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Published: December 1st 2008
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We woke up early to catch our flight from Sao Paulo to Manaus, an arduous ordeal to say the least. The flight ran smoothly however and once in Manaus we found our hostel, read, watched a film and bedded down for the night.
Wednesday was again an early start, and we headed to the ferry port, not the airport our taxi driver had misinterpreted, to catch the 2 day boat to Tabbatinga, a small port on the three frontiers between Peru, Brazil and Colombia. Much to our dismay it transpired that the 2 day boat leaves Manaus west only once a week. That day was Tuesday and Manaus was a dive. F***k! Was the word of the hour. So resigning ourselves to the 6 day cargo boat trip we went about packing, grabbed a hammock each from a local steet vendor (we found out we needed a hammock 10 minutes before departure or it would have been the floor for 6 nights) bought 400 cigarettes and a fistful of change and reluctantly jumped aboard. Only the hammock lasted the duration of the trip.
Our contact for tickets was a 4ft tall tribesman by the name of Gilson. He emerged from the bows of what can only be described as the last restaurant on earth that I would eat in and provided us with 5 pristine tickets labelled "executive hammock class" this description was about as deceiving as working out the direction Gilson was looking in at any one point in time, you were never quite sure if he was looking at you or 3 feet to your left. We were transported from the port to our home for 6 nights on a plank of wood with a rudder, all my worldly possessions on board. On arrival we tumbled into the bottom deck of the vessel and admired the hoards of beer and coca cola sitting there. These unfortunately were not for us and we were promptly showed to our cabin.... scrap that actually, our cattle hold. Around 50 people swung from hammocks tied to the pipes above that transported water to, and more scarily, from the bathrooms. In between the hammocks lay all manor of interesting articles, microwaves, sacks of potatoes, corn and the odd toddler. I found my ´position´and asked someone to hang my hammock before getting the hell out of there to the upper deck. The upper deck was the saving grace of the journey. A bar that we had no money for and a pool table which as you can imagine was slightly unconventional for something that has to ride waves. In Seriousness however from the upper deck you could see spectacular views of the forest canopies, the sheer expanse of the muddy brown waters, looming cloud formations and tribes people going about their daily business, cultivating their land, fishing in the river, navigating their rafts downstream and updating themselves with the latest stock market trends. The highlight of each and every day however happened bang on 6 pm when the ferocious Amazonian sun dipped behind the clouds turning them Purple, orange, red and yellow. Each night the spectacle outshone the last creating without doubt the six best sunsets I have ever seen.
Despite this there is still plenty more moaning to be done. The crampt conditions in the stow, the unforgiving unrelenting humidity, the monotony and disgustingness of the food which was generally reheated lunch, not to mention the insects. They seemed to take a shining to my feet which in the evening felt like they were on fire, Doxycycline is my best friend.
Day three in the big brother boat saw an infestation of Jet black beetles the size of small pebbles which littered the decks and sought refuge in the toilets and showers timed almost with precision to the start of a number of rather loose bowel movements which plagued all five of us, they even had to be dodged on the simplest of trips to the ´dining room´ if it could be labelled such a civilised thing. Around 4 toilet stops, 3 Imodium’s, 2 Oral Rehydration tablets and 1 day later the waters receded and the beetles scurried off; it was time for an influx of flys and moths. Sand flies, Mayflies, Dragonflies you name it. At this juncture I was half expecting the Amazon to turn blood red, only the though that I was not a first born let me sleep at night. One more night I told myself, One more night, that’s what they said in Manaus anyway. Two nights later we were told that we would be arriving the following evening, my thoughts now panned to the question were we in purgatory? ´Fortunately no, we were able to jump off at the next stop and transfer onto a speed boat. This was similar to the one we were transferred to the cargo vessel on, only this time it was for 1 hour, at the 3 frontiers, a haven for dolphins and more in my mind crocodiles, FARC rebels and ´exporters of Colombia’s finest´. 12 o’clock at night I found myself sitting at the front of an Amazonian fishing trawler 2 feet wide by about 15 feet long watching dolphins flap out of the water on all sides, parrots flying into the canopy’s above and Amazonian fishermen using spears to catch breakfast all this as we sailed into the eye of an electrical storm, the lightning wasn’t lightning like English Lightning that’s for sure, instead it felt like someone had forgotten to turn the strobe light off. That transfer though was honestly the best moment of my trip so far and despite the hardships and the moaning I was actually quite sad to be leaving.
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