After around 22 hours of travel time, I arrived in Manaus on Friday. My friend Moises, who still manages the quality group at the factory I helped start up, picked me up from the airport. I had maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep while traveling. As usual, I couldn’t really sleep on the plane. I tried on the red eye flight from Atlanta to Brasilia, but mostly I sort of doze, wake up then doze again. Moises had to get back to work, so he gave me a choice: go back to his house to rest or go to the factory for a few hours until he finished his work. I figured I better just to go the factory because if I went to his house, I was going to pass out. It was way too early to be sleeping if I were to quickly adjust to the 4 hour time difference. So we went to the factory and it felt like I was back in my second home. A lot of the people I had worked with before had left over the years, but there were still a few around and we picked up where we left off so long ago chatting, making jokes and whatnot.
As I inferred before, Moises and his wife, Herika have been gracious enough to let me stay at their house in the heart of Manaus. So that you can put a face to the name, here’s a picture I took last night while we were out at a block party.
Moises and Herika also have a beautiful daughter named Maria.
Thursday was Herika’s birthday, so on Saturday there was a birthday party for her at Moises’ mother’s house. A fair amount of people showed up, most of who I didn’t know along with some of the old guys from my factory days and their wives / kids. We sat around talking and eating one of Brasil’s favorite dish, Feijoada and of course we had a few beers to wash it all down.
Later that night UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) was on and everyone headed over to Moises’ house to watch the fights. The main event was Aldo vs Edger and all my friends were excited to see the fight. Aldo was born and raised in Manaus, so you can understand why my friends were excited. Spoiler alert! Aldo won by decision. It was a heck of a fight and Edger came on strong in the last couple rounds but couldn’t overcome the strong start by Aldo.
Sunday I slept in LATE since I was still recovering from being up over 36 hours during my travel and then the late night Saturday. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t more to do. There was a Carnival block party Sunday night which was happening right in front of Moises’ mother’s house. When we arrived it was raining hard. There weren’t many people but there were street vendors sitting around waiting for the crowds that might not show due to the rain.
But, the band started playing, the hard rain turned to a drizzle then stopped and the people started coming to drink and dance in the street.
It was a fun night. I mostly chilled and listened to the bands play all sorts of Brazilian music. Then the people watching, you see some characters in Brasil, that’s for sure.
There are more photos on my flickr web site if you want to see them here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjDShcaB
I also captured a bit of video while standing in the middle of the street.
Today is a day of rest and catching up on archiving, sorting and editing photos and of course writing this blog. When I say it’s a full time job writing this, I’m almost being serious. I’m always amazed at how slow I am at writing. Actually, I think it’s the time it takes to figure out what photos to include and how to bring it all together that takes times. Good thing I’m an engineer instead of an editor. :)
Upcoming plans are to go explore Manaus and the surrounding area with a buddy of mine, Rangel. He is lucky and gets a few days off before Carnival starts. I’ll try to keep this blog updated, but between all my friends here I don’t know if I’ll have much time. That’s a good thing in my book, not sure about yours. Tchau!
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