We exited Tortuia aka Torture via a meaty looking truck, the kind that any reasonable yummy mummy would gladly purchase to drive her kids to school in the morning. Unfortunately for us the comfort levels on this form of transportation are reminiscent of a rollercoaster at Alton Towers; we have all experienced at some time or other (during many an English summer) are not rain resistant! This would have been perfectly acceptable had it not been for the stray branches and multiple kamikaze bugs which seem to target me with exceptional accuracy!

OUr truck journey took around five hours but the time flew by (as did my head on a couple of occasions) as we were venturing through some of the most remote parts of Brazil where villages are literally in the middle of nowhere! Bizarrely, despite most of the houses consisting of just mud and straw, yet they would still have a giant satelite dish outside their house?! Every village we passed through had some kind of muddy lake or river nearby where the local children would be dunking each other; their mothers looking on doing their washing for the day - balancing their buckets and soap on a plank of wood floating on the water. I experienced my most pinch myself exotic moment, when i saw this little girl feeding a banana to a spider monkey resting on her shoulder!

Our destination was this tiny little fishing village in the middle of the jungle. Its main draw was its buzzing market which was almost shanti like - just wooden shacks, with the smell of putrid fish swimming through the air. Stray dogs and vultures prowled the streets for food, we found roadkill a la rat was a particular favourite!

Another night bus brought us to San Luis, the only part of Brazil colonised by the French. It definitely has the colonial vibe going for it and we really struck out with the hotel - think eco tourism with a little jungle in the reception area; but the real reason we were there was to celebrate carnival. I don´t know if i was the only one in the dark about the sheer proportions and stamina that is needed to survive the Brazilian carnival season? Blimey! Think of a big dollop of samba, stir in a serious amount of drumming, a lot of cachasa (local sugar cane rum) and some Mardi Gras + Halloween dressing up and you may get an inkling of what its like. Double decker buses bolstered with immense speakers, are topped with brass and drum bands and they patrol the streets accompanied by hundreds of sambaíng people wearing this dayglo t-shirts.
Luckily I was adopted by a big group of girls who decided to protect me from the amorous brazillian men and make me dance like a crazy person. This goes on for around 3 nights, with people keeping up the boozing and partying till around 11am the next day before they begin all over again around 5pm! During this time, the whole city is in a state of permanent hangover - nothing opens and everyone looked decidly rough.

Im in Manaus at the moment, which is this huge city in the middle of the Amazon. Surprise, surprise its raining! I am adjusting to being on land again as i we just landed after a 6 day boat trip down the Amazon but i shall tell you about that in a couple of days. Off to Venezuala tomorrow.

Hope all is well at home.

Lisa xxx