Slow Boat out of the Amazon

If you look at the map above, you can see the city of Manaus in the centre. If you follow the yellow line north-west – that is the River Negro – and follow it until it crosses into the white section , the point where it becomes white is the border of Brazil / Colombia and Peru too. This is the exact route that our slow boat took. Having survived the one night hammock ferry back in Belem, and given the option to upgrade to a cabin for a reasonable fee – I decided to share a cabin. This meant that instead of six nights in a hammock sharing a couple of toilets with the rest of the boat, I got a bed and an en-suite toilet. I didn’t get a whole bed, I had to share a double with another girl from the trip but we even got intermittent air con, so the tin walls and roof of our cabin didn’t completely suffocate us with heat and humidity when the 40 degree sun was pounding straight onto our roof during the day!

If you look at the picture of the boat, you can see two people waving from the top deck. These are a couple of my fellow truckers and they are standing outside one of out truck cabins. My cabin was behind to the left but it did mean that we had almost a private front deck where we could watch the world go by. The second picture shows one of the hammock decks – there were two. The denim blue hammock with red stripe in the foreground is mine because although I slept in the cabin, it was nice to go and relax in the hammock from time to time
Time seemed to move at a different pace while on the boat. Days drifted into one another, and we soon lost all realisation as to what day or even what time of day it was! The boat zig-zagged its way across the river, so we were always hugging one bank – this enabled us to hear the abundance of wildlife (especially the birds) but we very rarely spotted any. People did cry out in amazement every so often that they had seen a pink river dolphin but by the time I looked they had always disappeared. I thought I was destined never to see one, but a couple of days in, there was a dolphin that swam by the side of the boat for a while. I was over the moon to watch it gracefully alongside us. I didn’t manage to get a photo (I did try) but I was able to follow him for a while. They keep surfacing and then disappearing quickly making them harder to spot then other dolphins.
At the beginning of the journey, we crossed the spot where two of the mighty Amazonian rivers meet. The Rio Solimoes and Rio Negro are different colours due to the sediment of the river beds and how the rains wash the mud into them. As we crossed the convergence point it was clear to see the different rivers meeting. At certain times of the year, the effect is more stunning as one river water is bright clear blue.

The boat occasionally moored up at little towns to drop off passengers and cargo. However, we never got to know how long we had at each destination. I decided to go for a walk in one place. I was off the boat for just 10 minutes when I heard the 3 horns of the boat. Last time, this meant people had 15 minutes to get back. I turned around quickly and walked back very briskly – I was only a two minute walk away after all but by the time i got to the boat, it had begun to pull away. I had to do a little jump to get back on. Apparently I did it with grace and no look of stress on my face. However, there were some passengers that were much further away and were running back with all their speed. Passengers were shouting at the captain telling him to wait as we watched some blokes having to do big jumps to get back on board. It was quite amusing- especially after I was safely on board! Another stop was much longer lasting. We pulled up at a port that had a bar half in the water’s edge and half on shore. A lot of the passengers spent a couple of hours in that bar! The locals found it very entertaining and offered us olives and shots of home-brew moonshine vodka.
During the days, we occupied ourselves by watching the scenery go by, playing cards and dominoes and on one day watching three Jurassic Park movies. The evenings were spent having a drink or two and watching the sun go down. The sunsets were spectacular and then we got to see the stars with no light pollution. These views are something I will never forget.

Heart of the Amazon

After surviving the roads that led us out of Guyana, we crossed over the border and found ourselves back in Brazil. From here, it was a relatively short journey on tarmac roads that led us into Manaus. Lots of people have heard about the city of Manaus – it is built on the banks of the Amazon – it was the centre of the rubber boom, one hundred years ago but it is most famous for its theatre – built slap bang in the middle of the jungle but still able to attract world class acts in its heyday. There is often opera or ballet being shown and you can go for theatre tours. When we were there however, they were showing something far better. It was The Lion King.
We put on our glad rags and went to watch a Brazilian version of the show. Most songs were in Portuguese but occasionally they sang in English! Those songs must have been too much trouble to translate. From our boxes in the gods, we were able to see the spectacular ceiling close up. I really enjoyed the show but even better was to come. Afterwards all the cast came into the foyer to meet the audience and take photos with them. They should do this in England!
It was carnival time whilst we were in Manaus and we did all go to a few bloc parties – these are street parties with stages set up and different performers performing. You have to pay entrance fees to get into all these areas. One night the entire group got partied up – ie we were completely covered in glitter, grass skirts, wings, carnival masks etc. Unfortunately we missed the parade floats at the sambadrone (that was on a different night) but we did all dance to extremely loud Brazilian music.
It was in Manaus that we hit the logistical problem. Originally our truck trip was to go through Venezuela. It was clear over a year ago that the truck would not be able to enter due to the civil unrest that has devastated the country. That left the problem of how to get from Guyana or Amazonion Brazil into Colombia. The only solution was to separate from the truck. The passengers would take a boat up the Amazon from Manaus to the Colombian border and then fly up to Cartagena. Unfortunately the truck could not do the same route as us as quite simply there are no roads out of Manuas (only rivers) and if they truck did make it to the same Colombian border we were heading too, then it would get stuck there too because there are no main roads for 800km around the border town of Leticia. In this part of the world it is all waterways. The only solution was for Bob and driver Paul to take a cargo ferry down river, practically to Cusco in Peru. He would then have to drive all the way through Peru, Ecuador and Colombia and hopefully meet up with us in Cartagena. Oh yes and cargo ferries go even slower than passenger boats. The cargo boat was going to take 10 days and the entire journey was going to be at least 21 days. So on the 2nd March, Paul drove off to board his ferry and left us all wondering if we would ever see him or Bob again!