On my third day in Rio de Janeiro, I was scheduled to leave the ship around 5:30 to go to the airport. I went with a group of Semester at Sea students on this trip, and we flew from Rio de Janeiro to Manaus, Brazil. Manaus is the fifth most important city in Brazil, and it is also hosting some of the World Cup Games. Manaus is located on the Rio Negro, which is the largest tributary off of the Amazon River, which is technically the largest river in the world, at least by volume.
Once we arrived in Manaus, we headed to our riverboat to sleep for the night, because we arrived around two in the morning. When we got on the boat, we all went to the second deck and chose hammocks to sleep on for the next two evenings. It was very difficult to get comfortable enough to sleep in the hammock, so I did not sleep very well my first night. I woke up around six in the morning to watch the sun rise, which was absolutely beautiful to watch over the Rio Negro.
We all ate breakfast around eight, and then sailed to the meeting of the waters, which is where the Rio Negro and the Amazon River meet. The rivers have a very different density, so the water never integrates; when you look at the water, it is a line between the two bodies of water. One of the bodies of water is the color of coke, and the other looks similar to chocolate milk. It was really amazing to see two massive rivers meet, but not have the waters mix. We had a nice little treat, and saw some of the pink river dolphins jumping around our boat.
After we saw the meeting of the waters, we sailed to a spot in the jungle where we could see some of the very large water lilies. In order to get there, we took a wooden path through the jungle. On the way down the path, we ran into some capuchin monkeys! On one of the water lilies, there sat a cayman who was looking at the fish in the water to decide which to eat as a meal.
When we left the forest after observing the water lilies, we took small boats to go piranha fishing. Piranha are a misunderstood species of fish, commonly thought of as eating machines. Although piranhas will create a feeding frenzy when one fish starts to eat, they do not eat everything in sight. However, they have an extremely strong bite, which does pose them as a danger. While we were fishing, several people in my boat actually caught a piranha! Some people caught white-bellied piranha, while others caught red-bellied piranhas, which are the more dangerous species. I caught a baby catfish. In order to kill one of the piranha that someone caught so that we could eat it for dinner, our guide bit off a chunk of the spinal cord; it was very intense!
After this exciting excursion, we traveled to the location where we would go swimming with the river dolphins. We separated into three groups, and one group would go in with the dolphins at a time. The trainer in the water would hold fish for the dolphins, and we would pet them as they came along.
They felt very rubbery! After swimming with the dolphins, we fished for a red fish, which is very large and strong! After this, we went cayman spotting. Our tour guide caught a small cayman at first, and then caught a slightly larger one. He almost caught one that was 4 meters in length; when it swam away, it rocked our ship! It was very large. 
After cayman spotting, we went to a private beach and met with the other SAS Amazon trips for a BBQ. After dinner, we played tug-of-war, musical chairs, and danced. It was really fun.
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