Goodbye Jungle :(

This morning I woke up bright and early and got ready. Dad and I headed around to take pictures of the lodge and savor our last morning in the jungle. We headed out to hang out in the hammocks, with my kindle in hand. We were relaxin in the hammocks and enjoying the jungle morning when Segundo walked in. He gave dad a necklace he made using the jaws of the piranha dad caught yesterday!! It was super cool. We gave Segundo some stuff for the local tribes, like our candies, my flip flops and one of dad's tshirts and headed to breakfast.

\
We'll miss Segundo...



Our bestie, Dennis the bartender

We said goodbye to Segundo and Dennis the bartender, grabbed our backpacks and started our journey back to civilization. This time we took a more roundabout way to Iquitos. We made our way up the Napo river to join the Amazon river, rather than cutting across the land. We headed out on a couple of speedboats with a school group who was headed to another lodge. After trying to balance the boats by trading passengers, we finally were off. We got a last glimpse of a water snake as we sped away from the lodge.



We flew through the Amazon, passing little villages as we went, all the while trying to take in everything before we left. After a quick stop to drop off the kids at the Explorama Lodge (the 3rd farthest lodge in, 50 miles into the Amazon) we headed toward Ceiba Tops, Explorama's luxury lodge. 2.5 hours after leaving ExplorNapo, we pulled in for a rest at Ceiba Tops.

If we were staying at Gilligan's Island, aka ExplorNapo, Ceiba Tops is the Four seasons. They have air conditioned rooms (like real rooms, with walls, ceilings, beds, roofs), private showers in each room and a pool with a water slide. They gave us a room to use to rest until our boat left back to Iquitos. We used the bathroom, walked around the lodge and scoffed at those who called this roughing it in the jungle. I can understand why people would want to stay there; it's the jungle, but still comfortable. But I'm glad we had the experience we did, it is something we'll never forget.


A waterslide...and tablecloths in the dining room...

After lunch, we boarded the Amazon Queen for Iquitos. On board we met a group of kids from NYU who were spending the summer doing research in Iquitos. They were having trouble getting access to the information they needed in the hospitals because there were a lot of protests going on in Peru. Word on the street is that the big strike is supposed to come on the 9th, the day after we leave. We spotted some more grey dolphins as we made our way closer to Iquitos. A great send off.

We made it back to the explorama headquarters and thankfully our bags were there waiting for us. We boarded the open air bus with the rest of the tourists and headed to the airport. The airport was unlike anything I have ever seen before. It was one large room, with a molding ceiling, burnt out overhead lights and an open air room. We boarded our flight and headed off to Lima. We met a nice guy on the plane and swapped Amazon stories with him.


The airport

We landed in Lima and grabbed a cab. Of course, the cabbie we chose told us he knew where the hotel was...but actually didnt. After asking me for directions to get there, he finally ran inside to ask one of his friends.

Lima is a big city; a definite change of pace from the rest of the trip. We were headed for the tourist portion of Lima, so we passed fast food restaurants, casinos and malls. Everything was bright and flashy. 20 minutes later we pulled up in front of our hotel, the Country Club Lima hotel.

It is beautiful! We were given a grand suite and its a nice change of pace after the Amazon. It's the most luxurious hotel we've stayed at. They lay out slippers for you when your bed is turned down and the shower is like a waterfall. It's wonderful.


Much better than the latrines & cold showers


No mosquito nets here...

Tomorrow, we're off to explore San Isidro, the tourist portion of Lima.

Adios!

Piranhas and flapjacks.

We both woke with a start to Segundo pounding on our door at 7:30 in the morning. We were supposed to be at breakfast already! We had overslept. We jumped up and got ready, brushing our teeth in the bowl in our room and headed off to scarf down some food before heading out for fishing.

After breakfast we boarded a little motorized canoe with Dad and I, Segundo and our driver Teddy. We headed down the Napo River about 40 minutes and finally turned down a little channel. We were worried about fishing, having eaten dinner with Segundo´s boss the night before. He told us that it may be difficult to catch any fish because the water is still somewhat high, but if anyone could help us catch a fish, it would be Segundo. So we made our way into our little channel and parked the boat close to the banks. We tied up to a tree and handed out our equipment. Dad, Teddy and I used long branch poles with fishing line tied on, but Segundo had a legit pole. We baited our hooks with cubes of raw beef and cast our lines into the water. Segundo and Teddy dipped their poles into the water and thrashed the water around. I guess this stirred up the fish because immediately we felt the piranha start to nibble at our bait. The trick to catching piranha is to wait until you feel them nibble at the bait and then jerk your pole to hook them. Teddy and Segundo had no problem; they each caught fish within minutes. It took us a little bit more time to get the hang of it. Dad started catching a few, and then I caught one. After about an hour Segundo warned us that we would have to leave soon, so he let Dad borrow his pole. As soon as Segundo mentioned leaving, Dad pulled out the biggest pirhana of the day. It was huge! Dad ended up catching 2 red piranha and 2 white piranha, I caught 1 white piranha and Teddy and Segundo probably caught around 8 between the 2 of them.

Our fishing spot

Segundo with a red piranha

Dad...clearly not being cautious.

My one fish.

The winner of the day.

We headed out from fishing and made our way down the Napo river about 15 minutes. Segundo brought us there to meet the Yagua tribe. Unlike the tribe we met before, these people were pretty legit. We pulled up and walked up to their huts. Segundo went inside and kind of left us out front, so we started making friends with the little boys who were outside. They had made their own little toys out of leafs and sticks; their version of a pinwheel. They got a kick out of Dad´s camera so he would take pictures of them, and then review them on the screen. They loved it. There was a pig under one of the houses and all of the sudden all of the dogs started chasing it around. We taught the boys how to do the "thumbs up" and give high fives- They weren´t really understanding the high fives but Dad and I gave a quick demonstration and then they caught on.

Run kids...run fast.

Rockin the thumbs up.

Making the darts

Then the elders of the tribe came out in their traditional outfits; grass skirts and little else. The oldest woman came out wearing her pet sloth and pretty much nothing else. We each took turns holding the sloth and when dad held it, the sloth went for his camera. It kept trying to grab on to the camera strap. That thing was feisty too. One of the old men brought out a blow gun and did a quick demonstartion. Then it was our turn. I went first and hit the tree (our target) on the second try. Dad was up next, and being the natural blowhard, hit it immediately. I see a future for him. After that, the tribe showed us some of their goods and we shopped a bit. As we walked back to the boat the kids followed us. As we pulled away, they were all flashing the thumbs up sign.

The best accesory is a sloth. and going topless.

"I´m waiting...anybody got a match"-Dad

We headed back to the lodge for lunch. Segundo had the cooks prepare 2 of our piranhas for lunch; one red and one white. They were delicious, but really bony. Segundo told us that 2 new guys would be joining our tour too. They were Ryan and Matt, two white kids from Hawaii. We all ate our lunch and then headed out to the botanical garden to buy a few things. Guillermo and Julio, the shamans, did their little demonstration about the plants of the garden for Ryan and Matt. This time Segundo helped out a bit, and he even made us try a couple of things. He had us drink the oña de gato, for our joints and then passed us a glass of purplish liquid. He told us to drink it and then he would tell us what it was. After guzzling it down, Segundo told us it was a natural aphrodisiac. Yea...thanks Segundo. After that Julio, the shaman blessed Ryan and Matt. It was our turn next. We sat in the middle of the circle hut with our eyes clothes and our palms up. Guillermo, the other shaman came behind us and blew smoke into our heads and then blessed us with a leaf and chanted for a while. It was very relaxing and we almost fell asleep.

Delicious.

almost sleeping.

From there, Segundo took us to our canoe where Matt, Ryan, Dad and I took off with Segundo and Teddy to look for animals. We headed up the Napo river and ended up turning off at Loreto lake. We would be whizzing past something when Segundo would signal for Teddy to stop the boat and he would point out and iguana or a bird. I could even see the friggin thing when the boat was stopped so I don´t know how Segundo would spot it when we were zooming by. We cruised around the lake and turned down these little channels, filled with vines and crazy plants. It was like the jungle cruise. We spotted some birds, a couple iguanas and a sloth up in a tree. We even saw some local kids with a baby wild boar. It was super cute. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Baby boar.

Hey Mr. Tally Man...

Ladies and Gentlemen...the backside of water.

On our way back to the lodge, Segundo told us we would stop off and visit a village that was having a big party today, with soccer games from all the local tribes in the area. We pulled ashore and a guy was there, trying to recover his sinking canoe. yikes. We headed to the party and while walking there we noticed that everyone was carrying baby chicks, four or five at a time, some cupped in their shirts. We made our way toward the soccer fields and Segundo told us that the mayor was handing out chicks to the villagers because today was the villages anniversary. We still arent sure whether this guy was the mayor or was running for mayor. Segundo told us we had some free time so dad and I walked around the village and tried to find out if the sinking canoe guy needed any help. After we found out that he had gotten it out ok, we headed back to the soccer fields. We all ran into Segundo and he brought us over to hang out with some of his cousins.

Mayor and his chicks.

We all parked it on the ground and were introduced to his cousins. They offered us some of the local sugar cane rum to drin, which is home brewed in the Amazon ("white lightning Amazon style"-Dad). It was delicious. So here we are, sitting in the Amazon, drinking sugar cane rum out of an Inka Cola Bottle with Iquiteña beer chasers and speaking spanish with our tour guides cousins. They were hilarious and awesome and totally wasted. After some good drinks and some great conversation, we made our way back to the lodge. We showered and got ready for dinner.

Notice the Inka Cola bottle...

After dinner, we went out again in the canoe to look for animals at night. Segundo, being the pro he is, fixed Dad´s flashlight so we were all ready to go. We headed out, under the black of night, into the Amazon. This time we saw a snake, a spider that eats fish and a bunch of hummingbirds. It was pretty cool. We headed back to the lodge and we all sat around a had Iquiteñas except for Segundo who had Jack and Cokes and talked. Segundo started telling us all about the jungle ghost stories. And that if you dream about a snake, it means that your wife is cheating on you. He told us about this little guy who lives in the jungle who is the father of the trees. He has one good leg and one deformed leg and will confuse you enough to get you lost in the jungle if you go too far into his territory. The stories got creepier and creepier as he drank more so dad kept buying. We went to the bathroom before bed, Jeffrey now learning his lesson, and I spotted a huge frog down in the latrine. Yummy. We climbed under our mosquito beds and drifted off to sleep.

Snake.

Dad´s singing me a lullaby.

Adios!

My birthday...and cruisin down the ´Zon.

Attn readers: Watch over the next couple of days as we get caught up with our amazon adventure!

After a night of freezing our butts off we awoke bright and early...yet again. I had the air conditioner set to 18 degrees celcius because it is sooo muggy and sticky outside in Iquitos. But regardless of how cold it was, we still woke up feeling gross in the room. We packed our bags with only our essentials and locked up our big suitcases so we could leave them at the explorama offices.

We went downstairs for breakfast and were greeted by our guide. His name is Segundo and he has worked for Explorama for 39 years (keep in mind the company has only been around 44, talk about seniority). We ate some breakfast and then boarded the bus. We were off!

Our adventure began with an hour and a half boat ride up the Amazon river. We floated up the river on a three story boat, the Amazon Queen. We sat on the top deck and took in the passing landscape. We passed small villages with huts, kids playing in the river and women washing landry on its banks. As we passed the place where the Ninay river and the Amazon river meet we spotted several dolphins jumping around and playing. It seemed to be a good omen for the trip.

The banks of the Amazon

We continued our adventure when we arrived at Cieba Tops. Cieba Tops is the luxury lodge of the Explorama chain. It features actual rooms with air conditioning and even a pool with a water slide. We disembarked here to find that we were the only passengers continuing on deeper into the jungle. From there we took a small, motorized boat back down river for about 10 minutes and pulled up to a little village. In the village we caught a motortaxi that cut across the island to meet up with the Napo river. We boarded a speedboat with Segundo and several other Explorama workers and took off for our lodge. 45 minutes later, up the Sucsayri tributary we got our first glipse of our lodge.

Our lodge, the ExplorNapo

The ExplorNapo

ExplorNapo lodge is located 100 miles into the Amazon. It is the 2nd farthest of all the Explorama lodges. The bathrooms are pit toilets, latrine style, there is no running water, no electricity...no windows even. The rooms are smalls rooms with an open window (no screen), thatched roofing and mosquito nets to sleep under. It was rustic to say the least. They provide kerosene lamps and fresh drinking water to use.

Welcome to Fantasy Island...

Room 31, home sweet home

We walked up the steps and into the dining hall where Segundo gave us the lay of the land. We would be staying in room 31 at the explornapo lodge. After dropping our bags off in our room we explored a bit. We headed to the front where we saw the trumpet birds that live at the lodge. Here we met Charlie, the pet capybarra of the lodge. The capybarra is the world´s largest rodent and he makes a sound that sounds like some sort of laser gun. For being a rodent, he´s pretty cute. We made our way to the hammock room where we waited for lunch to be served.

Charlie.....

Outside of our room....I´m cowering in the corner.

Lunch was a spread, with fish, rice, beans and fruit. It was some of the best food we had eaten the entire trip. After letting our food digest, we headed out to the nearby botanical gardens. Here we saw different demonstrations of plants that are grown in the garden and the way that the native people use them to cure their illnesses. The shaman, Guillermo even let us try some dragon´s blood, which is supposed to cure insect bites. After the garden, we headed out on a hike through the rainforest. Segundo took off at a breakneck pace and we followed behind, taking in the sights and sounds of the Amazon rainforest. We visited the pet macaws for the ACTS research center nearby. A trail of leaf cutter ants crossed our path and we watched their work for a while, taking pictures. We made our way to the nearby canopy walkway. The canopy walkway is made up of netted walkways suspended between 14 trees. The highest point is 118 ft above the rainforest floor. Essentially it consists of aluminum ladders with wooden placnks wired on, all suspended in a netted walkway between two trees. It was terrifying but beautiful at the same time. We were up around sunset and the view was breathtaking; we were up above all of the trees of the forest.

Macaw at ACTS.

Leaf Cutter Ants crossing the path

The Canopy Walkway

Between trees 5 & 6...fearing for my life.

22 years old...and thats Dragon´s blood on my arm...not some crazy Amazonian disease.

Does this look stable/safe to you??

We made our way back to the Explornapo lodge only to find that the trail we were supposed to take was completely submerged in water. We backtracked a bit and made our way onto a new trail. We made it back to the lodge in time to take a quick shower before dinner. The showers were cold but incredibly refreshing. No matter what you do, you cannot recover from the heat and humidity of the rainforest. You are constantly sticky and sweaty. There is no relief. We grabbed a quick beer (purchased from Dennis at the bar) and headed out to swing in the hammocks. There also happened to be a large group of teenagers staying at the lodge so the hammock room was jumpin and swaying! We made our way back to the dining hall to have dinner with Segundo. Dinner was beef with a wine sauce, lentils, rice and vegetables. After dinner, Segundo told us to grab our flashlights because we would be headed out on a night cruise to look for animals.

After lathering up with bug repellant and grabbing our flashlights, we headed out to a small canoe...just us, Segundo and 2 assistants to help steer the canoe. We headed out in the pitch black night under a blanket of stars. There were more stars then I had ever seen in my life, and we were even lucky enough to spot the southern cross. We made our way through the pitch black, totally in awe of the way the driver was able to navigate without any light, when we turned up a small channel off the river. Segundo told us to turn on our flashlights and just start looking around. We crept deeper and deeper into the channel, passing through vines and listening to the amazing sounds of the jungle around us. Segundo spotted a couple of sleeping hummingbirds, frogs, spiders and even an owl butterfly. He had eyes like a hawk and seemed to spot animals without any sort of trouble.

An Owl Butterfly...side 1.

Whoa! Owl butterfly Side 2. Its´ defense mechanism...

We made our way back to the lodge where we stayed up, talking to Segundo. Segundo was born and raised in the jungle and is the most knowledgable guide at Explorama. He told us that he had taught himself English by listening to the tourists and guides he drove around. His first job at Explorama was filling the boats with gas and eventually moving up to be a guide. After drinking our fill of Iquiteña beer, we headed for bed.

We changed quickly and jumped under the safety of our mosquito nets. Amongst the sounds of the rainforest, we fell asleep. Dad forgot to go to the bathroom before bed and stayed up debating what we the best thing to do. His flashlight had burned out in the night and the 6 beers were catching up with him. He eventually resigned to walking all the way to the latrines, borrowed my flashlight and took off. I´m glad to say he made it back without a problem.

It was a great way to spend my birthday and a great start to our Amazon adventure! We tried to get a good night sleep before our big morning of Pirhana fishing!!!

Adios!

Grubs: Slimy yet Satisfying

This morning we woke before the sun. We got ready and walked across the street to the Lima airport. Our flight to Iquitos left at 4:55 am. We sat in the waiting area with the rest of the travelers, jungle junkies. The plane took off and we were able to watch the sunrise over the jungle. It was beautiful. We touched down in Iquitos to a landing strip that looked straight out of a movie; old junky planes covered in vines and jungle around us. The whole airport seems to be contained in one room.

This was not our plane...thankfully

As our bags came out, we met a rep. from our hotel who drove us through Iquitos. The saying here is that the motorcars are the mosquitos of the city. They are everywhere. Our guide later went on to tell us that there are 20,000 motorcars in Iquitos alone.

Iquitos lies on the edge of the Amazon river and is only accesible by plane of boat. It is a bustling little town that was thrown into expansion by the Rubber Boom back in the early 20th century. It lies 8-9 hours by speedboat from the border of Brazil. Our driver offered us the name of his friend to call if we wanted a tour of the city. As we pulled up to our hotel his friend happened to be waiting in the lobby for us. He only spoke Spanish so it was the beginning of a fun day.

Belin and the Amazon River

The weather here is hot and humid. With 5 or 10 minutes our hair turned soft (or in my case huge) with the humidity. The rest of our trip we have been trying to cope with high altitude and the dryness that accompanies it; it is strange to experience the exact opposite while still being in the same country.

After checking in, we grabbed our guide, Armando and he whizzed off in his motortaxi (a motorcycle like rickshaw, like we talked about before) toward the Belin market, a market known for its rare and bizarre finds. The market is not exactly tourist friendly, but with Armando there it was like packing a 357 cal. The market greeted us with new sounds and smells. Things we had never before seen. It´s hard to describe what I even saw at the market. It was the most amazing collection of things I´ve ever seen. We started walking through produce; pinapples, palm leaves, whole bunches of bananas and the fermented juice we had learned about. Natives chew on this root and spit it into a jar and they let it ferment to make a kind of alcoholic jungle juice.

The bustling marketplace

Fresh fish

From produce we moved onto fish. These fish were fresh, straight out of the river. There were piranna and other crazy looking fish with teeth. We saw alligator and armadillo. There were chicken, capyberra, huge snails (live!)...every kind of meat you could imagine. That is until we came upon the grubs. Armando pointed out a bowl of live moving grubs...like something off survivor. The woman also had some that were grilled on a fire. After Armando trying to convince us to eat the live ones, Dad asked the woman how much for a skewer of cooked ones. For 1 soles we got 3 grubs, probably the size of your index finger, around and long. We dipped them in salt and dug in. They actually weren´t that bad (except for when you had to chew their head which was crunchy, like chewing an egg and hitting a piece of shell). We left our grubs and continued on toward the potions we had heard so much about.

Every kind of meat you could imagine...

Me holding a live grub...

The next stalls were filled with potions all made of natural plants and things found in the amazon. There were pieces of Anaconda, boa, turtle; all for curing things we use modern medicine for. There were aphrodisiac juices and love potions. One lady even showed us some juice that she said cured cancer. It was an amazing sight to see. The sad part was that we saw skulls and body parts from all kinds of rare and beautiful animals. It´s difficult, but we had to remind ourselves that this is their way of life here and we cant pass judgement on their beliefs.

Armando shows us potions. with a snake head in his hand.

From the market, Armando took us into the Barrio of Belin. Dad had been looking foward to this the entire trip, so he was pretty much peeing himself on the way there. Belin is a floating town, the venice of south america. The water fluctuates 45 feet at some places in the river, during the rainy season. When the rains come, they all either move to their second story, or their house is contructed to float on top of the water. We got into a hand carved canoe and took of to observe the place around us. It was the most stark and bleak look into people´s lives that I have ever witnessed. Poverty is everywhere and the living conditions were horrible. The houses have no running water, or clean water or that matter. Their bathrooms float on the lake with them and the bathe and wash all of their clothes and utensils in the same water. The governmnt is no help because of the corruption. There are floating mini markets, where a guy pulls his boat up to your house and you can buy water or sugar or whatever you need. And right up dad´s alley, floating roach coaches. Its just a canoe with a lady with a bunch of pots of food to buy straight out of her canoe. Most people fish the river for their food. Armando says that at 13 or 14 kids arent kids anymore; its time for you to grow up and get a job.Prostitution is rampant in the cities at night.

Notice the second story

The left house has 2 floors, the right floats when the water rises.

on the river.

The floating roach coach

We stopped for a drink at a little shop overlooking the Plaza de Armas. It was nice to sit and rest; with the humidity (at least 85%) our shirts were soaked. From there Armando took us to a dock where we boarded a "tick tick", a little motorized canoe. It has the engine and then a ten foot shaft that goes to the propeller. We took off down the Ninay river, a tributary of the Amazon river, to go visit a local tribe. The trip down the river was peaceful and relaxing. I could hear the birds and creatures over the engine noise and it was like something out of a movie. There were fishing nets set out, with soda bottles for floats. We saw a floating clinic, a huge multileveled vessel that traveled between Iquitos and all the way to the border offering medical help. We docked about a half hour later and got off the boat to hike in about 10 minutes.

The motor.

We hiked in and came upon a native drum. The drum signaled that we were coming to visit the Bora tribe. We walked in some more and were greeted by the tribe. They took us into a large hut where one of the tribesmen (head ball toucher) explained that they would show us one of their dances. About 6 other people came in and began dancing and singing. They pulled us up and made us dance with them. (take a second to imagine dad, petrified out of his mind with a camera around his neck, flocked by scantilly clad natives dancing. priceless). Dad says they were naked when we first came up, and i guess i believe him. Then we browsed their merchendise, bought a few things to show our appreciation, passed out all of our candy to young and old alike and then hiked back to the boat.

our new friends

From here, Armando stopped off at another dwelling along the river. As we got off the boat there was a monkey waiting on the dock. As we past the monkey he introduced us to the owner who took us around and showed us the animals. First up was a sloth. We took turns holding and petting the sloth. Its fur seems like it should be more course but it is actually very soft and his claws were about 2.5 inches long. Next up was an anaconda. It was probably between 8-10 feet long and we all took turns holding it around our necks. Apparently the Jennifer Lopez movie had no effect on us because we just threw it was no biggie and threw a snake around our shoulders. After we saw some huge turtles, a capybarra and a baby alligator. The end of the tour took us up in a tower, again because the water rises during the rainy season, where there were about 5 monkeys and a macaw, all running amuck. One of the monkeys jumped on a womans head, trying to get her glasses and earrings so I was about ready to leave as soon as I saw them. We stayed for a while, and they offered us this crazy jungle juice made out of 7 different flowers. Dad drank it all, I only had a sip...we´ll see what happens :)

Dad with slowpoke rodriguez.

Anaconda.

Jennifer Lopez. Suck it.

After that, Armando took us to the place where the Ninay river and the Amazon river meet up, to look for the pink dolphins that live there. Where the two waters meet is a distinct line; there is no blending at all. It was dark on one side and light on the other. But the water was too rough, so there were no dolphins. We returned back to land where Armando dropped us back at the hotel, telling us that it was the first time he had fun taking tourists around. Dad has a new bestie.

The meeting point

Just us and the Amazon river.

We walked around a bit, to the Plaza de Armas, looking for souvenirs. The heat was horrible and apparently there are no sort of souvenier shops here. This town is like a town out of a movie, maybe an indiana jones or something. There are a mix of crazy people all just hanging out by the Amazon. There are alligator heads and stuffed pirhannas hanging on the walls. Its kind of bizarre. We sat in a restaurant and people watched. The foreign people living here are all a little off. They seem kind of bizarre, our favorites being Mama Cass (ham sandwich) a crazy lady who wore a poncho and a gothic hoochie pushing her baby around. It seems that we are stuck in some sort of time warp. It´s just a town that cannot be described. It has to be experienced. And dad is loving it.

Tomorrow we take off into the jungle. We will ride the boat all day tomorrow and spend two nights 100 miles out in the Amazon. We have no idea what to expect. There will be no electricity and no unning waters. After our adventures today, only a half hour from town, who knows what will await us 100 miles into Amazonia. We wont be able to blog until we get back so stay tuned...

Adios!

P.S. Thanks to everyone for all of the Birthday wishes! It´s great to hear from you all and I really do appreciate it! Sad to say we´ll see you soon...but at least we´ll be able to celebrate ;)