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Aboard the Cisne Branco our hammocks are squeezed on the middle deck of three, towards the back next to the toilets and above the engine - prime position! The entire middle deck is basically hammocks and the toilets. Downstairs there are hammocks at the front and freight and a kitchen towards the back. Later we discovered it was actually illegal to have hammocks on the lower level as when the police boat came by everyone stuffed their hammocks up in the rafters! On the top deck there are some cabins and a bar with very loud speakers that play music from 7am till 10pm or so.
Alex, Maria and I enjoyed a nice cold beer on the top deck while we set sail from Belem under the full moonlight. Despite the inevitably bad night sleep we are about to have there is a definite feeling of excitement. Our first purchased boat meal was a complete dinner of fried chicken, rice AND spaghetti and a tiny bit of salad. It was actually pretty good - definitely sustainable for 5 days! Everyone in the boat was in bed by 10:30, but the lights remain on always. The two men either side of me were chatting in their hammocks and at one point the hair on the one man´s knee brushed my face as I tried to sleep. Try and picture that. Obviously I had a horrible nights sleep.
Day 31 - our 1st mesiversary! As if someone had an alarm clock absolutely everyone in the boat got up at 6am and started getting themselves ready for a day of staying in the their hammocks. It was impossible to sleep through the disturbance, but I sat in my hammock for a while watching everyone get up and queue for a breakfast of sweet, milky coffee and one piece of bread with butter. The guys next to me also sat in his hammock and for a minute it seemed very much as though we were sat up in bed alongside each other. I could see Alex´s hammock was empty and it turned out that she got up to go to the bathroom at around 4am and then could not get back in as the surrounding hammocks filled her space! She later relocated.
The shower was cold and kind of cool as the open porthole was at head height and I could see the jungle pass by. The view along the entire boat trip was jungle and little, remote shacks with women and children paddling in dug out canoes. The river is (not surprisingly) really wide, so you can usually have a good view of the bank from one side and a wide expanse of water on the other. Now and again some of the local people would speed up in home-made motor boats alongside our boat and attach it so they can climb on and sell shrimp and acai. Other times the staff of our boat would throw plastic bags of sweets into the river for little tykes to paddle up and collect.
The boat regime generally consisted of trying to learn spanish, playing scrabble (win tally now at 3-1 to Williams and I´m beginning to lose interest), reading, chatting to fellow travellers, sight-seeing and enduring awkward conversations with locals which basically consisted of them talking, us saying ´desculpa no entendo´and them talking some more.
At 11am they put out the condiments for lunch. As we deemed it too early we tried to hold out until 12:20, and just in time! We got the last two meals! Seems like a change in routine is required to survive on this boat!
On the top of the boat the area had been dominated by a group of Brazilian men (who didn´t know each other before the boat) who had taken over the loud speakers and played their own awful Brazilian music, causing everyone else to resort to downstairs. When I went up it looked like a bad music video with about 6-8 men with their gold chains and tops off at the back of the boat under the showers dancing to Brazilian hip hop.
In the evening we made our first stop at Gurupa, which signified our move from the delta onto Amazon proper and heading west. Once again I coudn´t sleep, at when the boat stopped at 3am at Almeirim I hadn´t yet slept. When the boat stops, no matter what time of day or night and despite the fact it usually doesn´t stop long enough to get off, people seem to get up and start doing things... and as there is an old guy in aviators - Eugene - hanging in the walkway in his hammock, everyone walks into my feet as they walked by. This is impossible.
Day 32 - Decided to forget the appalling boat breakfast that costs R2 and make our own from integral (whole grain) crackers, dolce de leche, linseed and banana. I could see that others were envious.
Normal boat regime.
In the evening we stayed on the top deck and determined what we thought must surely be the las estrellas de amazonas constellations. We could also see the storms flashing lightening all around us in the distance. I figured that I must by now be so tired I could sleep anywhere, but alas no. Tonight was the worst night ever as I developed headache, fever, stomach cramps and nausea. I got up a couple of times in the night and slumped myself on the floor to be more upright. Even at 4am there are a couple of old men shaving and getting dressed for the day!
Day 33 - After an hour of sleep I woke up in the morning and waited for Alex to come by so I could ask her to get me some water!! The boat docked at Santarem in the night and wasn´t due to leave until 11am, so everyone else went off for a look around while I stayed in my hammock feeling really very rotten. Passengers wrapped up their hammocks and left the boat, but new ones came and filled their space. Vendors came on and tried selling food and handicrafts - one sat at the end of my hammock and kept offering me cheese, which I declined each time. Alex etc returned around 10am full of beans about their trip to town. Alex started showing me her photos of the fish market, which exacerbated the nausea and so I returned to my hammock for the afternoon! On leaving Santarem we could see where the blue Rio Tapajos meets the brown Amazon, creating a clear line where the water meets but doesn´t look to mix.
Stopping at Santarem benefitted the boat with two new notable arrivals: one is a lovely Brazilian missionary who speaks some english called Andre, and the other is the Brazilian Lovejoy, complete with curly mullet and cowboy boots.
By the time we reached Obidos at 7pm I felt well enough to get out of my hammock and say farewell to Simon. A youth football team were returning to a champions welcome of fireworks and a band at the dock, but we told Simon that the welcome was for him.
Day 34 - I woke up feeling much much better! My 24 hour illness remains a mystery, but I´m pretty glad it didn´t turn out to be anything more. The only apparent calamity today is that my tea tree oil is completely empty with no trace of where the contents disappeared to. Unfortunately it turned out to not be the only calamity... as I was tucking into my meal of meat, rice, spaghetti and beans Alex started to turn green. It seems she (and Maria) have what I had. They both stayed in bed all day, which made it very boring for me. Luckily Andre was on hand to talk about the local communities and point out a dolphin or two (there are black and pink ones), and at one point, for the first time since we embarked in Belem, almost everyone was out of their hammocks sight-seeing.
In the evening I got stung by a gigantic bee. I brushed the monster off but I had to pull it´s sting out of my arm - it was at least 1cm long! There are a lot more insects around today, and as I was reading in my hammock a great big beetle landed on my lap, so I scooped him up and threw him out. Alex also pointed out a big beetle to a local as we think they are quite exciting, but the Brasileiro responded by stamping on it!! A gang of old guys had congregated near my hammock to exchange loud stories. This time I slept through it!
Day 35 - This morning I forgot to set my watch back an hour so accidentally got caught in the morning shower rush. Maria is recovered and Alex is getting there. One last meal of meat and multiple carbs (for now) and in the early afternoon we arrived at Manaus. On entering the city we crossed the Encontro das Aguas, which is where the black Rio Negro (which looks like coca cola) meets the brown Rio Solimoes to create the Amazon, and run alongside each other for a few kilometers without mixing - pretty cool. And after five excellent days and God knows how many kilometers (plus probable carbon monoxide poisioning) we said goodbye to the Cisne Branco.
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