32 hours
24 July 2005 (Sunday) – 25 July 2005 (Monday) – Fortaleza to Belém, Brazil
Yesterday, Isabelle had told me she had seen advertisements for air-tickets from Fortaleza to Belém for around R180 – R190. That was just merely R40 – R50 more than the price of the bus-ticket. We made enquiries but found that the flights were booked all the way til August. So, forget it.
She then asked me why don’t I take a flight straight to Manaus. Hmmm… I think this is the part that is difficult to explain. I WANT to take the riverboat up the Amazon River. The point is the journey, not the destination. She nodded in understanding, never going to understand what these foreigners are thinking, coming all the way here to the Amazon, torturing themselves for 5 days in a riverboat with horrendously close contacts with hundreds of people who hang hammocks on top of one another, eating shitty food.
Well, character-building, rites of passage, whatever… I cannot explain it. I mean, if I buy an air-ticket to Manaus, I might as well buy an air-ticket to Buenos Aires and say that I have completed my South America trip.
The guys from the bus company told me it would take 30 hours. OK, this would be the longest bus-ride I had ever taken. Isa and I bid fond farewells to each other at 9am Sunday and I hopped onto the bus. Here we go…
The ride took more than 32 hours! But I had seen another bus in one of the stops – ‘Belém – Rio de Janeiro’. I made some mental calculations based on what I know – Rio to Salvador (26 hours), Salvador to Recife (12 hours), Recife to Natal (4 hours), Natal to Fortaleza (8 hours) and Fortaleza to Belem (30 hours). So, t-h-a-t bus ride would have lasted more than 80 hours!! What a torture!!
I spent the time updating my journal and reading my guidebook and Mario Vargas Llosa‘s ‘The War of the End of the World’. Brazilians are not fond of reading. They do not have the same culture of literature like the Argentines. There were other passengers on the same 32-hour ride who had brought on NOTHING to read or do in the entire ride. They just stared into space and slept. I could not live like this.
Anyway, I was mighty happy to arrive in Belém finally at around 4pm Monday. But, gosh… it was very hot and humid, much worse than Singapore. Yucky! I grabbed a taxi to my hotel – Hotel Fortaleza – which was downright crappy but as it costs only R8, I should not complain at all.
I walked around buying something to cook tonight and before long, by 6pm, all the shops had began to shut and the streets were slowly emptying of people. OK, that gave me the hint that it was not so safe to hang around here at night. So, I returned to the hotel. Anyway, I was exhausted and turned in at around 9pm.
Tags: 04) A River Runs Through It, Belem
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