The mighty Amazon...

The timber trade

And mighty it is too.  When the boat is in the centre of the channel it's impossible to see which way the river is flowing.  Only when you look across the wide expanse of water towards the shore do you have a reference point for the flotsam and jetsam drifting by.  This debris in the river is from two sources.  The vast amount is natural vegetation, including huge tree trunks - the flotsam.  This collects in the currents and eddies into interesting patterns resembling hearts or outlines of continents, for example.  The jetsam comprises rubbish, liberally thrown overboard the rusty old ship like fleas constantly hopping off a dog as it walks.  The endless stream of plastic will eventually end up in the ocean and contribute to the gigantic plastic islands forming there.  Henryk assures me it's a different story in Brazil where this is prohibited.

The day was a lazy one, no other choice.  Breakfast consisted of, guess what, rice water! (Or something very similar.)  Although sweetened.  Accompanying this were bread rolls that were so processed they had no memory of their wheat origin.  During the day I mainly lay in my hammock reading, with the occasional jaunt on deck to watch the passing scenery.  Huge clouds, blue skies and the milk chocolate brown of the river dominated.  A thin strip of green was added by the endless row of trees.  Even so far upstream the Amazon is breathtakingly wide, more like a lake without ends than a river.  Dotted along the shore are villages, not many, but enough to demand frequent stops by our boat delivering much needed consumer goods.  Oil, gas, TVs, furniture, building materials and grocieries formed the bulk of the consignments.  Each time the boat mounted the bank whilst locals received the goods, often thrown to them to save time.

Dinner was surprisingly pleasant dinner consisting of a little meat which oscillated in flavour between chicken and pork.  I added a little of the most appropriately named tuna making it into a feast.  Eventually, I settled down to sleep at 10pm.  As we all settled there were a series of very loud bangs which sounded like gunshots.  Everyone glanced at one another briefly before settling down to rest.  After all, I ain't no John McClane.  Two more intrusions into the peace occurred.  First, at 11.30, we were woken by the police who manned the checkpoint on the river.  An important location considering this is the primary drug trafficking route into Brazil.  The second was courtesy of some Haitians sleeping a couple of hammocks along.  They had been full of energy the entire journey singing beautiful songs in four part harmonies in their mellifluous language, a mixture of Creole and French.  However, there was one guy in particular who seemed to lack a volume switch.  Having not shouted enough during the day he woke at 2am and picked a fight with his wife.  They had an argument which lasted about 20 minutes despite the protestations from the locals.  In the morning they were singing happily once more.  Passionate people.