Advertisement
Published: June 23rd 2007
Belem - The Amazon
We had finally made it to the amazon, pictured behind me Belem
About a 12hr overnight bus ride arriving at 7 am we were finally in a big city - around 2 million people. Craziness. Belem is a land of street vendors and entrepreneurism right on the Amazon river. You can see its charm with the old Port still loading like it once did a hundred years earlier and a central market nextdoor with all the fish, meat and fruit / vegetables you desire, interesting smells but you can tell that not much has changed and it has been the same every day. It is chaotic but steeped in character of yester-year. There are numerous museums and a Zoo but in true Brazillian style, the government decided to renovate them all at the same time and close the lot to allow the tourist dollar to flourish!
One thing they did get right is the regentrification of the old docks - it appears that they have sunk millions in here gutting the old warehouses and replacing them with resturants (fine dining), ice cream vendors and you can have a beer in the mirco brewery inside (photo).
I also recommend having an ferrero roche ice cream - it was the best
Beer at the brewery
Me having a beer on the docks of the Amazon I´ve had, ever. The Fremantle Council should get over here for a free lesson in utilising public space - what the brazilians could do with the E shed markets and the old passenger terminal. It truely is a great place.
Our accommodation was also the cheapest by far $25 Reals which is about $15 AUD for 2 at the Palace hotel. Lisa only saw one massive rat but for me ignorance is bliss!
Finding the right boat
We had a few days to kill - to shop for hammocks, get provisions and buy tickets. A few days earlier we had gone down to the wharf to scope out prices and the usual suspects were picking off the tourists in an attempt to make a quick buck, sprouting 190-400 reals for aircon / hammock class / cabins and pocketing the difference. we found an office in town and got aircon hammock class (aircon doesn´t cost more) just get hammock class - you´ll see why in the Amazon river blog. Well we got tickets on the Santerem - the Queen Mary 2 of the Amazon - for $160 Reals or $100 AUD for five days including meals - that
Belem Markets
The massive outdoor area of the markets we could afford.
We arrived early or so we thought (the boat was 1/2 full) at around 1pm - 5hrs early to get a good spot. As the hours passed we realised that we hadn´t really planned our food situation too well prior to departure and assumed that we would get dinner the first night. What do they say about assumption?? Anyway with that knowledge I set off outside the shipyard in search of a snack bar. What I found was something that looked like Bangladesh with shanty houses on stilts everywhere. I felt I shouldn´t be here so I didn´t get too far in, bought something edible and make my way back to safety.
The hours went by and I had watched the loading process for hours now and it was 8:30 and they were still going. I had some improvement strategies but it would have fallen on deaf ears, this was the way it is done and it wasn´t changing, not today.
By about 9pm, three hours late, the bow and stern ropes were release and we were of down the widest river in the world.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0455s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
