The River Amazon

'All aboard'  the Amazon Star-our transportation
and home for 5 days and nights

A trip up the Amazon starts in the city of Belem in the north eastern state of Para, which we flew into from Forteleza, Ceara (we have not written a blog about our time here as honestly we didn't do much - once we made the epic journey across the sandunes to Jericoacoara, we found the beach and kicked back and relaxed for a week). It is not a beautiful town, but it does have one wonderful hotel for thirty quid a night which we snapped up and luxuriated within. The most important asset of the city to the townsfolk, and to us, is the vast market stretching from the old bay to the modernised industrial port and within which lies all the bounty required for all of life in north east Brazil, including to survive a boat trip. We headed there to purchase the most vital of waterborne comforts - the hammock, beautifully made and colourfully designed.

The view from our hammocks

Hanging out on deck. Watching the river flow by.

After a night drinking at the Amazon Beer Company - a brewery in the port which does a decent IPA - we woke early the next day to get on the boat to reserve a place. We ended up having to wait till six pm to get on the boat itself, a bit of a grind, but once onboard we strung up our hammocks to the metal beams on the second floor deck, and got cosy with two hundred Brazilian passengers doing likewise.  I (Ian) felt a bit trepidatious about all this. Never have been a fan of sharing a room with huge numbers of people (a sin to say it as a backpacker but how I am), nor ever managed to strike up a manageable relationship with a hammock for a lie down on a beach in the afternoon, let alone five whole days and nights on the water. I shouldn't have worried. Once I got used to the cold at night and had worked out a nifty crossways sleeping position I slept like a log. It's something like returning to the womb - with the white background noise of the boat, the rocking of the hammock, the semi foetal position you end up in. Never woke up so refreshed.  For Sal, who did all of this when in Brazil ten years ago, it was like second nature.

Crossword time!

Once you get going on the open water - the delta at the mouth of the Amazon is so wide it seems more like a sea than a river - there really is not too much to do. A lot of reading, a lot of writing, learnt a few new card games. Of course no internet, phone, and a TV that only works intermittently and used purely to watch football games or novellas (Brazilian soap operas of advanced melodrama). Instead we watched the banks of the river with the small houses on stilts slide by, the yellow school boats delivering their charges to the escola, and evenings on deck marvelling at extraordinary sunsets.

Amazon kids row alongside the boat, in the hope
a care package will be thrown

One of the magnificent Amazonian sunsets

A typical Amazonian dwelling on the banks of the river

With our pal Daniel, who was more than happy
to give our hammocks a good swing at 6am each day
when he was ready for more playtime

From the boat, there is not much wildlife to be seen beyond a few birds, nor is the jungle as jungely as the Amazon - Mother of Rainforests! Harbourer of Evil Snakes and Ancient Lost Tribes! - seems it should be to a romanticised westerner. But none of this detracts from the experience which is more about a dead slow pace of life, the chance to think and reflect, and a rare opportunity to be in amongst the people of Brazil. On that note, as everywhere in Brazil, there were dozens of children running about. One, Daniel, we tried to teach snap to without much success, but he was very pleased with a card game we invented with him. It was based on the principle that he would win every hand, irrespective of rules or logic - well worth it to win the friendship of a charming kid, with such a wonderful smile.

Approaching Manaus, a city of 2 million,
at the epicentre of the Amazon river and jungle

By the end of the five days, when we pulled into Manaus - the capital of the great state of Amazonas - we were really sad to get off the boat, even with all of our muscles atrophying from lack of exercise and the consistent nature of the food. Rarely can I say I lived as differently as I did for those few days, and I feel so much better for it.