Brazil Continues: Into the Amazon

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Heading on down to the docks in Belem, we spent an appreciable amount of time hanging around amidst the constant smell of bananas, (although not as long as the guys who had gone down in the morning to try, with no avail, to save us all hammock spaces) before eventually boarding the ship that would be our home for the next 5-6 days. Already bustling, the rush was to find good hammock locations as there is precious little available room. As things were, we managed to group all of ours together at the end of the area, although in a somewhat cosy manner. Staying up top on the ferry, we set into a few beers and I had my leftover Pizza Hut pizza (well we needed to bring food for the first night - what else was I to do?!) as we eventually left the port. Eventually we retired for a very cramped and fairly uncofortable night's sleep, sandwiched as I was between Doug and Heather in our hammocks (one person moves, so do the other two).

Hustled out of bed by our fearsome dinner lady with a large bell at some silly hour, breakfast was pretty foul, consisting of a sweet roll, very claggy margarine and sweet white coffee. However, ferry time is a strange thing and by 10.30 we had been called to lunch, a much more favourable mixture of meat, beans, rice, spaghetti and manioc flour. Over the next few days we became very well aquainted with this combination, as every meal was a variant thereof, sometimes with more meat, sometimes with a stewy base, sometimes chicken but nearly always the same ingredients! Unfortunately this was cooked in river water, a lovely dark brown colour, that soon seemed to take its toll on the innards of nearly everyone on board. Sadly the river water did not appear to be as well used in the toilets, that with minimal flushing power soon resembled those at music festivals, a veritable medley of glorious stomach pyrotechnics.

Toilet shenanigans aside (thankfully my stomach held up for the duration, so I avoided them as much as possible), our ferry days varied between lolling in hammocks (favoured by the ever increasing sick contingent in our group), sitting above deck playing cards, drinking, watching films, befriending some locals and fellow travellers (one looking somewhat like Jesus, one like Peter Jackson and another sporting a cracking spider bite) and spotting the river wildlife. The prehistoric looking pink river dolphins are much less evolved than their oceanic counterparts, with a nearly nonexistent dorsal fin, bigger humpback and a much shorter nose, looking altoghether less hydrodynamic. Nontheless they are still playful and we were lucky enough to see them doing the occasional bit of acrobatics early in the morning. The other main river wildlife was the plethora of kids from communities living along the banks of the Amazon, who would row up to the boat in canoes, try and attach themselves with ropes to the boat (with varying degrees of success - some were capsized by the bow waves!) and then either come on board to sell their wares (at the base end of pointless tat for the most part) or just hitch a ride up river against the current.

Above deck was where I spent most of my time, finding the hammock confines rather like an infirmary with the growing number of sickies. With only a tiny area of shade next to the bar, we had the choice of being deafened by the same 20 tunes played at ear splitting volume by the barman, a youth utterly devoid of personality, or melting under the unrelenting Amazonian sun before getting drenched by the odd (welcome) downpour. Gripes aside however, the bar did do very good toasted sandwiches and cold beer, so we were kept happy for our many hours of card sharking, interspersed with the odd game of chess. With such confined surrounds, the local kids on board were somewhat restless, and one of them developed a habit of borrowing people's cameras to take no end of portraits of all on board, providing some of us with excellent snaps of locals, us and general moment captures that would otherwise have gone undoccumented.

This also proved handy at night, where Jenni, Andy and I in particular were dancing for as long as the tunes were playing, regardless of the odd bit of rain, throwing shapes to phat 80s dance beats along with hip shimmying and booty shaking to samba, b-funk and reggaeton. In most un-Brazilian style many of the locals on board seemed rather shy and kept away from the dance floor, being as many of them were highly religions. There were however some exceptions, such as Jenni's fave dance partner, possibly the campest guy in Brazil (no mean feat having seen some of the "ladies" in Rio!) and a 14-yr old kid who moved with the grace of Michael Jackson and a panther combined and who taught us dance moves like they were going out of fashion! This, coupled with a cracking night of partying to celebrate Kaz's birthday where most of our crew at last ventured upstairs, ensured sleep was most forthcoming when the hammocks were actually occupied, some with occasionally more than one occupant....

Having enjoyed only one brief morning on land since leaving Belem (random stop at a busy port for the boat to stock up on food, and a chance for us to get some GOOD food), everyone was very happy when, after 5 nights we arrived at the meeting of the waters, the convergence of brown (slow moving, nutrient rich, not very people friendly) and black (fast moving, swimmable, clear) rivers, signalling the entry to Manaus and time to hit dry land again. Already dark upon arrival, we had little more time than to offload bags and enjoying flushing toilets before hurrying out for some excellent Italian food. All rather weary, ill or both, and with an early start beckoning, the meal was a fairly speedy process and a welcome night's sleep in bed with air con was enjoyed by most (there was a bit of Russian Roulette with the hotel rooms - some excellent, some rather poor).

The following morning, having slept through my alarm, Doug and I woke with ten minutes to spare before leaving for our Amazon excursion. A speedy bag pack later, we were downstairs and ready to rock, taking a lengthy (and freexing - air con set on max!) bus ride out to our point of departure, 3 hours outside Manaus with our guide Antonio. After another hour on motorised canoes we arrived at our base for the next few days, a jungle camp on a tributary of the Rio Negro with better facilities than expected (good shelters, flushing toilets, showers) and a fantastic commanding position overlooking the waterlogged jungle. After a spot of delicious lunch (proper mash - everyone was very excited by this!), several of us went out in the heavy drizzle for a spot of piranha fishing (these are one of the the less aggressive varieties), most of us catching a handful (although Doug was a classic with his "I've got one, yeah motherf**ker!" at which point he pulled a sardine out of the water, a tiddler at that, that promptly jumped off his hook and back into the water!) and returning to camp with our spoils. These were later cooked up for all, and are highly tasty (you bite into them like a burger then pull back to prevent eating bones). That evening several canoes headed out into the seemingly neverending sunset (still ambient light at 10pm) before veering off into darkened rivulets in search of wildlife. After some quiet searching, our eagle eyed guide Francesco dived out of the boat into the shallows and emerged holding a caiman (a member of the crocodilian family), which those of us who wished were able to then hold. Feeling rather pleased we motored back to camp, pausing on the way to watch a bat snake nigh in the trees waiting for its prey to descend on the fruit on the neighbouring branch. Worn out, we gulped down some delicious lemon grass tea, designed to help everyone with dodgy stomachs (virtually all of us by this point) and retired to our hammocks (sadly mine was a little damp from the earlier boat journey so it was a very chilly night!).

Refreshed and rejuvinated the following morning, we wolfed down some breakfast before being divided into two groups to depart on our excursions into the jungle proper. Thankfully I was in the smaller group, so there were only 9 of us; Damo, Kaz, Keith, Anna, Jenni, Heather, Matt, Sonya and myself along with our guide Chris and two other guides. A quick canoe trip over the river, we traipsed through a local family's farm for a few minutes before reaching the outskirts of the jungle proper. For all of us this was our first time in primary jungle, with much denser undergrowth, even though the guides had hewn out a rudimentary path beforehand. En route to camp, we encountered many mosquitoes (very persistent, even with repellent on), a couple of tarantulas, the massive and very aggressive black ants (6 bites can be lethal to humans) and a giant beetle (covered the palm of my hand). Chris also demonstrated how to keep the mozzies at bay, burning the resin from a certain tree, provided natural anti malaria remedy (quinine bark), repaired Heather's bag with palm leaves and showed us how to make blowpipes.

Upon arrival at camp several hours later, we were pleased to see that it had already been erected in part, with a one sided shelter made from intertwined palm leaves. We hung our hammocks around the camp and then set to making our own spoons with which to eat lunch, using only a bit of wood and a machete. Only one mildly bloodied finger later I sported something that vaguely resembled a spoon (was never that hard in woodwork at school!), and we ate from plates made of yet more leaves. While we relaxed in the hammocks for the afternoon dealing with the aftershocks of the Amazon boat food, a few of the guys went deeper into the jungle, before coming back for a dip in the nearby crystal clear spring. Over dinner, Chris gave us some natural medicine to help settle stomachs and told us stories of meeting jaguar in the jungle (6 in ten days with what is normally a very elusive animal!), close encounters with them (his father was eaten by one, he has had one try to attack him and had to shoot another one for the same reason), which set the scene nicely for going to sleep surrounded by the sounds of the jungle. Rain threatened, and did actually start a couple of times, which would have led to a very wet night for those of us not under cover, so we had to down hammocks and move into the shelter until it passed. Eventually, even with continuing rain, we were able to put the hammocks back up and get a good nights' sleep (the trees did their umbrella job very well), although being on the edge of the camp I had visions of staring into the darkness to be confronted by a couple of feline eyes!

After breakfast, the girls made some crowns of leaves before we packed up our stuff and headed back towards the river. En route we were shown how to get water from vines, and which vines to look for (should have red rings in the middle otherwise it's poisonous!) and how to make our own mozzie repellent (put your hand on an ants' nest, they swarm up your arm in their thousands, you then squash them with your other hand and rub them into your skin - hey presto, and very effective it is too!). Eventually we arrived back at the river and boated back across to the jungle lodge in time for lunch. Being back before the first group, we had the opportunity to head back on out and navigate through the "floating forests", which three of us did in two canoes with a guide per boat. Just before heading out the heavens opened, but we persevered, rowing into the torrential rain (having to stop fairly often to bail out!!!), which is quite an experience, being out on the water in the Amazon while a massive thunderstorm rages all around. The floating forests are just partially submerged trees, well above the water level in dry season but 4m under water in rainy season, in which we are currently. With the amount of water pouring down, the river levels fluctuate 10m in depth between high and low, which, when you consider the size of the body of water is quite mind numbing!

Very soggy and fairly exhilirated, we returned to camp with some more fish (piranha and catfish this time) to compare a variety jungle wounds with the others, ranging from well over 100 mozzie bites (me - didn't know about the ant repellent overnight - they bit through hammock and my t-shirt!), machete wound (me again!), shin wound (Andy, tree stump), fire ant bites (Anna & Sonya), mosquito larvae laid inside cheeks (Billy) and of course the entire camp with explosive diarrhoea, still a souvenir from the ferry trip! Nontheless we all agreed that it had been one of the best excursions yet and would (well most of us - a couple stayed in Manaus) definitely do it again. Later that evening we went out again in the canoes in search of alligators, drifting through floating forests via torchlight, which gives then the appearance of the Celtic tree of Life (it has branches at both ends, no roots), a very etheral and most spectacular effect. Again our guide leapt into the water and emerged with an alligator in hand, with everyone posing once more before heading back to base.

The final morning at camp we spilt into our two groups again to make blowpipes for the boys (woo hoo) an jewellery for the girls. Once everyone was satisfied and had chowed down on yet another outstanding lunch, we thanked everyone at camp and set off in a convoy of canoes back to our original point of entry into the Amazon. Arriving late afternoon back at Manaus, we were all happy to chill out for several hours, before a small gaggle of us met for a few beers outside the hotel and wandered into town to find a club. Not long in La Crocodila, I caught eyes with a beautiful local girl (again, once the Brazilian booty shake has been experienced, it will not be forgotten!), and soon afterwards we were conversing with my minimal Portugese and her no English, dancing for a bit etc etc. Senelina and I spent some of the next day wandering around town, before meeting up later to head back to her place, right out in the favela the other side of town, where I was met with warm faces by her freinds and a couple of cold beers. Remembering I had laundry to collect, both mine and Doug's before our early morning departure the next day, I had to dash back in a taxi. Due to return to meet her later that evening, I took another taxi out to the favela, but with only a daytime memory of a small sidestreet and only the area name, not the street, I was unsurprisingly unable to find her despite coasting up and down in the taxi for a good half hour. Bummer indeed.

The next day we were on the road again to our last point of call in Brazil, Boa Vista. Driving through the jungle to get there over native American land (no stopping is permitted anywhere on this dirt road!), we had a VERY long day, not getting in until around 10pm and then having to wait an appreciable amount of time for a very insipid dinner at a nearby restaurant before collapsing into bed. A later start the next morning, with the truck decked out in balloons for Doug's birthday, we headed towards the Venezuelan border an waved a very sad goodbye to Brazil. The country is a highly addictive drug, its people the most warm and welcoming I have encountered in a long line of already friendly cultures. I will return, and immediately is not soon enough!

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