Waterworld...

Early in the morning I met Henryk and Suleyka to say goodbye for the time being.  Whilst we drank fresh juice in front of the Teatro Amazonas I enquired about the church they attended.  It turned out they were Jehovah's Witnesses.  I wondered what Henryk had made of my tales of ayahuasca.  Particularly the episodes in which Christ popped in to say 'Hello'.  He appeared to take it all in his stride.  They are, it seems to me, good examples of religion bringing out the best in people.  Living a message of tolerance, charity and friendship.  After their departure I headed to another relic from Manaus's heydey, a dusty old shop selling copies of long forgotten books.  After meticulously searching through the disorganised shelves for an hour or so, I pulled out some titles which weren't completely irrelevant in the 21st century.  A work by James Fenimore Cooper and the anachronistically titled 'The Home of the Red Man', amongst others.

Allia had gone swimming with dolphins so I met Maja for another kebab (clearly becoming addicted).  Just as we arrived at the restaurant, the heavens opened.  The rainy season was really beginning to make itself felt as people ran for shelter at the sudden onset.  The storm passed quickly, as they always do in the Amazon,  or so I thought.  Later, I left a cyber café to find the heavens had opened once again, with great fury.  People were rushing home through the streets whilst whilst being drenched by the oversized raindrops.  By chance, a vendor selling umbrellas ran by and, after buying one, I embarked upon the journey back to the Hotel Magnifico.  The roads had turned into rivers, pavements into lakes and drains into fountains.  I'd never seen this amount of water in a city before.  Lightning flashed in the sky closely followed by the loudest claps of thunder I'd ever heard.  I arrived back at my room just as the entire city was plunged into darkness, a blackout like that of New York in 2003.

I've always loved blackouts, a chance for nature to show us how fragile our civilisation really is.  Grabbing a beer, I climbed the stairs to the roof terrace to watch the city being cleansed underneath the flashing clouds.  The weather had no intention of stopping, it rained for hours.  However, I'd arranged to meet the Slovenians for dinner and took to the streets once more, torch in one hand umbrella in the other.  The only buildings with electricity were those with their own generators.  The few stranded people left in the city huddled in these islands of light.  Vehicles were the only other source of illumination, with police patrolling the streets briefly sounding their sirens every now and then.  It was clear the girls would not be daft enough to venture out, all the restaurants were shut.  But I was hungry.  I walked and waded through the streets hunting down a street vendor.  The only one still operating was a kebab seller, as his stand used charcoal rather than relying on electricity.  Kebab in hand, I made my way back through the dark, deserted streets mulling over how quickly our societies would collapse given a failure of the power supply.  All it would take is one coronal mass ejection aimed at our little planet.  Candles, anyone?

Rubber lover...

Manaus - 'Mother of the Gods' - the most populous city in the state of Amazonas with over two million people.  The rubber barons of the 19th century ensured this jungle city became the 'Paris of the Tropics' with their decadent edifices and opulent lifestyles.  Imports from Europe were essential and, as rubber was sent down the river, in exchange came marble, glass and crystal.  It was so prosperous in the early 1900s that Manaus had electricity before many European cities.  Eventually, the monopoly on rubber production was lost and this steamy city began to decline.  However, the government declared it a Free Economic Zone in 1957 which has led to Manaus becoming the fastest growing city in Brazil today.  An economic and industrial powerhouse, bang in the middle of the rainforest.  It has a good feeling to it.  Crowded, hectic, vibrant - it mixes its modern status with a rich colonial history, perhaps best exemplified in the Teatro Amazonas.

After docking I headed into town to find a cheap hotel, far more difficult in Brazil than Peru.  The rather exaggerated Hotel Magnifico provided a space to get my head down for the next two nights.  Dirty clothes in tow, I searched the streets for a lavanadería  in an attempt to not smell like a pig farmer for a change.  In the laundrette I encountered the two Slovenian girls, Maja and Allia, who had been on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Small world.  We agreed to meet later that evening for beers and a charwama kebab which was incredibly tasty.  Brazilian beef being second only to Argentina's in reputation.

 

 

Us and them...

You definitely need to find a rhythm on a journey like this.  Boredom can hit pretty hard and, as there´s nowhere to go, you have to deal with it whilst surrounded on all sides by people.  Not thinking too much helps; drifting from one conversation to the next, a stroll on deck, a little reading, some daydreaming.  Anything to be in that mental space where you don´t have to do anything and there´s nothing to do anyway.  Bit by bit I see there´s a place for a Gringo on a boat like this.  The kids are the first to break the ice with their always-so-honest questions.  Ryan tells me his favourite joke in which a woman names one of her dogs the Portuguese word for ´defacating´.  When she´s on the toilet she calls her dog (for some unknown reason), which Ryan thought would be hilarious as everyone would know what the woman was doing.  His laughter suddenly stops when I offer my best joke.  His face turned to stone, he just repeats, "No. No."  Who warned him?

During the day, as we plunged ever deeper into the forest, I heard a chainsaw.  It sounded a bit like an angry animal chewing away at the trees.  A sad reminder that this jewel on Earth is under threat.  Despite its enormity, it too is suffering under human hands.  I mused on this for a while before realising the chainsaw was travelling down with us, inside the forest.  Just then, two macaws emerged, the source of the noise.  A more disharmonious racket passing as birdsong I´d never heard before.  Still, I was happy the trees were still standing.

Beginning the journey was me - ´I´.  An individual whose sphere of protection only extended to myself.  Then I met my Peruvian friends and suddenly the ´I´ had turned into ´Us´.  Now there were more of us to look out for one another.  To watch out for our belongings, to save spaces in queues, to fetch water.  But to ensure the `Us´ was always #1  we needed to see the others as ´Them´.  This ´Us and Them´ mentality brings so many problems; divisons we put in place as a result of our prejudiced views.  As the journey progressed, the `Us´ that constituted three of us enlarged to include others on the boat, eventually everyone.  The boat would then stop at a village along the way.  More people would get on to an already crowded boat.  The ´Us and Them´ mentality returned as people protected their precious space and their place in the dinner queue.  This process hapened a few times and, each time, the newcomers would be integrated; just like the tourists were, and the elderly, the young, infirm, workers, etc.  By the end of the journey there´s an unspoken sense of a shared experience.  If only we, as humans, could cut through the shit sooner and realise we are similar beings with similar needs, desires and dreams.

Brazilian upgrade...

My amazing bed´s behind Suleyka´s

In the same week I hear Brazil´s economy has outgrown that of the UK, I catch the boat from the border to it´s jungle heart, Manaus.  The boat is a vast improvement on the one during the Peruvian leg of the journey.  A large mess, fully equipped galley, showers (using river water), cleanish toilets and even a little shop selling beers and snacks.  A veritable heaven, or at least it would be if I hadn´t left my hammock in the hotel.  In my rush to leave, the receptionist, Samuel, inherited my treasured hammock and I faced the next three nights on the floor.

The boat was bigger and more spacious.  The majority of passengers were Brazilian but there is an increase in the tourist presence, my Peruvian friends to start with.  In addition people are travelling from Colombia, Argentina, Slovenia and France.  Throughout the journey we would experience grey skies and intermittent heavy showers.  Still, warm all the way!  At night the boat uses a huge spotlight mounted at on the bow of the ship.  It resembles a giant version of the cruiser in ´Apocalypse Now´.  The beam picked out fluvial debris whilst music blasted out at the rear.  All we were missing was the puppy, the acid and the explosions.

Dinner looked incredible.  The usual rice, pasta and beans but with some mince that looked really lean and tasty.  I piled it high only to find, when I tucked in, it was at least 20% pure gristle.  Rather than masticating it was more like compressing the rubber ´meat´ before it would cause my jaw to spring open again.  However, wasting food is against my religion and, after looking around at the locals chowing down, I decided to force the extra-large portion down my gullet.  A welcome addition was a substance that looked like granola but was incredibly hard in texture.  When added to the mince these little pellets prevented the jaws from closing, thereby avoiding the unpleasant texture of the meat.  Problem solved.  After half an hour wishing my eyes were smaller than my belly, I moved on to the top deck which becomes a pretty good bar every evening, a chance to hang out with the locals as the Amazon slips by in the night.

People carrier...

Tabatinga.  It´s amazing what you can get used to here in Latin America.  At first, the sight of entire families on the back of a motorbike (overwhelmingly the most popular form of transport here) is somewhat unnerving.  Dad is usually driving with a toddler between his legs - sometimes holding on, sometimes not.  Mum generally sits behind with either a younger sibling, baby or bun in the oven.  The parents wear helmets, they have to by law.  The kids, however, drive along unsecured with no protection for their heads.  The streets are wet and often muddy creating a treacherous surface.  After a while, as with all things, this sight becomes normal to my eyes.  I see no accidents.  Only every now and then do I contrast this with the sometimes excessive levels of health and safety that have permeated British society.  I reckon there´s a happy medium somewhere between the two.

I can tell I´m in another country from the different mix of people on the streets.  Here there are far more Haitians, presumably fleeing troubled times on their island.  From the documentaries I´ve seen there are still serious problems there following the 2010 earthquake.  It makes me ponder what it would be like to be forced into a nomadic life.  Constantly on the move trying to find food, shelter, work, community, safety.  I count my blessings.