MUMBLINGS November 24, 2005

Many times people have asked which of the various countries and sights seen, would I like to see again. It would be difficult to select one, but readily several come to mind.

France was very nice because the food was so good. The same thing could be said about Italy, Germany, England, Argentina, and other countries.

One of the most pleasant trips was the same year Elvis Presley died, when we were able to spend several days in Scandinavia, which included Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Riding on our ship into the deep fjords, seeing the beautiful scenery and looking up the steep banks into the high mountains was a breathtaking experience. It was also interesting to listen to the various tales about the trolls. The stories go that they only come out at night and actually, no one will admit having seen one.

China was an interesting place because it has so much history and just observing the people was worth the trip. A village there might have as many as 300,000 people or more. You could look down one street, usually wide, in some of the larger cities and see more non-smiling, serious looking, people than you could see in days of travel here in the United States. This was just after the country had been opened to outside tourists, and some of the accommodations were rather crude. So was the food, but actually considering everything, it wasn’t bad.

A great trip and visited by millions, is the inside passage from Seattle to Alaska. It was particularly interesting because we had never seen the huge ice fields or glaciers, which are simply frozen rivers that slowly inch toward the ocean and break off. This is called calving and makes a huge noise. This particular ship was foreign operated and the food and service were bad. Later it caught fire and burned in the Pacific Ocean.

Obviously, all the above are outside the United States but there are many places I would enjoy revisiting in this greatest country on the earth.

Also, outside of the U.S., you could mention a two-week trip to Southeastern Asia where we were able to visit Malaysia, the Philippines and jungles whose density made them almost forbidden.

Near the top of this list would have to be the trip made about 20 years ago. We flew to Buenos Aries, Argentina. Boarding our ship, we visited several cities in eastern South America, including Rio de Janeiro and other interesting cities. However, by far the most interesting part of this trip was seeing the Amazon River, which is beyond belief in size, history, lore, and many other areas.

Previously, we told you about the Nile River where Egyptians and others will tell you that it is the longest river in the world, depending on where you let it begin.

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Continued

Brazilians will tell you that the Amazon River is the longest. Each is over 4,000 miles, but the Nile cannot compare to the Amazon with the volume of water carried from its origin to its mouth.

The Amazon is navigable by deep ocean liners 1250 miles up river. Our trip ended in Manaus, a city of over two million where the Rio Negro, a tributary larger than the Mississippi River, joins forces with the Amazon. Even here, 1,000 miles up river, it is 12 miles wide and you can easily see the curvature of the earth.

The Rio Negro is the largest so-called tributary of any river in the world and has a lot of unusual characteristics. The water is so pure that the huge city of Manaus uses it for their natural drinking water without treatment. You can understand where it got its name by looking at it, as the water is dark. In spite of the heat and dampness, there are no mosquitoes, because there is enough acid coming from up river trees and soil that it kills germs. Before telling you more about Manaus, lets get back to the wonders of the Amazon River, which I hope to tell you more about soon.

See you again soon, I hope.