Look what I done got myself into this time…

It was supposed to take 12 hours to get to Belém.  I knew we would never make it in that amount of time when I woke up in the middle of the night to the bus rolling in and out of holes, the driver getting his money’s worth out of the transmission.  I looked out the window – it was pouring rain and the road was chock-full of mini pools.  Oh man, I thought.  Here we are, in the jungle.  It’s raining and it’s never going to stop.  The roads suck and they’re only gonna get worse.  And we’re gonna be here for a long, long time…

I fell back asleep and woke up much later to the nice hum of the bus cruising along the road along a dry, sunny road.  So much for my earlier sentiments.  But, we still didn’t get there in 12 hours; it was something more like 16.  We got into town, dumped our stuff at a hotel, and went out to the port to check out these boats.  We wanted to leave as soon as possible.  And it was possible tomorrow.

“That’s the boat?” we puzzled as the guy pointed out toward the water.  “It’s really big”.  This was the Amazon Star, the biggest (and supposedly best) boat on the river.  This was the Love Boat of the Amazon.  The guy showed us a brochure sign for the boat – 850 passengers, it advertised.  We couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.  No, we pretty much thought it was not a selling point.  We had been told the upper deck was the better of the two, and on this boat the upper deck had air conditioning, for less than $10 more.  Well, we thought, what the hell.  If this is the best boat, we’ll go for it – luxury air conditioned hammock class.  This will be our way to ease in to the whole thing.  After all, we were going to be spending a lot of time on boats in the time to come.

We had been told to show up early in the morning to get a good hammock spot (which is basically away from the bathrooms), so we showed up at about 11 – the boat left at 6pm.  Apparently we had missed the early morning shot to get in and now wouldn’t be able to board until 3pm.  Fine.  We bought supplies (fruit, nuts, snacks, and water), had a good lunch (asian food buffet with sushi!), got our bags, and returned to the dock around 1:30.  There was already a fairly long line to get on the boat.  It started moving and we finally made it to the front only to be turned around because we were in the wrong line.  This line was apparently for a different boat.  How do these people know?  There’s no sign, no indication whatsoever of what line this is.  Somehow these people just know where to be when.  That must be it (although I realize there must be something I’m missing).

Well, our mistake landed us in the front of the real line, so it turned out alright.  We made it onto the boat just after 3, picked a spot in the middle of everything (which was still mostly nothing), and started to sling up our hammocks.  Luckily, the couple next to us were really nice in helping us sling them up.  And then we were sorted…we just waited until the boat left at 6.  Well, it didn’t leave at 6, of course.  I think a more accurate time is around 8, which is really not bad.

We went up to the deck to check it out while awaiting our departure, and who did we run into, but Elma.  Well, we’d be on the boat together for the next 3 days, so I was sure to get to know her now.  As we formally introduced ourselves she offered us a swig from her bottle.  “Ypioca” I said, reading the label.  “Yippie-o-kay-ay mutherfucker” she screamed out as we uncontrollably burst into a shocked sort of laughter.  This woman is 70 I remind you.

We spent the night talking to this tour group…the guide (or leader as he insists on being called) was Terry, from Venezuela, and he was very interesting.  This was his 5th time down this portion of the river and told us that the last time, just before they left port a whole bunch of police boats and helicopters surounded the boat and searched the whole thing.  They had gotten a tip that someone planned on holding up the boat to steal all their stuff, and sure enough they found 2 machine guns or rifles or something on the boat…good fun.

We had been told that a lot of people skip the Belem to Manaus boat trip because the river’s really wide so there’s not much to see.  Because of this, of course, I was not expecting much.  Well, the first day out there was full of excitement.  The bell rang at 6am, waking us up for breakfast – really sweet coffee, one bread roll and one small piece of fruit.

I sat on the deck most of the day (mostly due to the fact that our luxury air-conditioned hammock class had gotten really hot since everyone opened the windows to look outside…in this I think the lower level would have been better because the entire sides of the boat were open, allowing a nice breeze…the windows were shut at night, though, and everything cooled off).  We started out fairly far from the edges but soon made our way closer.  We were going upriver, and the boats tend to hug the edges to avoid working against the stronger currents in the middle.

After a little while I started to notice canoes dangerously close to the boat…why were they so close?  Well, they were hitching rides down the river with us.  They would latch on with a rope and grab a ride for as far as they were going.  After a while we were loaded with boats hanging on the side.  Some of these were selling goods on the boat, shrimp (I think) and artichoke hearts among other things.  Watching them latch onto the boat was great.  Most of the people in the boats were kids – teenagers and younger – and were very in tune with the river.  Even better than watching them latch on and climb up was watching them climb down and latch off…many times the boat got away from them, leaving them to jump in the river to swim and get it.  Sometimes they did this on purpose, jumping into the river after it, away from their boat.  In this I was amazed – you mean you’re just going to jump right on it that big ol’ river with piranhas and who knows what else?  It’s nice to have the locals show you what’s what.

I did get to know Elma a bit better, and went through phases of liking and depising her, with a favorable outcome in the end.  She was a rich Jewish former real estate agent who liked to complain about everything.  “Well, here we go – 5 days of looking at brown water without my own bathroom, sharing it with 40 people.”  I reminded her that we were sharing our bathroom (4 toilets and 5 showers, which were always impressively clean) with 300 people.  She was in a suite, which was bare with nothing but 2 bunk beds and air conditioning, which she had to herself.  “I brought all these nice clothes to wear on the boat, but look at these people…I’ve never seen so many people dressed like such crap”.  Elma, this is transportation, not a luxury cruise liner – you can still wear your silk pants and Carmen Miranda blouse if you like – no one will mind.  And this was the best boat on the river!

She came in for our (hammock class) breakfast early one day (the people in the suites had their meals after us, with an extra item on the menu) and sat down next to me.  She was rather unimpressed, making her already-referenced trough/slop comments, and I was glad that no one could understand her….except for her loud “Bleachh” when she drank the coffee.  After 3 days with her, though, I learned to love her, taking jabs at all her little off-color comments, bringing her every so slightly to the reality she was in.

So, we sat on the boat for three days, mostly just staring out into the river and its banks.  We didn’t see much wildlife from out there, though there were lots of dolphins in the waters that would peek their fins up for us every once in a while.  One even jumped in the air.  There are two types of dolphins in the Amazon – your normal gray ones and pink ones.  We did see a pink one or two, which was pretty cool.  These have longer snouts and a big bump on their forehead (as was explained to me by a local), though all I saw was their shiny pink backs as they came up for air.

There were some other gringos on the boat that we got to know over the three days – Leslie, another 70-something guy on the same tour as Elma who was really cool; he travels every year for 6 weeks around the new year, leaving his wife behind (she doesn’t like the heat).  Tursten, a German guy who had great stories about eating maggots, a Canadian guy motorcycling around South America, and another two younger Canadians traveling through Brazil.

Here’s a thing about Canadians…they really like to jab at Americans for not knowing the geography of Canada.  I admittedly didn’t know what province I was in when I went on canoeing trips, and immediately got a lot of slack for this.  I did stick up for myself, though (this was with the moto guy), and soon gained his respect.  Soon later, the other Canadian dudes come over (they were dudes – younger, just out of college from Vancouver) and start giving me the same slack, proposing that I didn’t know half of my own states (which is a fault, admittedly, of many Americas…the arguement then continues that we don’t even know about our own country, and definitely don’t know anything about the rest of the world).  Damn these Canadians… 

In order to end this all and to show up every Canadian I meet from here on out (mind you, I have no problems with Canadians, I actually like them and their country), I asked the moto guy to teach me all the Canadian provinces and territories.  For the record, here they are, exactly as they were taught to me (Americans, take note): Mainland, from west to east – British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan (capital Regina, which rhymes with an integral part of the female anatomy), Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec.  The islands get a little tricky: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunwick, and Prince Edward Island, which is all of about 2000 people, all growing potatoes.  You call that a province?  Territories: Yukon Territory (just by Alaska), Northwest Territory, and Nunavit (over which there seems to be some sort of dispute as to whether it belongs to Northwest Territory or not, but I can’t be bothered with that).  Now, how many Canadians can name all the 50 US States?

Tags: Brazil, Tag Index

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