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Amazon Expedition – Day 12

Blog written by Julia

Today in the mooring, after breakfast we separated into two groups: one called Starboard and the other called Port. The first exercise was to jump in the water with the rope, each team with 5 people, the objective being to hold on for as long as possible. The team that wins is the one which loses only 2 of the 5 people. I was in the Starboard team and we make a strategy, I was in front of the rope, and the stronger boys were at the back, so they can reserve more energy for the end. The strategy was good and my team won. But in the next exercise, a team can lose 3 of the 5 people, and in this exercise, the Port team were more intelligent and they won. After these exercises on the amazing Rio Negro, we did same push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups on PANGEA.

When we had finished the physical activities we stopped the boat in Santa Isabel, a small city on the banks of the Rio Negro. As we rounded the corner at first we could only see small houses with simple people living from the river. However, we soon found a big bridge and a relatively large city to moor PANGAEA. Mike told us that there was nothing here when he last visited 20 years ago. It was incredible to see the development which leads to devastating deforestation. We spoke to the local indigenous people and tried to set up a meeting to see the Yanamanis Tribe. Unfortunately they do not like too much contact with the outside world so they did not want us to visit them.We explained that we only wanted to exchange cultures peacefully and that we were group of 10 young people from all over the world, however they still did not oblige. After returning to the boat, we went to the Chumbinho`s houses to talk to the man who organises the tribes interactions with the outside world. Later, we managed to contact the chief of another nearby tribe of Santa Isabel, who were more obliging and would like to meet us tomorrow!

Since I was a child I have always been fascinated by the indigenous people that live in the Amazon and I dreamed that one day I would meet them, to see how they live and to learn from them. I cannot believe that tomorrow this dream is going to become a reality!

Every day during this trip we learn something new. It is an amazing experience and I am learning more than I have ever learnt in my entire life from Mike Horn and the PANGAEA team with other young explorers from all across the globe!

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