The Voyager III is bigger than the Cisne Branco with far fewer people. Our hammocks didn´t seem to need to touch anyone elses. The layout is almost identical, with the exception of a dining room at the back on the middle deck where we would go for all meals (included in the ticket this time). Despite the fat Brazilians urgency we were on board by 11am and the boat didn´t depart until 12:30pm. That said, we would learn that the Voyager III almost never left when they said it would. In the meantime we watched the labourers loading and unloading other vessels and bought some banana chips from a vendor because he had a ´learn to speak english´ book which he carried around with him. We also met the only other gringa on the boat - Audrey from France and who lives in Barcelona (and therefore speaks Spanish).

On the way out of Manaus Alex spotted the Cisne Branco moored at another pier! We were really excited as I hadn´t managed to take a photo of it when we left (all I could think about was how hot I was). It looked like it was loaded with hammocks for the return journey, and we thought that Maria might be on it on her way to Santarem!

Once we´d said goodbye to sticky Manaus we sat upstairs and watched the scenery, particularly the wet-season water line on the trees, which is 10m higher than at present in places. One man called Francisco came to talk to us. Unfortunately he could neither speak slowly, nor enunciate, but was very persistent and made for a lot of uncomfortable (non)communications over the 7 day trip. Besides him, everyone else spent most of the daytime in their hammocks watching tv.

Dinner started at 16:15 (!) and we tried to hold out until at least 5pm.But the cook came and asked us if we wanted to eat so it was either then or never. Alex and I then shared a teabag to make black tea and at 8pm somebody turned the lights off (for the one and only time of the journey). During the night Alex kicked me in the head.

Day 38 - With 7 days on this boat, the daily routine goes something like this:

• 6:00 - be woken up by everybody else and fall back to sleep
• 7:30 to 9:00 - wake up, have breakfast (same as in the Cisne), get dressed and fail to do 5 pull ups
• 9:00 to 11:00 - practice spanish
• 11:00 to 11:30 - lunch (chicken/beef, rice, spaghetti, bean stew and salad)
• 11:30 to 3:30 - make bracelets / play scrabble (win tally at 4:3 to Williams after a valiant comeback from me) plus daily cerveja
• 3:30 to 4:00 - shower
• 4:00 to 5:00 - nap
• 5:00 to 6:00 - dinner (same as lunch sans salad)
• 6:00 to 8:00 - play cards / scrabble
• 8:00 to 9:00 - read in hammock (Born to Run is a bad choice when stuck on a boat)
• 9:00 - bed

On the first morning I saw a local man pull up to the boat and sell a massive fish to one of the staff below. We did not see evidence of this fish in any of our subsequent meals.

Day 39 - Daily routine followed by an evening game of cards where we were subjected to sensory overload as we were sat between the tv, bar music, table of men slapping dominoes down and the music that a couple had decided to play from their laptop and speakers. Ah Brazil!

Day 40 - Our first stop on the Voyager - an hour at Fonte Boa. Today Alex and I decided to make our routine interesting, and played spanish charades much to the amuzement of anyone else who happened to be on the top deck at the time.

Today they took the salad away from lunch.

At around 5pm we stopped at a small town called Jutai where a couple of missionaries disembarked. Audrey, Alex and I went for a walk around the town and ended up in a curious bar called Bar do Natureza. We bought a small bottle of cachaca, and with the use of some limes, sugar and ice, (Audrey) made our own caiprinhas. They were really good!

Day 41 - Saw the sunrise from my hammock. Yesterday there was no salad for lunch, and today there was no bread for breakfast. Just crackers.

We arrived at Tonantins around 10am and were due to dock for 5 hours while the staff unloaded a huge amount of stock for the local convenience stores. We had a walk around the little town and made sure we returned to the boat for lunch due to dinero constraints. Afterwards Audrey managed to negotiate 2 x moto taxis to take us to Praia do San Francisco so we could go swimming. Yes that´s 2 x moto taxis for 3 x persons. So off we went along the rural roads with Alex squashed in between the driver, Flavio who had handles on his tabbard, and me just about on the back. We went across a long wooden bridge that sounded like it fell away behind us as we went over it.

Unfortunately the best place to swim at the Praia required a boat to get to it. That wasn´t an option so the taxi drivers dropped us at some wooden shack that then opened up to the river the other side. So down a steep step of rickety steps we found the beach, covered in cans and broken bottles. A local family who were there urged us that it was safe for swimming and here I learned of Audrey´s determination and positivity. There was a pontoon in the water and it transpired that we could bring it closer to the beach by tugging on a rope. With all our efforts it would only come so far, so Audrey got into her bikini, tentatively picked her way to the water and jumped in. The other side of the pontoon the water was good, so I followed. Before I got to the pontoon Audrey asked me to throw her Dora (the Explorer) that she travelled and took photos with. Having known me only days she had no idea how bad a thrower I was...Dora went up in the air 5 metres and towards Audrey just one metre, landing in the water amongst the cans. I retrieved her with a stick and then Alex had a go... and did the same thing. Eventually one of the little girls from the Brazilian family threw Dora effectively to the pontoon, putting us both to shame.

We had asked the moto drivers to come back at 1:30 but annoyingly it was only after I had got into my bikini that they actually decided to leave. But don´t worry, we had an audience from the many bars and houses that backed onto the river. Alex took some coercing, but couldn´t stand and watch for long. So there we were, swimming and jumping in from the pontoon with 4 x children that belonged to the Brazilian woman who watched from the shack.

Things then got a bit more surreal when a speedboat turned up with a family inside. After doing some circles they moored at our pontoon and took a photo of Alex in her swimming costume (she is considered very exotic with her fair skin; I however, look native). Then then departed in their speedboat, leaving their coolbox of beer behind. The woman in the shack indicated that we could help ourselves (although I don´t know how she knew) and so we sat on the pontoon and drank a couple of someone elses beers. They returned in their speedboat just as it was time for us to go. As they were returning to the village that was our boat´s next stop, they urged us to go with them. Clearly having had a number of beers that day, one of the guys managed to fall in while he was getting back in the boat and then doggy-paddled alongside me trying to convince me that their boat would be more fun than our moto-taxis. We couldn´t abandon Flavio.

Back on the boat Alex and I had a coke on the top deck to try and kill and lurgy we might have picked up from the river. While we´d been off drinking free beers, the men on the boat had been having their own fun, piling the empty beercans on their tables as they watched Corinthians versus Flamengo. It turned out that most of these men were not travelling on the boat, but had come aboard just to watch the football and drink beers.

Later we tried some orange Amazonian fruit that tasted just like a roasted chestnut. My kind of fruit - filling! A bit later on I went to the middle deck to get the scrabble and happened to pause by the water purifyer. As I looked out across the river I saw the very same speedboat from earlier! They were clearly scanning the Voyager and when they saw me they all waved! I ran back upstairs and showed Alex - it was hilarious!

Later that evening the boat stopped at San Antonio and I had a convseration with a shy Peruvian who we had seen waving goodbye to his sister at Manaus (it was heart-wrenching). As we pulled away from the town I went and stood at the front of the boat where the captain came out of his cab, held my hand, told me when and where our next stop would be, all while reversing and turning the boat.

Slept terribly since I have in the region of 100 bites on my body. The boat arrived at Amatura at around 1am and I looked out from under my eyemask to see the little church lit up with fairy lights.

Day 42 - a really nice lady with a baby (there are a lot on the boat since San Antonio) gave me some purple and white root vegetable to eat this morning, and later Francisco gave me a banana. Alex and I then went for a walk around the town, which is fairly small but with a big sense of community. The population looked more indigenous than anywhere else I´ve seen in Brazil and every woman had a baby. We managed to find a little place with an old man who made incredible fresh juice, and sat and watched the kids playing football in front of the church. All of a sudden the father of a little girl that we had made friends with on the boat came by on his motorbike and stopped to say hello. On the boat he and his wife were really unfriendly and scowling, but now in his hometown he was all smiles!

We hung out near the boat, enjoying the dry land until lunchtime and to our joy the salad has returned! We spent the afternoon sat upstairs trying to position ourselves to capture any breeze we could find. The boat finally left over 4 hours after planned and once again we had air!

Day 43 - As usual the boat awoke at 6am, this time with the addition of 80s and 90s US dance classics played from someones portable speaker. We had stopped at St Paulo do something-somethng in the night and so we went for a walk around after breakfast. It turned out to be a deceptively large town which carries from a dirt road upwards into a busy plaza and market, which was really cool. On the way back we took a shortcut across a rubbish dump and grassy trail back to the boat where we arrived very sweaty from the heat.

As we sat by our hammocks I must have that look on my face today, as both Francisco and the Peruvian came and sat by me concurrently to speak to me in spanish. There is only so many times I can say mas despacio. Lunch arrived and would be getting boring by now if they hadn´t have take the salad away that one time.

Our last evening on the boat. Alex and I sat upstairs playing scrabble and enjoying especially good music. ´Tell it to my heart´ came on and Alex repositioned her chair, seemingly giving three boys who had been drinking all afternoon on a nearby table the impetus to come and join us. Evidently I still have that same look on my face as they tried to communicate with me to absolutely no avail.

Day 44 - final crackers for breakfast and time to pack up, because at 9:30am we arrived at Tabatinga! Farewell hammock, farewell rice and spaghetti (for now).

In Tabatinga we went in search of the Policia Federal to gain exit stamps from Brazil. It was a fairly long, hot walk and we stopped at a naval base where we asked for directions, and just as he was sending us te other way we discovered it was nextdoor. With stamps in our passports we said goodbye to Audrey as she sped off on a moto taxi. Then Alex and I bought a drink, sat down and waited for a taxi to pass. Tabatinga is small and mostly dirt roads, so no taxi passed. Plenty of time. I nipped back into the Policia Federal to ask where we could get a taxi, and a lovely man who we named Chito II said he would give us a lift in his pickup to the taxi stand! We´ll miss the Brazilians. In our taxi we headed to our hostel in Leticia - the adjacent Colombian town (one day late) - and said goodbye to Brazil.