The 60-something hour transit from Cusco - Yurimaguas didn´t demoralize any us and we dove straight in to the, according to Lonely Planet, hot, humid, crowded and uncomfortable ride through the Amazonian rainforest and to the Atlantic coast. First stop Iquitos, Peru. As soon as our Mototaxi appeared in sight for the seamen in the harbour a couple of them jumped right off their seats and started sprinting towards us. Luckily, we had experienced this once before and knew it wasn´t a charge or a rabid attack, just a desperate attempt to get us on to their boat instead of their neightboors. Usually we never go for the first and most annoying guy when we arrive at places like this, but this time the best sprinter also had the best offer: A good price on a boat that exceeded our expectations by miles on both room and backteria-level.
The 3 days 2 nights boat ride started of with hours of sightseeing in the narrow side-rivers of the Amazon, taking pictures of the beautifull green banks on both sides, and then spending about the remaining 2.5 days reading, continously. On these boats there isn´t really anything else to do. Watch nature, read or try to catch up on some spanish glosary. Luckily we are both very found of all three alternatives. Besides us there were a couple of cows, bulls, some peruvian people and to fellow "gringos" on the our boat, which by the way was the majestic Eduardo IV. A lovely couple from the states, Allison and Hunter (soon to be known as "el casador"), had also decided to try on this adventorous way of travelling, wich ment we had someone to talk to when the words stocked up in our heads and trade books with when the previous ones were finished. A couple of miles before arrival in Iquitos, an eager little fellow boarded the ship by motor boat and did his very best to drag the gringos , who he obviously was tipped about, into the joungle on a real jungle-adventure. He was persuasive and, against the odds, succeeded in his mission. This trip will be written about and uploaded soon, until that time the photos are already out.
Iquitos is said to be the biggest city in the which you can´t access by car and has some 500.000 innhabitants. Still, it´s a charming Peruvian town, where i certainly could see myself spending a couple of days. After a non-successfull camera-hunt trying to replace Ludos stolen one we checked out the marked. A huuge indeginous marked, with everything from tinned crocodiles and dolphin-vaginas, to baby-monkeys and ayahuasca. Pretty busy and way to much to reach over in a couple of hours. We just ended up with buying a couple of natural "toe" cigars for the bugs and the DVD "Anaconda 3" to set the mood the night before entering the primary rainforest.

We said our goodbyes to Hunter and Allison and pointed our well-shaped noses for the Atlantic coast, next stop; the border. Pretty similar conditions on the boat, only slightly more crowded. But still, we had already concluded that the Lonely Planet Guide was far off on river travel on the Amazon. None of us had to spoon fat peruvian guys, no diharria, no thiefs and actually quite comfortable temperatures thanks to the cooling breeze who followed us the whole way. On this journey we stumbled upon a huge serbian guy and a couple of sweedish girls heading for Colombia. Nothing big to report from this leg, except the occational card-games with the over confident serb. Our next stop, Tabatinga, is one of the three citys that make up the triple border between Colombia, Peru and Brazil. All the migrational formalities leaving Peru is done in a tiny complex pueblo called Santa Rosa. Stormed by what seemed like hundreds of taxi-boat drivers two swetty, hot and slightly dehydrated Norwegians stumbled out of the boat trying to catch our bearings. A bit of luck and helpfull resturant-owners helped us get our passports stamped before siesta and the latter convinced us that Tabatinga was a far better place to spend the nights before leaving that Leticia, Colombia. Finding an ok hostal with good people our Tabatinga stay can be summed up easily by one night out, watching The Blue Planet series on Yasmins computer and my joy over finding a game-station with FIFA 2011 for the first time since Manta, Ecuador in february. Good times, definately.

Next leg costed us a fair deal more than we were prepared for, but then again, security and general standards on this boat was far beyond the two previous. Beeing big football fans we were eager to catch the Champions League final, and when we heard the boat had tv and the appropriate chanels we couldn´t wait to get onboard. Even though we got held up by the militarys dog show, pretending to sniff through all bags for drugs, and an thorough check of all bags we made it in time. Not everybody was as happy as the writer of this text about the result, but at least no surprises.
This time we were surrounded by gringos, at least 10-15 of the 200 passengers were gringos, which made the journey a bit different than the two preceeding. Card playing, movie watching and general talking s*** took up at least as much of our time as the reading, and our "one-book-a-day"-avarage decreased. All in all it was a good 3 day trip were we made loads of new acquintances. On the boat over we had a talk and decided to split up for a while. It´s been along way coming, ever since Cusco we´ve talking about that a couple of weeks or months travelling solo would be a good experience for both of us. So at arrival in Manaus, we all said our goodbyes and I headed straight for the Atlantic coast whilst Ludde stayed a day or to behind with our new english friends.

10 minutes after leaving the others i suddenly realised that my hard earned spanish-skills where at absolutely no use here. To me, portugeese sounds more like a hammered 4 year old trying to speek spanish from a limited glossary than an actual language. In other words, I hardly understand anything. After alot of back and forwards i got my not to wide ass on a boat called Luis Alfonso, headed for Santarem. I got a couple of hours to experience the Amazonian metropole Manaus, and my impression was good. Even though at least three times bigger than Iquitos, it had kind of the same charm as it´s Peruvian smaller brother. Excited to hear what Ludo has to say about it.
The ride to Sartarem was an easy 1.5 day ride with loads of tanning, reading and maby for the first time in my life reflecting. A good start to my life as a lonesome traveller. Lonesome traveller! That reminded me, at the marked in Manaus i heard the massive Madcon-hit "Beggin" screeming from the speakers. Always nice to be reminded about Norway, in one way or the other. By this time I had finished The blue zone, The da vinci code, Yes we can (Obama bio), Dracula, Robinson Crusoe, Pirates of the carrebian (about the socialist movement in south america) and had just started on my favorite so far "the power of one" so I was swampted for the whole trip. I had originally planned to stay a night in Santarem before embarcing on the last 2 days, but when I arrived I was litterally dragged on the next boat, short on money, food an clean clothes. Being short on money was actually a good thing, cause as it turned out they were leaving the second I stepped on, not giving me time to take on any more, and I got my ticket way cheaper. This time also, the boat departed with only one "gringo", me. Even with just 4-5 understandable words between us, I managed to befriend a group of Brazilians. This made this last leg close to perfect, with reading and basking in the sun all day and getting some sorts of social excercise in the evenings.

At the port in Macapa, it became even clearer to me how lost you are without any language as a traveller, and this made me so happy we started our journey with a spanish course. I arrived with no money, either in my wallett or on my VISA-card, and was therefore in desperate need of internett. Thanks to a couple of friendly sofa-sellers i got some food and coffe in my belly and at last got a hold of internett, and money. Right now, I am both happy and full, a very good combination.

Tonight I´m hoping to catch a bus to the border with French Gayane and the day after yet again change country, going back to EU ( french guyane is a part of france)!

My impression of Brazil so far is: Nice people who really dond´t want to try to understand spanish, beautifull nature and women and the peoples strange habid of whipping out a pornographic magazine 5 minutes into a conversation(maby a common ice-breaker here. Seems pretty strange to me)...

Greetings from Eirik!