Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We left Alto do Chao on Wednesday morning and headed back towards Santarem. We had previously bought tickets for a boat that was leaving this afternoon only this time we had a cabin for two of us and one hammock space. We went to the supermarket before getting on the boat for supplies as non of us were very keen on eating the food provided on the boat!
We boarded the boat at 1pm with a lot less hassle than last time! The camarote (cabin) is really small and sweaty but would probably provide a better night sleep than a hammock wedged between a hundred others! The boat in general was less cramped and far cleaner than the first one. There was a dining room which was an acceptable distance from the toilets, and the toilets themselves were bareable. The food was crap but we had lots of supplies to keep us entertained!
We arrived in Manaus at about 6pm on Friday night. We tagged along with a guy called Gabriel who had been on the boat, he said he´d help us find some where to stay. There was a hotel not too far away from the port where we got a room. We pretty much just dumped our bags in our room and headed straight back out for something to eat. On the way out of the hotel the guy on reception asked us something about jungle tours, and before we knew it he was on the phone to Nelson. Nelson was at the hotel within a matter of minutes trying to sell us a jungle tour. He dropped his price twice within seconds without us even asking for any discount! We really wanted to check out the other options first before we rushed in and booked. We told him that we´d discuss it over dinner and call him back later that evening. He showed us to a restaurant which turned out to be pretty rank, maybe this was a sign! When we got back to the hotel we were really tired and so we told Nelson we would talk in the moring. He said he´d be there at 9am. This guy was desperado! I don´t think he wanted to give us a chance to shop around.
We rang Nelson the following morning and told him we would ring him at lunch to tell him what we were doing. He tried telling us that there wouldn´t be any where open on a weekend. How he lied! We had a wander around Manaus which is a fairly large, but nice city. Sarah booked her flight back to Belem and we booked ours onto Tabatinga. We have decided to fly into Peru because we can´t face another boat, nor do we have the time! We found a tour operator called Gero who is reccomended by the lonely planet and decided to book our jungle tour with him. It was a little more expensive than the one Nelson was offering but we didn´t trust him much!
The guy we booked our tour with was called Dave, he had to take us to the bank so we could get some money to pay for the trip. On the way we asked if he had heard of Nelson. He said that the company doesn´t have a very good reputation and apparently they change their name evey year. Last year a chinese tourist was killed when they managed to sink a boat!! We were relieved that we hadn´t chosen to go with him!
- comments