Strike One, Two, Three
2 August 2005 (Tuesday) – Manaus, Brazil
Still drunk with sleep, I heard the horn of the boat and someone asking, “Chegou? (Arrived?)”, to which the reply was “Sim (Yes)”. I rubbed my eyes and stretched. I peered at Mauriete from my hammock and saw her packing up her hammock. “Manaus?? Aqui? (Here?)” and she nodded.
Wow. What an anticlimax. To have spent 6 nights trying to get to Manaus and we arrived in the middle of the night to no fanfare, nothing! What time was it? 4:45am, gosh!
Sleepily, I packed up everything and left the riverboat with Mauriete and Antonio. Before I left Belem, I had emailed to 5 people asking for free accommodations. Isa had also contacted her friend to see if she could take me in. So, the first thing I wanted to do on dry land now was to use the internet to see if I had any positive replies from anyone. I mentioned this to the couple, and to my surprise, they then decided to wait for daylight with me for my safety. And as Antonio had been to Manaus before, he would even take me to an internet place. What? That was super nice of them.
So, we sat in the Floating Dock and waited until 6:30am or so. The Floating Dock is a dock that floats, obviously. This is required to handle the rise and fall of the tide of the Amazon River, up to 14m!! A very good idea. Also, the water now was black, not brown anymore. This is because the water right at Manaus is from another tributary with different mineral composition and that tributary is called Rio Negro (Black River). Isn’t this all so interesting?
Finally, we bade farewells and I wished them all the best of luck in their new lives here in the Amazonas Region as they had moved here for Antonio’s job.
I sat in the park in front of a stall selling breakfast and coffee, and watched the city wake up, observed the people hurrying over for a quick snack of sandwich or tapioca or other strange things, garbage collectors sweeping up the rubbish from the night before, stall-owners opening up their street stalls.
At the internet place, I found no one had replied me positively. Then, I remembered that Gisele had told me that her brother Leonardo lives in Manaus and might be able to accommodate me. Naturally, now that I looked for it, I realised she never gave me his contact number!! But by luck, Gisele had also just written to me asking me where I was, how I was doing. So I replied her asking for Leo’s number.
I guess I would have to check into a hotel now. The tourist office had told me to go to Rua 10 de Julho and mentioned 2 cheap hotels. The hotel I found – Hotel 10 de Julho – was certainly not cheap to me, at R45. I think after 6 nights in the riverboat on a hammock, I deserved a good place tonight, oh… I am so worth it. But, paying for one night is OK, but I certainly cannot imagine paying this price for 4 or 5 nights!!
Anyway, after taking a shower and leaving the hotel, I passed the OTHER hotel suggested by the tourist office. This one cost R35 and was just right next to Hotel 10 de Julho. Gosh, would have saved R10. Strike One!
The next most important thing – food! And not just any food, but REAL FOOD, i.e. in my case, Chinese food! Please… no more rice + spaghetti + beans + meat combi!! I decided to head to Amazonas Shopping. I had observed that in all the shopping malls’ food areas that I had been to in Brazil, there was always at least a stall selling Chinese food. In this extreme heat and suffocating humidity, I certainly was in no shape to explore the city to look for a Chinese restaurant but I figured if I headed straight to the shopping mall, the Chinese food would be delivered to me on a plate.
With some kind folks helping me, I took a bus out of the centre, got a little lost still, wandered around under the scorching sun, mistook another mall as Amazonas Shopping, I finally reached this darn shopping mall and alas!, found there was no Chinese food stall here!!!!!!! Duh! Strike Two!!
Well, at least, the air-conditioner was fantastic. I spent the rest of my day poking around in the mall and even caught a movie.
Back in the centre, I actually stumbled upon a Chinese Restaurant that was not so far from my hotel. I returned for dinner, but learnt that they only served por kilo in the afternoon. In the evening, it was only a la carte whose portions were for 2 persons – much too expensive for me. Darn! Strike Three! I guess I had to eat elsewhere tonight. *sob*
I finally got Leo’s mobile phone number and I gave him a call, speaking to him in my horrendous Portuguese and trying to understand him. He was very nice and seemed to say I could stay over at his place. I managed to understand that he would pick me up tomorrow from the hotel at 1pm. Great!
Ah, that night, back in my hotel room… my personal bathroom, my noisy air-conditioner, my own TV set… yes, privacy privacy privacy… I could walk around in my underwear and I did, of course, as the minute you return from outside anywhere in Manaus, you are just dying to peel off everything!
Yet strangely, I tossed and turned throughout the night, finding sleep elusive. Why???? Could it be that I miss sleeping in a hammock?
Tags: 04) A River Runs Through It, Manaus
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