3 posts tagged “belem”
Sounds Romantic doesn´t it!!! Well 50 pounds for five days, what do you expect. For double that we could have had a cabin, for a few pound more we could have stayed in the air conditioned part of the boat. But being travellers and spending too much money on Beer, we decided we needed to cut back so went third class... how bad could it be?
Our other option for getting to Manaus was to befriend local fishermen and give them a little money for them to take us up stream, but they can be a bit crazy so we opted for the boat.
We got to the boat three hours before departure, and already the boat was full of people. We were in Hammock class without air conditioning. We set up our hammocks in what little space there was left. Each hammock was a foot apart, we were packed in like sardines, amongst boxes of melons, tomatoes and oninons (remember we went third class!).
There were so many people on the boat, I thought we were going to sink. When there was no more room for hammocks, they made hammock bunk beds, placng the hammocks on all different levels. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen.
What could be worse than being cramped up in a hammock amongst 50 other people than being cramped up in a hammock with sea sickness and a thunder storm on its way...
I forgot to tell you a bit about Belem.... it is at the mouth of the Amazon and it is about 37 degrees... day and night...
Today we spent all day trying to book a boat to go to Manaus. After much ado we finally got a good price of about 50 pounds each for the boat, and tagged along with our new translator Yan (his name is spelt Jan but when written it sounds like a woman´s name).
We went to see the boat in the port before buying our ticket, which is apparently quite a common thing to check that the boat actually exists. On the way we passed through a shanty town which was quite funny, as the wood used to build the shelter for the poor where purely mahogony... now you now why it is so expensive in England... most of it is being used to house to the poor!!! One of the houses looked like a close relation of the leaning tower of Pisa, but was still occupied, with a shop downstairs.
Another funny thing we saw today (and when we saw this we thought of Maverick), we saw a lorry driver parked up at the side of the road. He had attached his hammock to the underneath of his trailer sleeping... beats a hot and sweaty cab.
Finally after 40 hours on a bus... (another one for you to work out, Ian)... we arrived in Belem. We are so close to the equator, I can feel my body shrink up like a prune everytime I look at the sun.
We found a hostel after confusing the taxi driver (once again) and went to the local park where there was a market on and had some beer (what else are you supposed to do in the sun?), watching people dance.
Our Porteguese is getting better, we ordered two cokes and got two coconuts.... its close enough....
We have met a crazy sex driven french man here, which is quite funny to watch...? and a Swiss guy callen Yan, who seems quite cool. He speaks Porteguese very well which he learnt while working with children in Brazil for 6 months.
We went to a nature reserve type thing also and saw lots of strange birds and I think that was about it for today.... the bus ride, the sun and the beer have made us a bit tired so goodnight for now...
