Amazon Adventure Part 1
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2004
1
17
88
Trip End
Feb 01, 2005
Amazon River,
Brazil
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Being so excited, I boarded 6 hours before departure to find that my hammock had been moved forward and was now squashed in amongst a heap of others. I had an Argentinian cum Israeli, Shonny, on one side and Timo on the other. There were families around us and it was a nicer part than a bit further back where there were lots of older Brazilian men.
As departure neared I was astounded to see how many more hammocks were strung up, creating two rows down each side of the boat. It became a bit of a laugh and I joked about it with the other gringos on the boat.
Moving away from the Belém docks I watched the city lights disappear behind a curtain of rain and tried to smother a huge smile of satisfaction at being on the boat
01 My Boat
. I went upstairs where there was a bar and sat around with Trudy and Kylie (some Aussie girls I met in Jericoacoara) and the other guys and started introducing myself to all the other gringos on the boat. There was a whole group of them on a 6 month overland tour of South America and it was interesting to hear about their experiences. Most of them had left and rejoined at some point, and hearing about it made me glad that I´m going it alone. I couldn´t bear to be stuck with the same people for 6 months and stuck to a set itinerary.
Hemmed in a hammock
My first night in a hammock was interesting. I was glad that I bought a pillow in Belém as it came in handy in finding a comfy spot for my head while bent like a banana. I finally fell asleep, although waking up a few times during the night and settling back down. As there was so little space I was resting against Timo and Shonny and was glad that my hammock was strung up high as they were a bit lower than me and I didn´t have their feet in my face!
The other nights improved although finding your way to your hammock late at night is quite a hilarious task
02 Canoe
. First you have to calculate how many people are in each possible route and the fewest number of disturbances you make. If there was someone else also out of bed it was a good thing, but I resorted to sliding like a snake under about 4 people and once even between a hammock and a bag before gingerly stepping in my hammock, trying not to swing and turn the whole row into one of the desk toys with the swinging balls on them.One night I had my first ever ´going to the toilet´ dream and woke up just in time to avoid the most embarrassing situation of wetting my hammock. I think that being so penned in played with my mind in thinking it impossible to get out of my hammock. Anyway, that was something that could have gone extremely wrong!
Bored? No way!
The 2 1/2 days just slipped by with reading my book, hanging out with other gringos, acting as a role model to two Brazilian girls, Juana (12) and Luiani (11) who loved to follow Kylie, Trudy and I around the boat. They even brought out their school book that was supposedly teaching them Spanish and English - although to me the English seemed quite hard. A beginner doesn´t need to know that the plural of knife is knives do they?
We were surprisingly close to the bank and could watch the jungle and pastures go by
03 My Girls!
. Indigenous kids would row canoes out to the boat (they looked about 5 but were probably about 10 or 11) to collect fruit that people on the boat would throw to them. Some daring devils latched onto the boat and tied up, as we were continuing and at one stage there was a whole gang of kids on the boat fighting and trying to sell produce to the passengers. They spotted a boat going downstream and soon cast off to catch a ride back home.I was sad to get off at Santarém as there were so many cool people on the boat and I was in the swing of boat life, but I arranged to meet up with Trudy and Kylie to get the boat from Manaus to Tabatinga at the triple frontier together.
What I learned
* Gringos are extremely fascintating to other passengers
* Brazilians like to stare and don´t mind being caught
* Get a hammock with a fringe to help wrap yourself up in a cocoon and double as a blanket
* If you are in the second meal sitting you get longer to linger over dinner without having to wolf it down like a tiger
