Its been a while since we updated this site. This is being written in Leticia in Colombia as it is the first chance we have had to use computers since leaving Manaus. When we last blogged we were in Manaus having bought our ticket to Tefe on the slow boat up the Amazon. Well, the chap who sorted out our tickets for has was as good as his word (though we ended up sailing on a boat called something entirely different to that which our tickets said, but more of that later). Our guy picked us up on the morning of the 1st of November and arrived a very Brazilian 30 minutes late. We were concerned for a while until Brazilian timing and punctuality was explained to us by our friend at the youth hostel. We were taken in a car past the bustling banana market which considering it exists pretty much for one commodity only was huge, and down a combination of bustling floating jetties and plank walkways to meet our boat. The Elzon Fernandes puts you in mind of the pictures of the old steam boats you see pictures of on the Missisippi. She has a lower deck, an upper deck and a open area on top where there are some plastic chairs scattered around on which they had sing alongs and film viewings in the evenings. She is definatly very old and has done countless miles up and down the great Amazon. The white paintwork was grimez and peeling and I wouldn´tbe surprised if she had been submerged on one or two occassions judging bz some of the dirt. Heeding the advice of our guidebooks we went up to the top deck and slung our hammocks on the starboard side so as to avoid the noise of the engine. We were there and in our hammocks by 10.30am and we would not sail until at 1pm (Brazilian time don´t forget - we left at half past). We were happy to enjoy the novelty of slung up sleeping and watch all the comings and goings of the banana boats and the busy harbour. I was even lucky enough to catch glimpses of pink Amazon dolphins surfacing to gulp some air every now and then.

The first amazing sight after we set sail was crossing the Econtro das Aguas (The Meeting of the Waters). This is where the dark Rio Negro meets the cafe au lait Rio Solimoes. They flow side by side for a few miles without mingling due to differences in their speeds, densities and temperatures before combining to become the Amazon. It is a very unique thing to see and I dont´think the photos do it justice.

Then it was settling in to the rythms of Amazon boat life. It was busy but not heaving. Late comers had difficulty finding a sling spot for their hammocks and laura was unfortunate enough to have a couple slung a little too close to her for some of the trip but generally there is enough room to be comfortable. And what can I say about hammocks? What a great invention. They are very comfortable indeed. I did worry that the little sliver of nylon i´d bought on ebaz in the UK would just tear under me but no, it supported my ample frame in the utmost comfort for all of the trip. Though, if I was to do it again I would get a lovely wool tassley hammock like Laura bought in Manaus as the nylon stuck to my sweaty skin and was also a little cold at night too. But these are minor foibles. You can lie diagonally if you wish to sleep flat, you can sit across it on the edge and lean back and it becomes a chair or you can just flop down length ways were you are bent at the waist slightly and allow the breeze to gently swing you, my personal favourite. They were so comfy Laura fell asleep in hers within 20 minutes of putting it up.

So after the meeting of the waters we lay in our hammocks and watched as the Amazon riverside crept by. I got lots of reading done, I wrote a bit, I played PSP but mostly I just lay watching the riverbank go by. The river is a coffee colour, immensley wide and full of forest debris which our poor little boat would have to sometimes lurch violently to avoid. The riverbank is a very rich green colour, the trees where short and there are occassional small communities set up on top of the bank at the high water mark. Apart from the occassional bird and one sighting of what looked like some wild Yaks there wasn´t much wild life during the day.

Everyday you got served three square meals which tended to be rice and beans and some chicken or beef. It was tasty and filling and hugely popular those in the know queued up for hours beforehand. They served it self service from huge kettle drums in a little refrectory with three wooden benches and maybe 18 stools in the bow. Sittings were rotated on a 18 in 18 out basis so that all 150 plus people on board would get fed so long as you waited long enough. It was so hot in that little room.

Everyone onboard, including us, turns in really early. The light fades really fast and once it had gone on the first night we were inundated with swarms of tiny grey cricket like creatures who created clouds of themselves around every exposed light, one of which was at the foot of my hammock. A kindly chap switched it off for me as I couldn´t work out the pre 1950s switch technology. Derrr. But it still took a lot of bug spray to keep the critters at bay. A little later when everyone seemed to had gone to sleep I heard singing and cheers on the "sun" deck upstairs. I went to investigate and low and behold I could see loads of people sitting in a huge circle having a sing-along. Unfortunatly I couldn´t join in as the short corridor leading to the deck looked like the corridor to the thuggee lair in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Walls and floor covered in a thick moving layer of insects and I was in bare feet. No way was I going to trot down there. Strange thing about those insects was that they never appeared on the second night and also they didn´t seem to leave. In the morning the deck hands had a huge job to sweep up all these dead insects that had flown out to bother us last night and then they´d died littering the decks with a layer of dead critters. There was a huge black beetle that had died with them too. It was the size of my thumb.

I went back to the rail near my hammock on the deck below and watched the stars come out. With no glare from any major settlement within 200k you could see millions of stars. The milky way was really clear too. It was a little strange because even though I am not an astrologist or astronomer of any kind I realsied I am a little more familiar with the constellations in the UK than I thought as looking up at the sky then it didn´t "look right" like when you go into a familiar room and someone has moved a few things around. But better than the stars I saw my first ever firefly. At first I thought I was having some sort of flashback from the late nineties. It was flashing the sort of green glow that glow in the dark toys have and was swirling around in the air in front of me for a couple of minutes before it left. I suppose it ran out of batteries.

The rest of the time was spent chilling hard. There´s nothing to do after all. The boat stopped at various places here and there and picked up and dropped off people. Everyones kids were exceptionally well behaved and everyone was really nice to us and made sure we knew when they were serving food or which town we were pulling in to and what was going on. We had a really animated conversation with a guy called Elias who spoke no English (we speak no portuguese) but we still managed to communicate and talk about dancing, Europe and our families. The only down side, no beers. I can understand it though. The last thing you want is a group of tired, bored drunks holed up on a ship from which you can´t get off. Laura was adopted as a toy for one little girl who couldn´t understand why we didn´t speak Portugese. She brought her pals over to see these strange, sweaty, white people who spoke in gibberish so that they could have a could have a good laugh too. Then when it was hammock time the same little girl would creep up on Laura and stick her fingers in her ears then we got pulled n to a paper ball war with her.

We arrived in Tefe on the 3rd of November 6 hours late and on the wrong boat but the driver from the Marmirua institute was still there to pick us up as soon as we stepped off the gangplank. Not hard to spot the sweaty white people but I´m impressed his instincts led him to that boat. That night we were to be spending our first of three nights in the Uacari Lodge on the Marmirua Reserve (Marmirua means baby Manatee).

Chris