did anybody see a tree somewhere around here?

Well, we finally escaped from Manaus after 18 days, which made us both really happy. We took the 13-hour speedboat downriver to Santarem, a journey which usually takes 36-48 hours on the standard boat...well worth the extra US$45 per passenger, especially if you're recovering from dengue and don't particularly relish two nights sleeping in hammocks slung alongside (literally) hundreds of other travelers.

So, yeah...that was our first real look at the Amazon rainforest during the boat ride, since we'd only seen hostels and hospitals during the previous weeks. And guess what? We really didn't see a whole lot of trees, at least not the big kind (with pumas and anacondas and stuff) that you would expect in the Amazon.

It was honestly a depressing experience, in spite of the otherwise-comfortable ride (six movies in a row...sweet). The shore between the two cities was almost continuously occupied--not at all what I expected from 500 miles of river in one of the most infamously remote regions of the world. Lots of grass, scrub brush, cows, factories, and an occasional soy field. When there were trees, they were small and spindly--certainly not primary forest.

You all know that the Amazon is going buh-bye at a really fast rate. But it's another thing to be in the middle of it, and see how far gone it already is. Sad.

After a night in Santarem (sleepy, nondescript city of about 200,000 people), we headed to the nearby beach resort of Alter do Chão, which is deservedly the subject of a bazillion postcards. Bill Gates already vacationed once in the town, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon was scheduled for a visit to Alter do Chão while we were there; he never arrived, due to some goofy Brazilian politics (something about Lula and the local governance being from different political parties).

So yes, it was a beautiful place and all that. Big white-sand beaches on the river, stretching on endlessly.

We only had three days there, and it was our last chance to try to, like, see some trees or animals or something. We almost signed up for a two-day tour, and the guide didn't even seem to know whether the forest we were visiting was primary or secondary. But he promised lots of nice meals on the beaches. We passed.

In the end, we took an expensive (roughly US$180 per person) two-day tour with another agency, simply because it was the only trip we could find which involved a hike through some virgin forest. It was a great trip, in the end--we took a boat down an unbelievably fat Amazon tributary (Tapajós, which made the Mississippi look narrow), canoed into a little creek, went snorkeling there, visited an indigenous community where we explored some of the traditional food-processing methods (really interesting...honestly), took another tranquil bird-watching ride in the canoe, rowed back to our boat, spent the night in a hammock...

All good stuff. The next day, we made our six-hour hike through virgin forest, mostly just so that we could say that we saw some. We got a few glipses of monkeys and saw a few monstrously-large trees, but it was by no means the most impressive nature hike we've ever taken. Still absolutely worthwhile, thanks mostly to our unbelievably brilliant 20-year-old native guide. He's one of those rare geniuses who can identify every bug and plant on the trail, but who also understands every bit of the big picture of politics, economics, culture, and history. Had some great conversations with that guy.

And that's really about it. We spent the next day taking it easy in Alter do Chão, sleeping in and eating lots of obscenely tasty fish in a cococut milk stew...mmmm. Next day, we flew to São Luiz, Brazil's most famous colonial city. It's a likeable place with some interesting old archecture, but neither of us have fallen in love with the place.

For those of you who don't already know, we're now starting to look for a city that we really like. As soon as we find one, we'll stay there until our visas expire in March or April. São Luiz didn't make the cut, so we'll take off tomorrow in the general direction of Fortaleza, the next 'candidate' city.

But we'll do it the hard way. Instead of the 18-hour bus on paved roads, we'll head along the coast, through a dune-filled park called Lençois Maranhenses (http://viajarbrasil.com.br/lencois_maranhenses_maranhao.html if you want to see a few photos and read some Portuguese), which sounds far more amazing than most of what we've seen on this trip. After that, it'll be a bumpy series of trips on 4WD vehicles to get to the next bus connection on a paved road, close to Fortaleza.

This might take awhile. I don't expect to see any internet cafes until we get to Jericoacoara in a week or more, so (*attention motherly types*) you might not want to get your hopes up for any emails or calls anytime too soon.