Hi everyone! First of all I have to appologise, this keyboard is again very rubbish and the space bar barely works, so there are going to be a lot of joined up words! I am already hammering the thing to try and make any spaces and getting lots of dodgy looks in the process,but here i go,i appologise in advance!

I think i last wrote in Manaus, in the middle of theAmazon rainforest, where we got off one boat...only to swiftly get on another one! Manaus itself was a pretty intense city, so humid and hot, huge (and completely contrasting to its environments...skyscrapers with the worlds largest rainforest in the background doesnt quite fit!), and our interesting stay in the ´love motel as it was the only non-ridiculously overpriced accommodation in town!!

So we bought some, slightly illegal, boatt ickets...everyone does it and only the very new to travelling tourists get the real tickets as they charge more than 3 times the price! To be fair,the locals only pay60 reals and we still paid 110reals for the boat trip,so i didnt feel too bad! After a dodgy canoe ride avoiding the customs peoplet o the actual boat itself,we eventually set up our hammocks again on another monstruous boat that was going to take another 5 days sailing down the Amazon and its tributaries,to get to Porto Vehlo...another massive town,right on the south of the Amazon in Brasil. I cant say i was excited, we had already spent 6 days on boats and another 5 days with nothing to do isnt the most appealing way to travel (especially when every gringo we had mert was flying out of there),but we had no choice, and to be fair, is quite nice to have nothing to do but relax!

This boat was not nearly as nice as the other one...there were kids running wild (cute for the first 5 minutes), only one toilet cum shower, which was already pretty dirty and smelly by the time we got on, music blasting at volumes ive never heard before in my life (yes i know i sound like an old granny!) but it was a boat and we got on in time to nick a good hammock spot! There were a few gringos on, a group of NIgerians and some lads from Ghana,who spent a lot of time chatting football with Sean, and a nice Polish lad with a fantastic map of Brasil who was great for weening tips out of, and spoke good Portuguese which was helpful with my broken spanish-portuguese!!

The 5 days were definitely an experience. Travelling on a boat for days is not just like getting on a bus to get to the next destination (although from Iquitos it took us 11 days on boats and 2 days on a bus to get to the next destination...that is how big Brasil is!), it really is an experience in itself! And the Brasilians just enhance that! They are SO friendly,open,passionate.I would say they are the friendliest people on earth...maybe even too friendly sometimes! A funny old man set up hammock next to me (well on these boats its practucally on top of you, youre like sardines!)and refused to believe i didnt speak portuguese and so chatted away to me for 5 days solid...i ran out of ways to smile differently and pretend i understood! At the end,he gave me his number and address...given he was in his 70s,im hoping this was an act of kindness that if we ever got stuck we could call...and not something else! We met a few other characters, a man from Paraguay who insisted on teaching us card games and learning to read my book in english whilst i was trying to read...ever so slightly annoying,but its hard to get frustrated when people are so friendly! Of course,there were a few bad instances on the boat...as with any boat. ON the first night there was a huge fight on the top deck, one man must have said something to frustrate a group of men,and at about 2am they all piled on him. It went on for about half an hour, they beat him with crutches and then stabbed him in the back with a knife a couple of times...It made for an interesting next day, the police were called on and two of the 5 fighters arrested, and we had to stop off at the next port to get the beaten man to hospital.

It made the rest of the time a little bit strange...we were definitely more on edge, definitely trying to not make enemies (even when they pushed in on the dinner line...something that when you only get one proper meal a day can rally frustrate you more than you think!!)and to keep an eye on our stuff as things got stolen during the fight.Its quite scary to think people were on board with knifes...and willing to use them, but at the end of the day,theres no where you can go,youre on a boat and you just get on with it!!

It was again a beautiful trip,when the sun comes out,the Amazon looks stunningly beautiful, and i managed to spot a fair few dolphins (even somepink ones)along the way! We had some AMAZING storms as well, lightning that lit up the whole sky, and bolts that hit the water of the river we were on they were so close;.I have never heard anything so loud in my life. It did mean we had to tie our bags off the floor,and face rain getting into our hammocks at night (the rain is so intense in this part of the world) but it was 100% worth it for the drama of the storm. Such entertainment, nature.

As the trip went on, our moaning increased...boredom started to kick in, the boat stank (you ended up having to wade through urine just to get to the shower...oh no one on this planet will apprectiate clean toilets as much as me when i get home!),and we had one night where we didnt sleep as we had a bug attack! I know this sounds like something out of a comic,but it might as well have been a hitchcock film! Swarms of millions of insects (some amazing...they lit up fluorescent lights like those shoes kids wear!) descended on us...in my hair, on my face,in our hammock...not so much fun,but it made for a good laugh the next day when we had to sweep all the dead ones off the floor!

So, we arrived abouta day late in Porto Vehlo, another massive city, but luckily we made it to the bus station and managed to get a ticket out of there that night. It was pretty exhausting as we had barely slept and ate on the boat for 5 days, only to be followed with 24 hours on a bus, but there was nothing to hang around for! We arrived in Cuiaba last night, again, a hugetown on the edge of the Pantanal, which are wetlands larger than France (insane i know!). We really wanted to getout on a boat (why i dont know as i have never been so happy to be on land in my life!) on the wetlands and explore as it has some of the best wildlife on earth, but the only way it is acessible is by organised tour...they have everything clamped down to make money in this country. Unfortunately...after making it all the way here,we cant actually afford what they are asking for the tour.Even with some good bargaining they want 200 pounds a day for the two of us which is over 4 times our
budget! It sounds insane,but when you look at how expensive Brasil is it didnt surprise us at all! We were expecting a more expensive country, but everything is almost 5 times what it would cost in other countries here! Buses have cost us upto 100pounds when we never paid more than 15 pounds before, accomodation is costing us 6 times what it did in Peru, even food is more expensive than the UK, so were starting to struggle a little!

But...it is not the end of the world., Brasil is amazing,colourful, noisy, full of ridiculously friendly people and we are determined to have a good time! So the plan is to get a bus down to Rio tomorrow night...big cost and a 36 hour bus journey only to be followed with another 6 to Paratay, a coastal destination South of Rio. But, the compensation is, if we cant afford to do anything, well just have to have a beach holiday until we hit Rio for a week before heading home! Not a bad alternative to November in the UK so i cant complain....!

Hopefully will catch up from Rio before we fly home,on a computer that lets me do spaces between words (a million sorrys!)