1/2/13 We slept well in our hammocks last night as we had our mosquito nets up to protect us from bugs. We seem to have got the hang of the hammock thing - the secret is to tie it tight and sleep across it on a bit of a diagonal to keep your back straighter. We headed out to explore our new surroundings. The small town was compact and bustling. We walked down to the rivers edge. Here we caught a small boat over to a small island in the middle of the lake. This...

Amazon Boat Trip 30-31st Jan The vastness and geography of the Amazon region means that the most common way of getting around is via the river. So, Andrew and I bought a boat ticket travelling from Manaus, downriver to the next largest town, Santarem. It would take 2 days and be a typical Amazonian experience. For the trip we needed our own hammocks to hang on the boat, which we happened to be given free from a couple we met in the hostel. The day before we l...

We returned from our Amazon trip on the night of the 28th weary but satisfied. That night we walked to the square by the theatre and had a casual dinner with Rens and Caz. The next day we had to prep for our upcoming boat trip down the Amazon to Santarem. We had acquired some free hammocks from a couple of travellers in the hostel but we went out in search of mosquito nets to cover them. Whilst out we also stocked up on supplies to keep us going on the 2 day tr...

Day 1 - packing only daypacks (still making me think poorly about my heavy pack) and heading off in a car to the dock was the start of our amazon trip. We boarded our first boat and headed out to the mixing of the rivers, the location where Rio Negro and Rio Amazonas meet. Due to density, temperature and chemistry, they don't mix initially, and you can see the black water next to the brown of the amazon, with 'packages' of water of each colour in the other, but ...

We departed Cuba for the next country on our itinerary -Brazil! Unfortunately the lack of internet in Cuba and the strict controls on webpages meant we weren't able to be as organized as we would have liked, and when we left Cuba we didnt have a hostel booked to go to in Brazil. We tried to book one on hostelworld.com from Havana but apparently as we were either in "Cuba, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq" the transaction was disallowed! Hmmm American websit...