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Published: September 21st 2008
After the first boat trip we were both perhaps a little apprehensive about another week on a boat with nothing to eat but rice, spaghetti, beans and a dubious meat for every meal and the continual onslaught of mosquitos and other more horrible and large unkown insects that appeared as soon as the sun dissapeared over the forest. Then again we had had a great week on the previous boat, infact one of the best, and as usual it was nowhere near as bad as fellow gringos had made out. The man who sold our ticket to us told us that there was no need to put our hammock up early on this boat as there would only be a small amount of people getting on in Manaus and the boat was much bigger than the last one. So we had a nice relaxing last day in Manaus and strolled around the city. We arrived at the port 2 hours before the boat was due to leave in no fear of no hammock space. As I crossed the bridge, over onto the mooring dock I saw our boat (and oh my God) I saw tidal wave of hammocks. The 2nd deck
was quite simply a raging sea of hammocks. To someone who was not boarding this boat it was quite beautiful I suppose; all different coloured hammocks, swaying and criss-crossing each other in the breeze, but to me it was a nightmare and the words Louise used, when she saw this too, to express her dissatisfaction; well I know Uncle Tom and Auntie Marion may read this so I will not repeat what their innocent dear daughter said!!!) Lets just say that there as quite a lot of anger aimed at our ticket tout. What we didn't understand is that he told us this info AFTER we had bought the tickets so there was no need to spin us this lie. We simply could not see a free inch to put our hammocks. No where. There were hundreds of people crammed into the deck. We were both fuming! Anyway as luck had it I ventured out of curiosity onto the top deck and saw a potential hammock hanging spot. After several inquiries in broken Portuguese we managed to get permission to plant ourselves up there, to so much relief. I don't think I could have been happier if the Captain had
been Gandalf the Grey and the barman Bilbo Baggins and we heading to the realm of Gondor! Several other people then got this idea and yes, we were on the top deck next to the bar with the loud drunks and yes, we were more open to the elements, but I swear, if you could see the deck below us, this was a small price to pay. There were too other gringos on the boat, medical students called Tom and Sam, a couple from Cardiff. They were incredibly genuine and nice and we all got on very well and passed much of our time playing cards and chatting and talking about bowel moverments! I know it's hard to believe because we are in one the great natural wonders of the world and without a shadow of a doubt the most important life supporting systems on the planet, but after you have stared at it for a week like we did the previous week, dare I say it it, it does become rather boring! You just want to go deep inside the rainforest now which we still hadn't done even though we had travelled alongside it for almost 4000km! This boat
felt more like we were in transit and though some of the people were friendly it didn't have the same character as the last boat from Belem and the people seemed slightly more distant from us. That said, they were not all like that and there were a couple of little local indigenous girls and a boy who were really sweet (sometimes annoying in the morning!) and took great interest in us. The week passed quite quickly again and the vodka helped us sleep again! We were in far more massive rainstorms this time. Within 30 seconds we could be playing cards in the roasting afternoon sun and then under the canopy saving all our possesions from a soaking. You knew as soon as on was coming beacuse a sharp, cold wind always preceeded the storm a few seconds before. There are 3 towns within a couple of kilometers of each other on the border; Tabatinga in Brazil, Santa Rosa in Peru and Leticia on the Colombian side. I would have taken the Peruvian or Brazilian side anyday over the Colombian side after all the horror stories I have heard about the country and the fact it's in a state
of civil war and the British Foreign Office say it's one the most dangerous countries in the world! Worse than Iraq apparently. Being (slightly) adventerous though and hearing that the Colombian side was the best and side and had the most accomodation we all decided to risk it! Plus we could brag to all our friends that "we have been to Colombia!" It would also mean another country to add to our list. We dragged our backpacks off the worst port I have ever seen (we actually had to wade through the river at one point) and tried to cross over, out of the country I have grown to love very dearly into the next, but the Brazilan border police had something to say about that! We had over stayed our welcome without realizing, for about 6 days and the fascists were trying to charge us 30 quid! We had spent all out Reais and had no cash on us. In the end he said that there would be a fine on us next time we entered Brazil, which we accepted. Hopefully I'll be much richer when I return and I won't care! Oh yeah, I hate to tell you
Mum and Dad, that fine applies to you too!!! Just incase you were planning on going to that magic country. After a very long wait the fascist let us go (maybe I'm being a little harsh, he was quite nice in the end and he could have actually made it much more difficult for us. If we were American I think he would have). Colombia was how I imagined a country in civil war and military rule. The army roamed the streets and all the armed services and police made themselves very visible as they did their weapons! That said, it was a pleasant town with some very friendly people and some absolutely stunning women. I had actually heard from someone before that Colombian women were particularly beautiful and bugger me, it's so true! It was all slightly useless to me though; apart from the fact they were way out of my league, I got a vomitting and diarrhea bug and I felt awful and spent most of my time in bed. I had to drag myself out of bed at one point to go to the Peru side to get my passport stamped, but the immigration office was closed
and the very helpfull policeman said that we could do it on our departure the next day to Iquitos "no problem!". We crossed the borders 6 times on our brief time in the port for one reason or another! On our departure we crossed back into Brazil and managed to avoid any fine as there were not many people around at 3am and got on a canoe to take us over to Peru. Turns out the policeman was wrong and this time we really did get a fascist, nasty border control man. He charged us a 10$ fine because we had no stamp for the 2 days we were in Colombia. We explained the first day that there were fluids coming out of all my holes and there was no way I could go anywhere and the second day we were told we didn't need to bother by the Peruvian policeman. Plus if anyone should get that money it should be Colombia, after all we were in THEIR country without permission, not Peru. I have no doubt in my mind at all that he pocketed that 10$ himself. I was fuming and due due to the fact he couldn't speak
English, I said very rude things to him he couldn't understand, but Lousie put me into check quickly and told me not to be so stupid because he could stop us entering the country altogether and she was right. I just can't stand people who abuse their postion and take advatage, he knew full well he was robbing us, plus the fact he is not giving Peru a good name. I am not stupid enough though to judge a country on one man and we set off on our speedboat (we couldn't stomach the idea of another slowboat!) in good spirits and a happy thought we could finally practice our Spanish again. I have decided Portuguese is an ugly language that doesn't do the beatiful countries and their people that speak that language any justice. More likely I was too lazy to try and learn it to a decent level. I heard several songs that made it sound absolutely mesmerising! Anyway, 11 hours later we were in Iquitos, the largest city in the world without any roads going to or from it. This town and our planned jungle trip are for the next instalment, but what a world away from
Brazil. This is real 3rd world!
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lauren
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Hey Dave, Sounds like you're having fun...hammocks aside! Just thought I should let you know that im sitting here watching Gordon Brown's Labour Party conference speech. Viva Labour! Hope you're keeping well. Much love xxx