I have been thinking back to my trip to Brazil several years ago while watching the Olympics.  Most of it came while watching a soccer game the other day, which was played in Manaus.  I took a week-long trip in the Amazon on the Rio Negro.  We were on a 16-person vessel with a trip through REI.  This river begins in Manaus and heads north.  The sight of it is amazing because when it and the Amazon intersect the difference is so distinct — black and brown. This is because of the speed of the water, not because of the direction of the currents.

Aside from some of the great sights, the fun food pieces were:

Piranha fishing.  Oh, we got to go for them.  You literally have a stick and tap the water and they eventually bite the lure.  And the best thing — you eat them, they don’t eat you.  Check out the teeth!  They really do have them.

On the boat we could have beer and wine.  What was the beer that we enjoyed at lot, as we were so close to the equator?  Yes you’re reading the can right…Antarctica.  Just a light one, great for the hot days.  It’s a pils.  And unfortunately in the whole grand scheme of the beer world, Budweiser owns this beer.

Towards the end of the trip we had true local drinks.  We were taught how to make Caipirinha, Brazil’s national cocktail.  The key ingredients — cachaça, sugar and lime. Cachaça is Brazil’s most common distilled alcoholic beverage.  The first night our guide showed us how to make the great drink then on the final night we got to make them ourselves.