Boat Down the Amazon

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Day 1 (Wednesday) - I am dripping with sweat as I enter and am feeling late as there are already hundreds of hammocks about. I entered on the second class deck, so my only hope is that the first class deck (not much of a difference, primarily proximity to the engines as the first class level is above the second class) is not as full or that Dong Hwan has secured me a place. I try to make my way up to the next level but I am informed that I need to sign the register and there is a huge line to do so. Dripping with sweat, surrounded by hammocks and bags, I wait in line with my two backpacks and four bags of groceries. I have now discovered the third ring of hell, the traveler ring; it is incredibly hot as one would expect and involves looking after six bags in a cramped space while people are stringing hammocks all around you, kids are fighting on your legs and others are trying to cut in front of you. Fortunately, I had a natural sweat defense mechanism to ward off lurking cutters. And even more fortunately, when I made it halfway through the line that took several hours, Dong Hwan came to check on me and took my hammock to go claim a spot for me. This was a relief. I did finally, make it to the front of the line (if this trip has taught me anything thus far, it is patience) and gave my information. Dong Hwan helped me get my stuff up to our level and escorted me to our hammocks. We were in the thick of the hammocks, right in the middle of the boat. The good news was that if it rained, we were the safest. The bad news was that we would get no breeze, as we were surrounded by hundreds of little human generators. Our level was supposed to hold three hundred, which would be snug but I believe there were more like 500 in an area that was maybe 80ft by 30ft. Hammocks are strung on top of others, across others and everywhere inbetween. For anyone thinking of traveling, the best place to be in my opinion would be the front middle, where there is one small air conditioning but you are safe from the elements. We chained our bags to the pole that was next to me, which made me feel more secure, then got in our hammocks to protect our spots. Dong Hwan and I were next to each other, which was a relief. Within an hour, I decided to get off my hammock to get a banana and when I did the webbing holding up my hammock on the side of my feet ripped off. I instantly became the center of attention. Lets see what the gringo does. I tried stringingup my hammock with excess rope, which didn't work. Afterwards, a woman offered to sell me an excess hammock for a high but not too high price. I said that I was going to try stringing up my hammock with rope first (I would regret this later). A man close by was very helpful and helped me tie up my hammock. the problem was, this left my hammock a little shorter, which would mean I would have to sleep with my legs bent. Not too big of a deal. On this boat trip, the most important time to watch one's stuff is when the boat is stopped, so when the boat was finally moving, Dong Hwan and I went up to the top deck, got a drink and a grilled ham and cheese sandwhich from the concession area. We stayed up there enjoying the view, including the combining of the Rio Negro and the Amazon (which do not mix for miles so you have a brown and a black stream flowing in the same large river) and an amazing sunset and talking till about 9. When some guys started taking pictures of us with their phones pretending to be using them for other purposes we decided to go back to our hammocks before everyone was asleep and it was impossible to get to the middle. On the deck it was rather cool, with the night air but in my hammock it was hot. To make matters worse, there was one guy two hammocks down from me that had an incredibly annoying and loud laugh and a family that all seemed to have the same chesty cough. And for some reason, the boat turns a lot of lights on at night and one happened to be pretty close to us. I put my sunglasses on but coupled with the heat and all the coughing, I couldn't fall asleep till about 4 that morning.

Day 2 (Thursday) - I woke up about 8 because I could no longer sleep through all the commotion. An interesting thing about the boat, is that there is no concern for others. When one is up, they will talk laugh, sing, etc., irregardless of the time. I awoke to find that my new Kodak camera was broken after maybe 10 days. Fortunately, I had gotten a couple of pics the night before and Dong Hwan said he would send me his. I was thinking about taking a shower but the showers and all the water came straight from the river. Seeing all the junk and waste that was thrown in the river didn't exactly bode confidence for its hygenic potential. I decided I would take one shower in the middle and maybe one at the end. By the time I made it upstairs, I found that I had become the proud recipient of the cold of the family next to me. It came with the chesty cough that I had previously noticed and a runny nose as a bonus. As I made it up the stairs, I saw Marta, the girl from the journey from Caracas to Manaus. We talked a bit then I introduced her to Dong Hwan and the three of us chatted for about an hour. After Marta left to join Andre downstairs, Dong Hwan and I met some nice 18 and 19 year olds who took a special interest in me. They enjoyed asking me questions with my Brazilian Portugese phrase book. It was fun for a little while then the girl asked me to dance, which I accepted. We only danced once as it was hot and we were dancing in the sun. Afterwards, Dong Hwan and I decided to sit on the deck in the plastic chairs for a while. After about an hour, Dong Hwan left for the restroom. It seemed like he was gone a long while when one of the other passengers came and found me. He motioned for me to follow (one of the nice things about standing out is that everyone recognized Dong Hwan and I so others knew who to find if something was wrong). When I turned the corner, there was Dong Hwan passed out under a table. I thanked the other passenger and picked up Dong Hwan. Apparently, he had over heated, so I sat him up, got him a cold beverage to press against his head then walked him down to his hammock. I spent most of the rest of the day with the 18 year old guy and girl from earlier. They were nice but I got tired of playing the translation game after a few hours so I had to hide from them a couple times just to get a break. The boat came to a port in the mid afternoon, so I went down to make sure my stuff was ok. I got in my hammock and as if I was the lead in a slapstick comedy, sure enough the other side of my hammock ripped off. DON'T BUY A USED HAMMOCK FOR A 4 DAY TOUR DOWN THE AMAZON!!! And more than likely, if you are a caucasion or black male of larger size than most South Americans, I would venture to say that it would be smart to buy a hammock with Nylon threads for the webbing. So with the little excess rope I had, I tied the head of my hammock to the rafter. This did two things, it made my hammock even shorter, so now I basically had a glorified horizontal seat and it made it so high that I had to do a full pull-up to get in there. The latter ordinarily wouldn't have bothered me, however I was sick and not eating as a result, which meant that getting up there used some of my precious little energy. When the boat started moving again, I went out to the deck. Dong Hwan and I were both considering sleeping in the plastic chairs on our level in the front of the boat that night but when it came time for bed, we were entering a port and it was starting to sprinkle. The plan to sleep outside was aborted and we headed back into our hammocks. I was tired enough to fall asleep after awhile

Day 3 (Friday) - I awoke at 2:30am when we entered the port of Santarem, the main port inbetween Manaus and Belem. It was loud and I noticed it had rained significantly. Fortunately, Dong Hwan had already been aware of the rain and propped our stuff up on life jackets because water and muck got everywhere on the floor. Just then a Brasilian police officer came by my hammock and told Dong Hwan and I to follow him. We got off the boat onto the dock, where we were once again the center of attention. He looked at our passports and then let us go back on the boat. I didn't understand why we had to leave the boat and our bags unattended if he was just going to look at our passports but oh well. When I got back I put the plastic tarp under our stuff. While I was doing this, I didn't realize someone was stringing a hammock right next to mine. When I got back on mine, I thought it was a little close but I figured he knew more than I did. Maybe he did know but it was obvious he didn't care but we were touching each other and he had the better end of the deal. His legs and feet were resting against my head. Not only that but he kept shifting his legs and when he did he would kick me in the head. I was not happy. This went on for nearly 3 hours. I couldn't shift my hammock as I was worried about its integrity and I had someone close on the otherside as well as a pole. And I didn't want to get out of my hammock and give him the satisfaction when he was the one who put me in the situation. Finally at 6am I got a particularly strong kick in the head and had had enough. So with as much force as I could, I gave him a full body check with particular emphasis from my elbow in his legs. He stopped shifting and soon I got up to use the bathroom. The bathroom was the nastiest place I had ever seen. Toilets were unflushed and accuracy wasn't a virtue. When the rains came, the water washed a lot of the waste all over the floor and even into the showers (not to mention that the Brasilians used the shower as a urinal). I had been planning on using the shower but now felt my cleanliness would go in the wrong direction. That morning, I saw Rafael and Pablo (met in Manaus) and they had taken a boat to Santarem, where they then boarded the Amazon Star. Rafael got a stomach virus, which many people on the boat had. At this point, I was thankful just to have gotten the head cold, which was still hanging around but keeping me out of the nightmarish toilets. When e left at 9 there were even more people on the boat than the previous day, which was hard to believe. These boats must make incredible money. Fortunately, when I got back to my hammock, my extra person was gone, apparently the elbow had done the trick. For the most part I find South Americans prey on the politeness of Americans and Europeans but when you give them a flash of I'm not going to take it, they back down pretty quick. It rained a little bit during the day but the evening was nice and I spent the majority of the time at the little deck on our level in the front. I was fortunate to get one of the plastic chairs and sat our there enjoying the breeze.To keep myself busy, I did mental calculations of upside, downside and middle of the road boat profitablity scenarios and even in the downside it is a cash cow. I also read a lot and finished my only book. I didn't eat anything that day as a result of my cold and I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. So when the boat pulled into port at 9 and I went to protect my stuff, I fell asleep pretty quickly, small hammock and all.

Day 4 (Saturday) - "You have to be freaking kidding me," I thought to myself as the boat pulled into another port at 2am and yet more people boarded. That was two days up at 2:30 in a row now. And the day before, we had pulled into a port at 3:30 but I had been tired enough to go to sleep. This morning I did not fare so well as there was a bunch of commotion around. Yet more people crammed into this boat. A family of five managed to triple stack themselves in a tiny slot three hammocks away from me (so 3 feet away). When the boat pulled out of port, I took my little fleece blanket out to a lonely chair on the deck at the front of my level. The waterways started to narrow a bit as we passed an island in the mouth of the river that is bigger than Switzerland (amazing).I was out there from about 3:30am till about 6am. Afterwards, I went in and talked to Dong Hwan for a while and then read a little out of my lonely planet. I was feeling a little better, so I decided to eat some food. I split the rest of the crackers I had with Dong Hwan. We decided to go back outside, which was packed. While out there, we ran into Rafael, who was feeling a little better than before, though still a little weak. When we were out there, so claimed indigenous folks would row a canoe up to the boat. Folks purposely brought clothes and food in plastic bags to give to them. The first wave was maybe 5 boats at which point I thought it was interesting, but over the day, there were likely between 300 and 500 boats (many of the kids having blonde hair, indigenous hmmmm). It made me feel bad that these people had given up much of their lives and had become reliant on handouts. Though there were some that would hook themselves on to the boat in a whirling/smashing action that was interesting to watch to sell shrimp and coffee. It was incredibly cheap, a large bag (about the size of the bags Americans are used to) was 3 Reals or $1.30. Rafael, Dong Hwan and I watched and talked till it started to rain at around 2. The rain was manageable for the first hour or so but then started to get a little harder. We went back to our hammocks and I tried a stab at napping, which was in and out as a result of the commotion around me. Finally, we were able to go back out at around 6. While out there, I met a British guy named Richard who had been teaching English to Adults in Argentina for the last two years but was doing a short tour around South America before heading home to England. We talked about 30 minutes but then we pulled back into another port, at which point I went back to check on my stuff. That evening after a short successful night, Dong Hwan and I went up to the main deck after witnessing the most beautiful sunset of my life on the bottom deck. Once up on the top deck, Dong Hwan and I went to the back of the boat and were talking while watching the wake. Within a few minutes, I felt someone rubbing my back. I turned around and saw this little girl with braces giving me the googly eyes. I thought she and her friend were 16 but very cute girls for 16. I asked how old they were and found out that they were in 19 and coming home from college for the summer (Southern Hemisphere). They didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Portugese so I thought the conversation was over but no, Dong Hwan translated that the one with braces thought I was "cute" and wanted to dance with me. I felt old but who am I to turn down a dance? But just then this guy walks up and gives me a dirty look and starts getting very close to the girl with braces. It starts feeling awkward but just then an older gentleman approaches me in a drunk stupor. He thinks he can talk English to me but ends up speaking a blend of 90% Portugese with 5% English and 5% Spanish. He calls over his daughter to speak English with me but all she knows is "Hello, my name is..." But he has her say that probably 5 times until she runs off. By this point, the girls and guy have left but have been replaced by Richard and his friend James. I talk to them for a good while before the friend of the girl from before comes back and asks me to dance with her. My problem is that I have no idea what type of song goes with what beat, unless I see someone else doing it and there was no one else. I took a shot and failed miserably. She gave up on me rather quickly then I went back to the three English speakers. After another while, the girl with the braces walks up and asks me to dance. This time I got it right. Everyone was quite impressed and I was relieved to have my reputation on the boat in tact. After all, who knows when I will need over 1000 references for my boat dancing abilities. We go back and start talking in a group with Dong Hwan helping to translate. She asked how long I was spending in Belem and when I said, I wasn't, she gave up on the love connection. Soon thereafter, my group of English speakers decided to go to bed. I fell asleep a little after 10, expecting to wake up around 5 or 6. There are various stories on when the boats arrive. I was told Saturday evening on the dock in Manaus, as was Dong Hwan but everyone else seemed to believe it was Sunday. Finally, we got it nailed down to around 6 or 7 in the morning.

Day 5 (Sunday) - Third time is a charm. The lights kick on at 2:30am and everyone starts getting ready. I think we are getting there early but go to look and I don't see any port. Finally around 4:30 one becomes visible but we pass it by. We don't actually get to Belem until 8:15. I don't understand why they woke us a full 6 hours before getting there but I have an intense joy from throwing away my hammock that overrides all other emotions. I was not sure what time the bus was, so I wanted to get off the boat early, therefore Dong Hwan and I got our stuff ready and put it in a central location so we could get to the right exit when we knew what it was. Fortunately, we did not make the mistake others made, which was judging it by what it looked like. Instead we followed the crew. There were already lots at the exit where others had guessed but we were fortunate enough to have a good route behind the crew. The boat docked and they put a wooden plank across (no handrails, maybe two feet wide). Dong Hwan made it across but as I was on the plank ready to go, the boat workers held me back to readjust the plank. This took a little while then they let workers off. THen I was back up on the plank and for some reason they still wouldn't let me off. The issue was that the people behind me did not seem to care and were pushing me. I am glad they were small and I was relatively big because I was able to push against the railing of the boat to counter their force. Otherwise, I would am not sure what a person would have done, because there would have been no where to go aside from tumbling off the boat. It was wild. Finally, the workers let me go and before walking across, I glared at those behind and to the side of me, which made them stop pushing. I didn't want to be mean but I also didn't want to have 5 hands pushing me from different directions as I tried to cross a thin plank carrying heavy bags. And I was off...WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!

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Photos

Hammock Jungle
This was only about half as it was at the beginning but my camera broke. I will hopefully get more pics from Dong Hwan later.

Fire in the Sky
First night's sunset.