Feb 14 - Sunrise, Monkey Surprise, Piranha Fishing, Beach Relaxing

There was an early morning excursion at 5:30AM for sunrise on Negros River. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day and we did not see the actual sunrise. However, they provided us a surprise by taking us to the river bank and attracted lots of squirrel monkeys jumping onto our boat for banana. They are little, beautiful and active monkeys. For getting banana, they jumped on our shoulders and heads to grab banana. It was a surprise when monkeys jumping on top of your head and it were definitely fun.  

Next excursion is piranha fishing at Ariau region. They provided simple fishing gear consisting of a bamboo stick with fish wire, hooks and a piece of meat. It took no time for us to catch the piranha along with some other fishes. Piranha is small, but their teeth are sharp. One of Hollywood’s movie “Piranha” demonstrated that piranha attacking human. Therefore, it is also called "man eater fish". 

 

After fishing, we asked the guide to take us to the squirrel monkey place again for the benefit of those who did not make the early morning excursion. Since the guide did not prepare banana, they used some bread which can do the same trick of attracting them jumping onto our boat and getting onto our heads and shoulders. 
 

The lecture for the day was “Fruits of the Amazon”. The afternoon excursion was visiting the beach at Tupe region with opportunity of swimming in the Rio Negro. Not all of us brought the swimming wear; only a small number of people got the chance of soaking in the Rio Negro. The water is not clear as we expected, but we still dipped into it for the experience. The sun in Amazon region is very hot; therefore, we did not stay for too long.  
 

The Iserostar sailed to Manaus in the evening and they prepared a farewell dinner following by a Boi Bumba Dance Show presented by the local dance group. It was a pretty good show with lots of actions and pretty costums. 

After their show, we had an ad hoc Samba competition with couples from each bus groups. It was fun to see all couples showed what they learned in just a couple of days. Actually, they are all fast learners and good dancers.