As Animalia Ambassadoria found a great deal of interest in the abandoned hotel. It was right on the Amazon River and in theory even had relatively well built dock. There were concrete piers that went into the river with wooden planks that built the rest of the dock that went out into the river. Jessica and and Roger stood quietly near the edge of the dock, but still safely on land as they watched Roland and Sophie hesitantly make their way out toward the dock's edge.
"Careful!" Jessica called out to Sophie, "We may be close to Manaus, but it looks like nature has reclaimed a lot of this place."
"And I don't think that we're going to be strong enough to fight off crocodiles in water," Roger added.
"It's the Black Caiman that lives in this area," Sophie answered, as she slowly walked out along the dock, "and the wood isn't rotten."
"Still," Roger answered, "Don't get yourself caught by some predator! The photos online of those caiman looked like they were big."
"They can be," Melbourne commented from where he stood by. He really didn't have too much to do at the moment, as for the moment none of the Animalians he'd run into were going to collect samples for the new Animalian colony, there wasn't much more than providing some security, and he figured that the two younger rabbit Animalians and the two humans that were part of the group would be the most vulnerable. "Scientists presently debate over whether or not the Black Caiman or the American Alligator are the largest "gator" with the issues at had over the Alligator's larger maximum size and the Black Caiman's larger average size. Regardless, the Black Caiman is big and it wouldn't be a smart idea to be playing in the river."
"We'll be fine," Roland assured them, "I just want see if we can see the city from the edge of the dock. If we can, it could be our means of assuring that the hotel is built up better..."
And they did slowly make their way out. They found that the dock was rather safe, despite many things looking like nature reclaiming much of the hotel. That might allow for work that would be needed to actually get things up and running at this old hotel. Of course that could also mean that the work that would be needed would either not be as great as was initially feared or that the access to the hotel was such that they would be able to easily get the men and tools in to repair that which had been abandoned and damaged when the original hotel idea went south.
"And you can sorta make out the city from out here!" Sophie called, "should mean that it shouldn't be too hard for help to make its way out here."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile, Abby and Samson took a look around the areas closer to the hotel itself. They could notice that many of he windows, particularly those closer to the ground were almost totally shattered. From what they could see some of the higher windows also looked to be broken as well, but from the ground the two Horse Animalians couldn't tell for sure of the whole window set was broken or just one pane.
"This will take more work than the farm," Samson commented as he pulled a couple of large ferns out of Abby's way, and keeping his ears and eyes alert, as they while their were animals that were scheduled to be uplifted to be part of the new settlement might help with the restoration efforts, that didn't mean that what was there there now wasn't meaning the job would be a big one.
"Well... the farm is already established and that day to day work isn't that hard," Abby answered as they walked along what had once been a stone path that surrounded the hotel building, but was now overgrown with moss, jungle plants, and in some places even raw mud from either rain or from a large flood. Abby couldn't tell which. "This place... while the building itself may be okay... this needs to be majorly reworked."
Samson nodded as they walked along, "I'd like to help... but there is all the work we're already committed to and you have the IAC coming up and I want to cheer for you..."
"It's okay," Abby answered, "I think for the moment all we really need to do is catalog what all will need to be done to get things cleaned up... aside from the obvious of getting those power lines that we saw on the way out fixed... but that will have to wait until the hotel building is clear enough for whatever company handles power in the area."
They came along until they came to what looked like a solid wall of vines with other local trees that were nearby. It was only when they got extremely close that both Abby and Samson noticed yellowish colored stucco in the background. From what they'd been shown on the original design of the hotel, there was supposed to be an outdoor pool that was surrounded by a tall and strong fence. The design was probably to keep large predators like Jaguars out, should they have come close to the hotel or to Manaus. And the height of the vines seemed to confirm that as they rose nearly twice Samson's height. They moved along and felt until they came closer to building and found a iron gate, though it was too overgrown with vines for either to really see through.
"Guhhh," Samson grunted as he tried to pull and push on the gate, only to find that its hinges rusted in place and the vines helping hold the gate shut, "It's stuck."
"Another thing to be fixed," Abby commented and moved to grab toward the bars below where Samson had his hands.
Together they pulled and between the two of them the locks on the gate were unable to hold and broke. Made both of them stagger back slightly, but it they did manage to recover. Once fully recovered they then made their way into the pool area only to be alerted to another surprise. The pool was green with scum and any chlorine that had been present to keep the pool clean was gone as neither Animalian could smell any chlorine in the air. And at the same time, a practical cloud of mosquitoes and other winged insects rose into the air from the pool and flying off. Thankfully, none of the biting insects bothered them.
"I think there's another thing to be fixed," Samson sighed, which Abby nodded in agreement to.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Inside the old hotel, Simon, Malice, Travis, and Sarah moved together and looked around. They'd found that much of the hotel's interior had been looted, though much of the interior damage was not as bad as was expected. There were pieces of broken glass and dirt that had been tracked into the interior, but the rainforest hadn't really penetrated into building itself. However, as they looked along the lobby area, Travis caught sight of something and moved to take a closer look.
"What is it?" Sarah asked to Travis when she noted Travis moving up toward the front desk.
"Well... if people looted everything... they forgot one thing, it seems," Travis commented as he arrived and brushed some dust off of a large cylinder-like device that was strapped to the wall. As he brushed the dust off, Travis revealed that the device was red in color, "the fire extinguisher..."
The group watched again as Travis took an even closer look.
"...Though it looks like the pressure for it has gone out... I guess a problem of time and not being tested," Travis finished.
"Lucky no animal messed with it," Simon commented, "or maybe they never found it interesting."
"Maybe," Travis shrugged.
While their mates looked over the fire extinguisher, Malice and Sarah moved over to a central area where the elevators were. Sarah pressed the up button, but found no response. There was no "ding" to indicate that the elevator received the electrical command. The button didn't light up either. It reinforced what the'd already expected when they approached the hotel, and that was that its power was gone.
"I wonder how they'll get these working," Malice said slowly, "would they run the wires underground or in the air?"
"Given the power poles that ran out this way along the river," Sarah shrugged, "they'd probably use that, as it was what was originally intended, and from what we could see... they looked to be pretty stable. A lot of money was committed to it. It looked like they were anchored with a cement pylon, which would limit what the water could to it once it's dried..."
"And probably partially why the hotel went under when they couldn't get a massive profit," Malice commented.
Sarah shrugged, "but in the end, that will benefit Animalia and provide for windows to further study the Amazon and its wildlife."
Malice nodded to that.