Amazon and on.. and on..

miserable hammock dweller...

Next morning in "Alto do Chao", after another bad night in a 
hammock, and I'm ill (again). I really feel bad, it's my 3rd trip to HELL (of this whole trip), and I'm regretting returning to the Tropics at all, especially a place notorious for unpleasant bugs. Once again it was a Burger, I'll be put off those damn things for life ! I also find that the boat leaving Santarem the next day is the last one for 5 days, if I don't get on it, I'll be stuck here for a quite a while (at Manaus I was told there is a boat everyday from Santarem to Belem, not so...).

Strangely, the following day (after my first actual sleep in a hammock) I felt absolutely fine and made the crazy decision of returning to Santarem on the bus and getting on the boat. It's a shame to be leaving "Alto do Chao", I've seen so little of it (confined to hammock) & the "jungle trips" are supposed to be good here.

As soon as I stepped on the boat at approx 1430 it left the dock (I was heading for the 1800 boat, this was the 1000 boat and it was very late, it turned out there was no 1800 boat, this is the last boat for 5 days !). Cost was R130 for a hammock space. After 2 hours of steaming away from Santarem my symptoms returned and I then had the most unpleasant day and half that I could just about imagine. Nausea, a high fever and bad diarrhea are hard enough, but in a hot, humid and grubby Amazon river boat when all you have is a hammock (which is hard to enter and exit without disturbing your neighbours), and just a few toilets between hundreds, is no fun at all !! As I was the last person onboard I got the worst hammock space, bottom deck by the engine, steerage ! This boat, the "CISNE BRANCO", is in some ways better than the first one, smaller, quieter, better run, but I find it hard to appreciate the improvements.

I'm fortunate that I'm feeling better when we come to the most interesting part of the river trip, we enter the narrow creeks and channels of the Amazon delta as we start to head Southeast towards Belem. People are living on the muddy river banks here in crude wooden shacks. The living looks rough and I wonder how anything ever dries, they live suspended (on wooden posts) over mud, everything must be perpetually damp & mouldy. Later we pass hundreds of canoes (pic left), mainly containing children making a strange high-pitched ululating sound. Brazilians, on our boat, throw plastic bags full of food and clothes out to them. Turns out they are VERY poor and they need this stuff just to survive.

More enterprising kids are selling stuff on our actual boat. To do this they take big risks as the boat does not stop for them. They paddle their canoes close enough to place a homemade re-bar hook inside one of the truck-tyre fenders (the hook is attached to the bow of the canoe with rope), they then hold on for dear life as they accelerate to 12 knots !! Impressive to watch ! Most did not try to sell their wears too hard at all they were more interested in the freebies they got off the crew, tins of coca-cola, biscuits, sweets etc...

a typical small community on the banks of the Amazon

After 2 and half days (2 nights) from Santarem, we arrive in Belem.  The boat skipper says it is too dangerous to navigate the creeks close to Belem at night, there are too many pirates !! For boatey types:  the river boat had no charts, no GPS & no Radar, they navigated the whole 1500km on memory alone, quite a feat, and, except for arriving in Belem, there were no external navigation aids at all (buoys, whitheys, beacons, lighthouses).

It's typically raining hard as we arrive in Belem (the rainy season has just started) and it's a surprise to see skyscrapers and office blocks looming out of the murk, having seen very little of "civilisation" since leaving Santarem.