First day in the Amazon

I woke up early this morning, had breakfast with the whole family. I left at 815am with Lucy to go to the chamber of commerce for an interview for my new job. I think the interview went OK, but it was really fast, no more than fifteen minutes.
I then changed in Lucy’s office and took a cab to the airport. I met up with people going with me on the trip in the Amazon 4 Californians of over 49 years (Karen, Chet, Richard and David), a Quitonian (Juan Pablo) and Alejandra and David who are the son and daughter of the owner of the Manatee boat.
Great to leave, but I was hopping for some better female company, but we can’t always get it all.
The flight leaves and for the 20 minutes it lasted until the city of Coca, I spoke to Richard. As we land in Coca, the rain falls but quickly the sun makes an apparition and as we get to the port we were embarking from, I see two astonishing Latino girls, God only knows how much I wish they were to come with us on the tour. But everybody knows how lucky I can get and these two girls (Christina and Daniela) had just taken the previous flight and are going to embark the Manatee with the rest of the group. I walk through the city of Coca before getting on the cruise, buy a case of beer for the cruise and embark with a smile on my face on a small motorized boat that is going to take us for a half hour trip down stream until the Manatee.
As we get on our three floor boat, a welcome cocktail is served to us followed by a delicious lunch, I must say the service and food on the boat were first class. After lunch we had a two hour break before going on our first Amazonian expedition. So I settle in the bar drink my first beer with Juan Pablo. As I’m drinking this beverage, I see Christina smoking a cigarette by her self on the terrace. I think her company might be more profitable so I run speak to her, I’m able to get her smile and even laugh, I’m on my way! Then her sister Daniela comes up to us and Christina heads off for her turn in the shower. I speak for a little while with Daniela, head for a card game and start playing forty with her, Christina gets out of the shower and decides to take the winner. So by “gallantry” I decide to loose and have them play one another. But I then get to take the winner Christina and beat her so that we all are winner with one win each. At four a clock, our guide comes up to give us several rules to follow on the boat, a brief overview of what is ahead of us for the next three days and hand us each a pair of boots in order to adventure ourselves on the muddy paths. Yes, it is quite usual that the Napo River rises by three meters in a night. Then first excursion, we embark a small boat that takes us through an affluent of the Napo. First deep insight of the Amazon, outstanding landscapes, incredibly dense vegetation and tons of different types of colorful birds.
As dawn hits the Amazon around 645pm, we are guided by a spotlight of our guide (Raul) and the incredible sight of our boat driver. We listen to the beautiful melody that birds are offering us and drive back to the Manatee. I grab Christina’s hand in the most perfect secret and this becomes the first step towards out three day relationship in the depths of the Amazon.
We then got back on our ship, had a delicious dinner and headed off for a night land based expedition through the forest. We could hear a lot of different animals, owls, monkeys and so on, but we actually just saw bats, a viper snake and lots of different insects.
We walked in a circle through a muddy path and an outstanding diversity vegetation, they were plants of all size, with leaves of all shapes and different colors we might even have seen insects that are unknown by scientists and this just seemed unbelievable to me.
We then got back on the Manatee and as most adventurers headed to the sack, I had a couple bears with the staff in the bar before as well going to my bed.