Amazon River Cruise

It took some negotiation to get 40 Reais knocked off the price of the ticket. This is pretty standard procedure for Brazil. There is what they call the ¨Gringo Price¨, which is always open for negociations, so we thought nothing of it when we finally managed to get the salesman to reduce his price. He told us that he would meet us at our hostel to take us to the ship at 2 o´clock (Brazilian time. Roughly translates to 2:30). We just thought he was being nice and helping his latest clients make it safely to their destination. How wrong we were.

It turns out that the discount we managed to get was not marked down from the ¨Gringo Price¨, we had simply bargained hard enough for the salesman to sell us the ticket tax-free. This is blatantly illegal, so we could not get on the ship at the dock just like everyone else. Instead, we waited until the ship had left, and took a speed boat out to a clandestine meeting somewhere alond the Amazon.

We even had to get on using the back door through all the food storage. I was surprised to see live chickens trapped in wood boxes, but I suppose that is the best way to keep meat fresh for 6 or 7 days. It was really impressive to see the amount of supplies that were on this deck. What I had not realised at this point was that we would be making some stops along the way, and that this food would be unloaded and left in some villages that exist on the bank of the river.

People had told me that the food on the shop would be little more than sustainance, but I really enjoyed it. Rice, beans and pasta - what appears to be the main staples of the Brazilian diet - start to wear a bit thin after several weeks (this is also what we ate in the jungle), but at least it all tasted very nice.

The passenger deck was also a sight to behold. There were only a couple of cabins that were rediculously overpriced, so everyone else hung a hammoc on the deck. It is pretty crazy, but it looks really cool. I can not believe how many people they managed to fit on the deck. Someone told me that the ship could house 300, and that it was almost full (but not quite). We were all sleeping on top of eachother.

In fact, eating and sleeping seemed to be the main activites on the ship. The meal times were very early and difficult to adapt to. On the first morning, I missed breakfast by getting up at 8 o´clock, not realising that it ended at 7:30. Not that it mattered much, since lunch was served at 10:45. Even with these early meal times, I could never get used to dinner being at 5. Especially not after having spent so much time on this continent where people do not eat before 9 pm.

It felt like the entire trip was just a perpetual challenge to try and find something to do between eating and sleeping. I did manage it well enough that when the trip was over, I looked back, thinking I could have lasted a few more days.

1) Learning Hebrew - this entertained me for the first couple of days, but it soon reminded me, once again, just how much I hate learning languages. I only got as far as learning the alphabet before I decided to give up for ever. The problem was that they have two completely different scripts. One for print, the other for writing by hand, and I could not be bothered to learn both. Hebrew will always have to remain a mystery to me.

2) Making Bracelets - as luck would have it, there was a very nice French couple (Jean and Candice) in the hammocs next to ours that tought just about everyone on the ship how to make bracelets using string, like the ones you find being sold on the streets everywhere in South America.

3) Reading - I think I managed to pick up the lamest book in the world from the book exchange in the hostel back in Manaus. There were only two books available - hardly a mind blowing selevtion, but still should have been enough. One was about how great a person Jesus Christ is, and the other a romance novel. Sadly enough, I saw the romance novel as the lesser of two evils, but seeing as how boring it was, I might have been better off with the religious propoganda.

4) Cachaça - liquor was contraband on the ship, but it was not difficult to sneak on board durring one of the many ¨30 minute¨ that could last up to 7 hours while they unloaded the cargo. This also gave us some time to walk around the little villages that exist along the river. In the evening, we got back and made ourselves caprinhas in the cabin of the Belgian couple (Max and Julie).

5) Cards - as many times before, playing cards have come to the rescue and provided several hours of fun in what could otherwise have been a case of absolute boredom. We all learned how to play new games, and I was really glad to be able to play La Beulotte, a french game, which I had not played in several years. The Belgians had bought a game called Backpacker, wherein you must go around the world and bring home as many pictures of different places as possible, but were not able to fully understand the instructions, as they were only printed in Enlgish. I was comissioned to translate, so that we could try this game out, and it turned out to be one of my favorite things to do on the ship.

6) Stare into space - Sadly, it did come to this a few times. It was nice to watch the river bank with all the trees, but that became tiresome sooner than it should. The pink river-dolphins came out to play only once, but that was enough enough for me. They really are quite pink, although they do have many dark spots, and they could only be seen once they came up to the surface because the water was so opaque. In Manaus, and when we went in the jungle, the water was black (from sediment that it picks up. It really is all natural) but furter along, it turned to what they call white, but is really more of a beige. Seeing the two collide is really cool, because there is the black water becomes white almost instantly, creating a visible boarder between where one ends and the other begins. I have never seen anything like it.

Arriving in Tabatinga, we had to be sure not to forget to get our passports stamped saying that we were leaving Brazil. The problem is that there is no boarded between Tabatinga and Leticia (which is in Colombia). They really are one and the same. Forgetting to have your passport stamped would result in a hefty fine if I tried leaving Colombia, so it is something that should definately not be forgotten.

I am now in Leticia where I shall take a plane to Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. The ticket price is somewhat higher than I had anticipated, but it is still the cheapest way out of Leticia that is still pretty safe. The cheaper option (i.e. a slow boat to Peru, or Equador) has a nasty habbit of being attacked by the rebel forces of Colombia, or so I was told. Rather regrettably I have been forced to rule out this possibility. It seems that staying alive is slightly more important that saving 50 pounds. Who would have thought it?