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Published: August 20th 2006
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Bright skies
just before leaving Manaus Hi again,
Am desperately trying to update this (as usual) before I forget all the little bits. But d´habbitude am so bored of it that I´ll not bother with all the main bits. oops wasn´t supposed to admit that..
Anyway in Manaus I got on a very different boat to go to Belem. This time instead of having 8 passengers we were between 250 and 300- incredible. Of the 4 nights I slept there I only slept in the same hammock space twice. One of those times I was woken at 4am cos I was sleeping above the cargo hold and we´d docked somewhere and I had to get up so they could unload rice and sugar. Meal-times were a crazy affair, lunchtime lasted for about 3 hours with the supervisor woman screaming at people to hurry up and leave the bench spaces for the next lot.
I met some really nice people on the boat, Romulo and his mates from Parentins, Marina from Neuquen, Jesus from Zaragoza, Weirdy little Denny James from God-knows-where, Vanessa from Fortaleza and of course sweet little Haisel from somewhere in Para. Mostly speaking Spanish though so didn´t improve much Portuguese at all. Romulo and
Leaving Manaus
Did it get worse? Denny James gave me some verbs and stuff which was good. Must try to put on photys now...
Ok now have put on massive amounts of photys so am all relaxed. Though now it´s um 20th August and am running late on this as usual. Yes where was I? Boat trip. WaS greaat. Like tony the tiger. Um yeah this one time we were going down part of the river, and all wee Amazonian houses close by and little kayaks bobbing about in the water with kids waving their arms up and down as if they were handicapped. I asked someone if they were and he said no, they were gesticulating thus for us to throw them plastic bags of clothes and stuff. Some fearless boys had kayaked into our path and kind of harpooned their kayaks onto the fenders of our boat and hauled themselves up. Really dangerous, my photos don´t do their act justice but BELIEVE ME it was awful to watch. Wee kayaks almost going under our boat. EEEK anyway all was fine, they were all very macho and scoffed at my shock of their brave feats- but made me buy bananas and salted river prawns.
Sunset
Gorgeous!! I refused to buy any nasty Açai drink stuff. Repulsive fruit which grows on some sort of palm tree. Brasilians eat it with yoghurt and muesli-type grains. Rancid!!
The differences between rural amazona and Belem are incredible. One minute we were photographing dramatic jungle (but my stupid camera of course didn´t get that part), the next minute (well about 30mins later) we´re looking at skyscrapers in Belem. Oh the madness. I prefer the jungle part myself, apart from skanky mosquitoes.
Okely dokely so anyhoo we docked in Belem and then we bumbled around looking for a hotel. The next morning Jesus from Zaragoza and I made our way to Algodoal, an island 180kms north of Belem, where the river meets the sea, a beautiful island with white sandy beaches, poisoned dead fish, horse-drawn carts, no motors at all (apart from the boats), lovely locals (who all fancied me!), and no red wine- just sangria! Well we had an idyllic 3 days there and then Jesus and I really had enough and started bickering a bit and got really bored! It was far too hot to do anything from about 9am-4pm, and on the 3rd day we´d hiked across
Parentins people
Ana Cristina, Romulo, Claudia the island to a village called um Fortalezinha which wasn´t all it was cracked up to be (more dead fish, poisonous jelly fish, twig-ridden white beaches etc maybe the jelly fish poisoned the fish...). Anyway poor Jesus got really sick and the walk back in the intense heat was a killer. Luckily the lovely Fabricio in the local bar came to the rescue and made him some throat medicine with honey, lemon and lots of crushed garlic. Lost yet another pair of sunglasses.
That´s about it. We came back on 6th August and I went pretty much straight to the airport in Belem and got a flight to Brasilia where Henrique´s cousin drove me round that incredible city, which I didn´t like at all, until it was time to put me on a bus to Joao Pinheiro which is where I am now. talk to ya
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Adrian Bollard
Pheww..
Great to see Jesus is alive and well