10
Location: Rio Claro
Today was day 10. breakfast was at 7:45 as usual, and we ate eggs, toast, and fruit. After breakfast, we all got on a boat for a 4-hour boat tour of the area we were staying in. The Annas didn’t come on the boat tour because they both get very seasick. Instead of coming on the boat with the rest of us, they went back to Fatima’s with guide Anna to paint a wall that we didn’t get around to on day 9. The boat we were on was a smallish, beige boat with rows of seats in it. Right, when we got outside of the bay next to the hotel, we saw a group of around 20 Dolphins, but there were probably more because we learned that if you see 10-20 dolphins above water level than there are at least 40-50 dolphins under the water. We mostly saw spotted dolphins, but we saw a few bottlenose dolphins. We also learned that dolphins sleep with one eye open because when they sleep, half their brain is awake and the other half is asleep. They sleep like this because it is a defense mechanism because if an animal tries to attack them, then the side of the brain that is awake will wake them up so they can defend themselves. After that, we rode in the boat for around 45 more minutes than got to an area where we could swim and snorkel. We were told that there were small jellyfish in the water that would sting you if you went in, but our tour guide said it only hurt a little bit for a few seconds. I still didn’t go in because a few days earlier I got stung by a big jellyfish swimming, so I thought it was gonna hurt as bad, so I didn’t go in. The people that did get stung said it didn’t hurt. After we all got back into the boat after swimming, we drove for about 1 hour in the boat; our guide Donnie pulled the boat over on this weird beach so that I could pee. I couldn’t find a place to pee, so I crossed a river, peed, then when we got back into the boat and started to head back to the hotel. We saw some jumping stingrays, and I don’t know what happened after that cause I took Dramamine and fell asleep for an hour. But when I woke up, we were back which was good. We had free time for around three hours, and we went swimming in the pool. After free time was over, we went out to eat dinner at a buffet style restaurant. We also had some weird starfruit juice, but it was good. Then we went back to the hotel and packed all our stuff up because we were switching hotels the next day. I was too busy packing I forgot to write the blog so hello this is me writing to you on day 11 and goodnight.