Day 3. Escola Da Floresta.

We woke up pretty early to have some breakfast and have a meeting on what the whole expedition will entail. Breakfast consisted of crackers, fruits, pineapple, bread and coffee. The i2P team seems to be pretty obsessed with coffee and I tried "their" coffee and I have to say I liked the Brazil coffee a whole lot more! After breakfast we had introductions to the team and talked about what we had to accomplish on the expedition mainly for the students following along. We had to work on the Exploratory Questions that students from selected schools submitted, other questions from students from the i2P website, Gatorade questions, and some other various tasks like using the flipcam for CNN. Every night Ray, Doc, Bob and Kevin would compile all the content we shot over the day and put it together and edit it to make the videos you see on the website. The guys would be up till like 1 in the morning editing content and then they would send it out the next day via BGAN which was our key to communication and how we had our video calls to the students to answer questions.
After our meetings we put on our i2P tshirts and headed off to the Escola Da Floresta which is a learning center that students come to as sort of a field trip from their normal school in the cities to learn about environmental issues in the area. This place was beautiful and had so many different kinds of plants from the rain forest. We also had a chance to see some kids on their field trip and Isaiah played his Morning Song with his drum for the students. After learning all about the learning center we headed back to the hotel so that we could walk down the street for some dinner. The dinner, although it took awhile to arrive, was one of the best meals I have had in a long time. Beautifully cooked chicken, rice and many other side dishes. I also tried tongue.... and thats all I have to say about that... haha After dinner we did some more packing and got everything ready to head out to the boat which was leaving from Shirley's house just down the road. We hung out there for awhile as all our gear was being shuttled over to load onto the boat and we got to try cashew fruit, which grows pretty much everywhere. It's amazing how you can just pick fruit off the trees and eat it because there are no pesticides or any chemical to worry about. The youth ambassadors, or A-Team as Shirley called us, got shuttled to the boat in a motor boat and already my feet were wet. As soon as we were on the boat we set up our hammocks, or well the Bomberos set them up. Bomberos are technically "firemen" and they were our safety guards for the entire trip. They literally helped with everything and I don't think we could have completed the expedition without their help. They were all so great! After the hammocks were set we had our first lesson. Doc, Adrianna, Mark and Kat would conduct lessons for the A-team so that we could connect what we learned with what we saw our in the jungle. The lessons were the same as the modules that the kids were following along with at home so we were all on the same page. Afterwards we practically hit the sack and went to bed. The hammock was so uncomfortable the first night. I was between Sierra and Isaiah and kept hitting them all night from the swinging. The boat didn't dock till early the next morning. Sometime in the middle of the night our boat hit a sandbar. The Tapajos River is usually something like 5 meters deep and since it is the dry season it is only about 1 meter deep. Another boat had to come and push/pull us off to get us back on our way. I don't even remember this happening, I just thought it was all a dream. The air was cool and I only slept with a light blanket and my jacket that I used for a pillow.