4.3. El lugar se llama Society pro health, pero aparte del nombre nada es ingles! Por esa razón estoy cambiando ya al mínimo la lengua del texto por ingles ;)…

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…. to this part here:

We have arrived in Manaus, in the middle of the Amazon – a city of 2 Million people! It was a place of my wondering for a long time. How would it be: A city in the middle of the jungle? Well what can you expect of a two million city? It is not very jungle-ish. Obviously… But before I can go on and get to know the city I have to solve a medical issue first:

My left ear is not working any more. I hope it’s not some kind of virus in my head, is what my hypochondriac side thinks. I decided to visit a doctor, before I lose the gift of hearing forever, which can happen within a week of not treating the symptoms as I read in the internet. So I google mapped Manaus and the result ‘Society pro health’ came up when I entered ‚english doctor Manaus‘ – but so far no one speaks english at this place. Nonetheless they registered me, gave me a laminated card and a paper which states, that I‘m #24. I guess now I’m part of that society! Well I sat down and obviously on the wrong seat. Another woman sat herself down just next to me. First I thought she’s gonna hit on me for my blue eyes, but no: I guess she worries for her turn – she is number 17. This gonna take a while till it’s gonna be my turn! I hope it is worth the wait. Almost falling asleep, last night I did not sleep much with hungry Lau chasing some food in the middle of the night – I first thought someone is breaking in and robbing us. And then I woke up again twenty minutes before the the alarm clock was planning to wake us up at 3:20 in the morning. Lau felt sick from then all the way to the airport, all the way in the plane and then for another 45 minutes taxi ride to Manaus center. Arrived there by 9AM we got lucky to not needed to wait till 2PM to occupy our now home for the next three days, the other guest had already left and we just shared the place for an hour with the cleaning lady. Lau is nauseated lying in the bed and enjoying the fresh breeze of the air conditioning and I guess she doesn’t want much more from life for the time being.

Well I for my part also just want to sleep but first priority has obviously my hearing! Wouldn‘t want to jeopardize this luxury! Hope this are some reasonable doctors here, but I guess checking an ear is not advanced stuff if it is a standard problem! Still hoping on an earwax accumulation which they can just rinse out. But I guess I‘m not gonna get so lucky this time.

The general practitioner doctor said I will have to see the nose-ear-throat specialist. He wrote another paper and send me away. I gave the lady the paper and she gave me another paper and sent me to the cashier. So far this whole event didn’t cost me one dime, only about three hours of my time. I paid the 80 reals (20 USD) and went back to the lady which now sent me to a guy who explained I will be number 6 – but I have to come back in the afternoon at two for the specialist.

Back at two the waiting hall has filled up with around 150 people or more, and I’m very happy being number six! After only five minutes wait I could enter and with only one peak in my ear the doctor sees the problem. She says I have some excrement in my ear, that from blowing my nose too strong for too much time I literally blowed it up my ear. Some anti-inflammatory pills and some antibiotics for a week and a nose spray for a month should do the trick. She assures me, that I’m not gonna lose my hearing and also that I can fly without a problem if I use the spray before departure and landing!

Good news! But on this trip there was all the time something going on. An itch here, a scratch there. It’s time to finished it up already in good health and go home to Switzerland, find a Job, an apartment and live happily ever after… It’s an adventure all right, and it’s also good to know that Laura and I are working well together on a 24-7 base. And I’m also really appreciative that I had the possibility to show Laura a little bit of the world – and especially of her neighbors. That way she can understand and appreciate better that Colombia and especially Bogotá is a really special place! That it is not what the Rolos – Bogotanos are generally thinking. By now we basically made a triangle around Bogotá. In about one week time we will be back at the beginning of this journey. We have seen so much, and interacted with so many people, had so many wonderful encounters and eye opening moments – joyful and painful ones. But the bucket is full after only half a year. I was sure I could go on forever – but I am good! Am I getting old? Satisfied the need of encountering the unknown – forever? Well never say forever! Or how goes that saying 😉

Today we have to pack our bags once again and tomorrow we will fly to Tefé which is actually even more in the middle of the Amazon! We get hopefully picked up at the airport and carried by a canoe to the Mamirauá sustainable developement reserve, where we will stay for one week in a the Uakari floating lodge – this are literally floating bungalows on the river! It’s kind of an all inclusive deal – but I’m sure another kind of what comes generally to mind by the term ‘all inclusive’! Ok ok, I’m exited again – I guess the bucket still has some space for a few more drops of new impressions before we are heading back to Switzerland for some other kind of new and exiting adventures…