4 posts tagged “boat”

Another long day on the boat, with rice & beans as food.  We have seen lots and lots of grey and pink dolphins today, the Amazon seems to be filled with them.  The Amazon is an extremely wide river, at its mouth it is over 200 km wide.  It looks quite clam although there is a very strong underlying current.  A huge tree (about 25 ft at least) fell into the river today and the river swallowed the tree within seconds.  It was very scary to watch as the river seemed so calm.

I can´t wait to get off the boat as I want a proper shower.  They have showers on the boat but it uses the water from the river and you don´t always feel clean.

Over the past few days I have been appalled at the amount of rubbish which people throw into the river.  We are talking plastic cups, beer cans... anything that is not biodegradeable...  I don´t know where it ends up but it is bound to be bad for the environment, but people do not seem to think twice about the effects it will have on wildlife.

The boat docked in Manaus at 2am in the morning.  We are sleeping on the boat though to save a nights accomodation!!!

I do not know how much more rice and beans I can eat...  I never want to see them ever again, although we had soup today...  rice and bean soup.

We passed the eve with a bottle of Caipininha which sounded like a good idea, but the hangover wasn´t.  We are now all going insane, spending 5 days on a boat with nothing to do.  Nobody speaks English, but the locals are all very friendly.  They communicate with sign language and still talk us to death even though we have no idea what they are saying.

Men in Brazil are weird.  We weren´t allowed alcohol on the boat, but the bar guy said we could have our bottle on the last night.  We asked if he wanted a drink and he replied quite bluntly, no, as I will start a fight if I drink because I want her (pointing to me!!!!).

Brazillian men sometimes treat women as objects which as you can imagine, doesn´t go down well with me at all.  Every man I walk past has to stare... it is getting irritating...

Today we got to get off the boat.  We stopped in a place called Santarem where we got a bus to the beach in a little lace called Alter do châo. It was the most beautiful little beach, hidden away on one of the rivers which flows off the amazon.  We went for a swim in the river which was like bath water.... soooo refreshing.

It didn´t last for long though as we had to get back on the boat for more rice and beans. 

In the evening the boat was ridden with mayflies.  There were thousands and thousands of them.  We moved our hammocks to a secluded spot in amongst the melons and onions which gave us a little more room.   We christened it the Onion House.

Oh and we met a guy from the airconditioned part of the boat who was from Halifax!!!  Fancy That!!

We are still on the boat, still cramped although we stopped at a couple of ports today, but only for ten minutes or so.  Today we saw more little canoes but this time they were selling fruit and fish. 

A little girl , 13 and her brother 10 waited upstream until they saw the boat approach.  As it got near, they furiously rowed their little wooden canoe to the boat, slung and iron hook on the side of the boat (still moving at great speed) and moored their canoe to our boat to sell what little they could carry in their canoe.  It is amazing how quickly these kids have to grow up and what danger they go to for money to survive.

Today we saw more insects including dragonflies, huge wasps and lots more spiders.  Later on in the evening the boat was filled with Beetles... hundreds of the things.... it was a bit gross... I stayed in my hammock.

I have been eaten to death by mosquitos, including bites in my nose and lips... it hurts.

For food today, the menu was rice, beans and chicken....