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For anyone who new our original itinerary you will be wondering at this point why we are heading along the Amazon to Colombia, Colombia never having been on the itinerary, and not Venezuala. Well over the 5 weeks travelling up Brazil, meeting other travellers a common pattern began to emerge. Everyone who had been to Colombia said it was the best country to visit in South America, whereas there were very mixed reviews for Venezuala and there was only one thing we wanted to see there and that was Angel falls. So Colombia it is.
A VW Camper came to pick us up on the morning of the 9th to take us to the port where we would hop aboard the boat that we would be living on for the next 6 days. On the journey I was telling Stu and Carly about my plan to sow a flag onto my back pack for every country I travelled through and how I was dissappointed that I had failed to get my first flag from Brazil. By some freak of coincidence Stuart just happened to have a Brazil flag in his wallet that he had ripped off a hat he had bought and said I was welcome to it. What are the chances! I was so happy to have 1 of the 18 or so flags I intend to get.. Cheers again Stu. On the way to the port we were told that there would be a pick up of two other passangers for the same boat as us. When we stopped for the pick up 2 bags were thrown into the camper by the driver, then in jumps this guy with a strong Dutch accent with, what seemed at the time, his calm and quiet girlfriend and says `you guys ready for some fun?`. They introduced themselves as Franky (Frans) and Elien then Franky gets out his video camera to film hello´s between the now 6 of us and a bit of the journey. We had planned well ahead and had organised for hammocks to be put up for us the day before the boad leaves to make sure we had a good spot. We showed our tickets and passports and then started the process of making our way through the swarm of hammocks on the lower deck to try and find 4 that were uninhabited. I did 2 circles of the lower and upper deck and couldn´t find anything, then everyone else had a look for the missing hammocks but still nothing! After about 20 minutes we tried to get on the phone to the organiser with no luck, if that wasn´t bad enough Stuart had gone missing and naturally Carly was very upset about the whole ordeal. I was determined at this point that I was going to sleep on the floor on my bag... this is travelling after all. During the Chaos I knoticed an Irish guy having a bit of trouble with his accommodation too. He introduced himself as Barry and explained that they had booked a privated bedroom with bathroom and had ended up in a room with 4 bunk beds, 2 of which were occupied. At least we wern´t the only ones having trouble. I explained our situation to Barry, which I think made him feel a little better. All the while Franky and Elien who had turned up with their hammocks were all set up on the upper deck. It was so nice that we had only just met these guys but they were so concerned for us. All I could think about was how jeleous I was of their very cozy looking little area they had set up. 15 minutes later Carly had a breakthrough with the help of a police officer to get through to the organiser who appologised and said he would send his son down with 4 hammocks. Minutes later Stuart appears on a boat drenched in sweat with 4 hammocks... what a hero. What ever happened now we had hammocks to sleeps in. 5 minutes before the boat was set to leave, by this point we had all given up hope on the organisers, a guys turns up with 4 hammocks! I really wanted to be angry with him but it wasn´t his fault so we ended up joking with him and he put up our hammocks on the airy top deck (apparently not the place to be if you want to sleep but we loved it). So from zero hammocks to 8 between the 4 of us. What a great story to kick off our epic journey.
Now that were were all set up the 6 of us went and sat by the side of the boat on the benches and broken plastic blue chairs. Shortly after we sat down I saw Barry at the little snack kiosk so I waved him over, he introdued us to his girlfriend Jennifer and so Ocho (meaning 8 in spannish) was born (although this name was not bought about until much later on our journey).
Soon after we set off we got a great view of the meeting of the rivers. This is where the Rio Negro, with is acidic dark brown waters, and Rio Solimoes (Amazon proper), with it´s much lighter coloured water, flow along side each other without mixing for several kilometers to stunning effect. A pod of grey river dolphins decided to add to the show by leaping in and out of the water next to the boat. What a great send off from Brazil.
We were all still recovering from the slight panic of the whole hammock ordeal and we found out it was Jennifers´ birthday so what better reason to have a few beers and relax whilst watching the beautiful Amazon Rainforest roll on by. It didn´t take long for the 8 of us to really start getting along.
We spent the first evening all teaching each other card games, the main ones being travel monopoly (highly addictive), s*** head and el presedente. These games would end up consuming a lot of or time on the boat but it was so much fun and there is not a lot else to do. On the first night we also played games to see how much we new about the people we were travelling with, some very interesting things came out of that one!
The following day Stuart Carly and I decided that we would test out some of the pidgion spanish and portuguese that we had learnt on a local kid. He was very shy but we managed to find out that his name was Obhen, he was 8 years old from Tabatinga and had a youger brother of 2. It didn´t take too long for Obhen to come out of his shell, within 30 minutes we couldn´t get rid of him so we started inventing games to keep him occupied. In the end I think that me and Stu must have played a games called lines with him for at least 3-4 hours!
Breakfast was anounced at 6am each morning by a woman with a bell. We dreaded the sound by the 3rd day beacuse a breakfast of bread was not really worth getting up for. The other meals on the boat wern´t bad at all if you like rice, beans, meat and Cassava, a birdfood like carbohydrate made from a root called yuca. Luckily I enjoyed the food so I often finished off some of the other guys meals. The best meal was rice, beans and pirarucu, a huge ugly amazonian fish with a flat head and the best fish I have ever tasted. For a reson that has evaided everyone the cook really didn´t like me, it was a bit of a love hate relationship as I would thank her for the food and give her a grin and she would scowel at me (I did manage to get a cheeky smile out of her on the last day though).
Throughout the day we would either chill in our hammocks reading or play card games but usually with the addition of beer and Cachaca, a local spirit that cost around R$6 (2pounds a bottle). One evening the talk was around Barry fancying a hair cut at some point. This conversation some how evolved into Me, Barry and Franky getting Mowhawks! Stuart at this time had been put to bed/hammock by Carly after, for no known reason, downing a full cup of pure Cachaca, good old boy! Elien seemed more that happy to take on the role of hairdresser and away she went with the clippers. Somehow when I was having my haircut Barry managed to take a square chunk out of my hair! I have to admit I wasn´t too happy but when I realised that I didn´t have to go back to work for at least 11 months and that it would grow out it wasn´t so bad :-) Having had quite long hair before my mowhawk looked rediculous so in the morning I asked hairdresser Elien if she would be so kind as to rid me of it. Elien was more that happy to get her hands back on the clippers!
In the morning the ever present Obhen decided to start harrassing me in my hammock by stealing my ipod and shouting in my ear. Eventually I got up and spent and hour trying to put new batteries into his toy car... BIG MISTAKE!! When I gave the car back Obhen switched it on and it started belting out a tune with the sound of a car horn! Sadly the batteries didn´t die over the next 4 days.
On the 2nd evening Franky was telling us about someone who had been on this boat trip when the boat was swarmed by thousands of bugs and beetles. With in minutes of the conversation ending literally thousands of bugs and beetles and moths swarmed the boat and the deckhands were sweeping them overboard by the bucket load. It was like being in a war zone constantly getting hit by these things but it was so funny hearing the others screech each time a bug landed on them. I took the opportunity to play tricks by tapping the others on their necks and legs, hehe.
On the 3rd night we stopped at about 1 in the morning to offload cargo to a small village. 99% off each drop off we made seemed to be beer. At this particular stop the village were having a party and setting off really dodgy homemade fireworks until 5am. You can imagine how happy we were to hear the breakfast ladies bell at 6!
On the 4th day one of the locals announced that he had just had a baby arrive. We brought him a few beers to congratulate him so in return he shared some of the meat from the BBQ he was having with us and also the most amazing serviche, a dish that combinned white fish, lemon, lime, red onion, chilli, garlic and corriander... amazing.
On the 5th day Obhens Mum was worried about a baddly infected cut on her youngest sons leg and asked if I was a ´medico´(a doctor). I tried my best to explain that I wasn´t a doctor but I had some stuff to clean and cover the wound. Once I was done she was very greatful and I felt like all of us (Ocho) and the family had a really good connection (cleché I know). Obhen and I had become really good friends and I knew I was going to miss him even if he was a pain in the behind.
The itinerary said that we would be arriving in tabatinga at 3pm on the 6th day. When the horn blew to announce our arrival at 3am instead we were all in a bit of a panic about what to do because we had now accommodation booked. One of the crew members told us that we would be docked for about another hour so we could sleep if we wanted and he would come and wake us up with 20 minutes to spare. When the crew member came to wake us he told us that we had 5 minutes to pack everything up, hammocks and all, before the boat departed! During the panic it was a really sweet moment when obhen came up to me to hug me and say goodbye. We all worked as fast as week could to get packed, within a minute off stepping foot off the boat it departed. I really felt like my home was floating away. I loved the boat life with Ocho so much, I knew that although we were only 5 weeks into a year of travel that this experience would be up there with the best.
- comments
Elien Can't believe you still remember all this! The boat life with Ocho definitely was amazing! X