Pushing Pesos: June 2013

Our first glimpse of the Amazon on our flight from Salvador to Manuas

We had always dreamed of taking a long trip down the mighty Amazon river, and with our next country to visit being Colombia we found the perfect way. We had to fly from Salvador to Manaus, the 11^th biggest city located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and of course the mighty river. From there we would catch the next available boat to Tabatinga, still in Brazil but located directly on the border of Colombia and the jungle town of Leticia.

We had very little information on how to sort out the boat, so not for the first time we would have to see what happens when land in Manaus.

Manuas Opera House

As land we try and book a taxi to our hostel, and a tour guide kindly advises us that the bus would be much cheaper than the taxi and that he would show us where to catch it. On the way I ask him about the options for boats and he offers some helpful information as he accompanies us on the bus. We soon find out that he has his own agency and that he could arrange for us to go on the next available boat to Tabatinga, which would be the next day. Perfect we say and off we head to his agency. A jolly nice chap he was, even inviting us to his birthday BBQ that evening. Normally we would shop around but we felt comfortable with this chap so we handed the money over and got our receipt. We had been told that our boat was called Monteiro and it would leave at 12pm, and that he had personally called the captain to arrange for our hammocks to be placed in the best spot.

He then kindly offers to walk us to our hostel, and when the hostel manager opened the gate he said hi and off we went in. With the chap gone the hostel manager asked us where did you meet this chap? We said we just booked a tour to which he replied that bloke is really dodgy and then said that his tour agency was not registered and had ripped off many tourists! Shitting ourselves we log onto trip advisor and there plain to see are bad reviews! Worried that we had been conned we decided and hoped that all would be ok for our boat trip!

We had been told to be at the tour agency for 8am, which we were and to our relief it was open and the chap was there. I asked whether all was still ok and he said don’t worry man everything is sorted! 2 hours wait at the agency and its time to go, not to worry as our space on the boat had already been sorted with the captain! So we arrive at the port, which is hectic and completely chaotic, our guide unpacks our bags from the car and says follow this bloke with no further explanation! We follow the chap who speaks no English and seems to have no idea where we should be, he takes us to the ticket office and points for us to buy our tickets, my heart sank as we tell him we have already paid! He then disappears to which we now fear the worst! He comes back a couple of minutes later with two hammocks, strange we think as we had been promised that our hammocks had already been placed!! We see the chap buy tickets and off we go into a little speed boat, as we speed round the dock the boat Monteneiro comes into view and we feel slightly relieved as this was the first bit of truth from what we had been promised.

We jump on board, by now the boat is already completely full of locals and it seems that on the deck there is no more space, especially not for two gringos! Our chap squeezes our hammocks between two locals and we are on and ready to go!!

Our boat Monteneiro, was a typical river cruiser, with the bottom full of cargo of fruit, food, building materials and even a car! The next level was the sleeping area, where hammocks hung from the ceiling housed the 150 or so travelers! The top level had a decking area, a café and tv room and even a hairdressers. Not quite your P&O cruiser but it would do as our home for the next 6 days.

Our boat Monteneiro - top deck with Manaus port in background

Putting up our hammocks on the middle deck

All of our neighbours

Jo getting settled in

One of our neighbours!!

My buddie Ki - who loved taking pics with camera

We say hello to our neighbours and get settled in. As soon as we leave port we get a view of the mighty Amazon, at parts over two miles wide, filled with huge transporter ships and cargo carriers. We start to head up stream and soon the banks are filled with the Amazon forest and small little villages nestling on stilts. The river rises up 15m in the wet season so many of the houses were near to being flooded.

Manaus Port

We are off - bye bye Manus

We're happy

Villages along the way - we saw hundres of these along the way

We head to the top deck and i go to order a beer at whcih point we find out that this is a strict Christian boat that does not allow alcohol. A bit of downer as i had planned to spend the days sitting on the top deck downing beers whilst taking in the sights of the amazon! Oh well we would have to do with cofee and shakes.

Breakfast was served at 6am, lunch at 11am and dinner at 5am, very regimented but at least we knew where we were at. The food was pretty good considering we were on a boat, always for lunch and dinner was rice and spagetthi and a bean stew, the only thing that changed was thhe meat accompanying it, chicken beef or lamb. Lights go off at 9pm so early nights! Good job we had brought with us a lot of books to read to kill the time.

Taking in the sights

Jo relaxing on the top deck taking in the sun

The first couple of days we spent getting used to the routine and also with doing absolutely nothing. For the first time in 5 months we had nothing other to do than relax, and feel no guilt for doing sod all. So plenty of books to read and plenty of sleep and napping and of course taking in the vastness of the amazon.

Nice view

Butterfly the size of a bat!!

On around day three we bump into the only other gringos, Ollie from London and Matheus from Holland. The four of us unite and from then onwards we had our crew on the boat. Evenings are spent playing cards which often turned into a marathon session competively scored till there was a clear winner!

Cards - Me, Matheus and Ollie

Around day four we stop at our first port at what seems a small village on teh amazon, a few people get off and cargo is unloaded. One of the crew members advised us that we had a couple of hours as all the cargo was being unloaded by hand. So with this in mind us three gents headed into the little village for beer, with the hope that we would not hear the horn hoot meaning the boat was leaving! We must of looked crazy to local villagers running through the town, 4 gringos all shouting CERVEZZA CERVEZZA (beer beer), with no luck we head back to the pear, the small shop oon the port front was our last resort and we manage to get three beers! We drink them on the port and enjoy them as if we had not had one for years! What a pleasure!

One of the ports along the way

With less people on the boat we decide to move our hammocks to our new friends and we immediately enjoy the space we now have. At our previous spot Jo had a very strange girl sleepinh above her would stare at Jo whilst she was sleeping, she was also toothless and wore the most inappropriate clothes leaving nothing to the imagination. She claimed to work in medicine, but our thoughts was that she was in public service but more of a boat Roxanne! So we were happy with our new stop.

Roxanne - you dont have to put on a ......

Another funny incident which we missed but Ollie saw was that of a religious ritual! A group of women had gathered around an elderly lady lying in the hammock, all chanting and waving their hands up and down, bowing over this poor lady whilst all crying. It was almost like a seen out of the exorcist, Ollie almost expected the womans head to start spinning round 360 degrees! Ritual over and eyes dried of the tears it was time for lunch! How bizzare.

The next morning me and jo witnessed our own religious ceremony with the same women now standning in a circel chanting, singing and gesturing to the god above. Very strange! One particula lady seemed to be the ringleader and I'm pretty sure she would have been declared insane back in the UK, but it seems on the amazon anything goes.

The ceremony!!!

Getting into it a bit too much?

Talking of anything goes, on day 5 we stopped at what seemed a small town, and a fishing spot. I took a photo from the side of the boat of the days catch, thinking nothing of it as it just looked like fish, i zoomed in and looked in shock as i saw what looked like a small child skinned! One further look and i see a long tail and realise it was a monkey! So i grab the lads and we get off the boat and go and have a closer look, and fair enough there it is, a monkey skinned laying flat out on it's back as part of the catch of the day. As we leave the boat we see that the monkey had now disappeared so someone must have purchased it. I jokingly said to everyone that i saw the chef buy it that we would probably have it for dinner later. Anyway later at dinner we did get a new meat, but after tasting it it was fish so a big sigh of relief from the group! Ha Ha

The fishing port

Today's catch

Can you see it yet - have closer look....

Here's the poor fellow - let's hope he went to a good home

The other thing at this port was that we managed to buy more beer, but even better is that whilst looking out at the river we see many dolphins jumping in out of the water, almost providing a show whilst we wait once again for the cargo to be unloaded.

A grey river dolphin - very difficult to capture

I managed to get through 5 books, Jo 3! 6 days later and having travelled and around 1200 miles covered we had seen the mighty amazon and what an experience.

Happy days...

Local taxi

Slighly drinking our beers

One of the local towns we docked at

Last night religious ceremony sing along!

Salvador - more soul and samba on the Brazilian coast...

We had heard a lot about Salvador, many good and many bad, excellent beaches, great culture and food but on the downside that Salvador could be very edgy and dangerous, so bad that our guide quoted that if you were going to get robbed in South America, Salvador would be the place!

Salvador was one of the major ports where slaves from Africa were brought to Brazil, to be sold off to the rest of South America, and because of this it now has a real mix of African and Brazilian culture and ways of life.

After our first successful couch surf we decided to do the same in Salvador, our host this time was Axl, a huge fan of English culture and good old rock and roll. He met us at the airport and took us to his neighbourhood and we spent the evening talking about rock bands and the English royal family. Pretty exhausted from our travels we decided to hit the sack and have an early night.

With us now located on the coast in the north, the temperature was perfect for a day on the beach, so we headed to Bahia to go and catch some sun. As soon as we get out of the taxi it starts to piss it down relentlessly, so our only option was to find a bar and have a couple of beers to kill time and wait for the sun to come out. Around 6 beers later, slightly merry, the sun comes out and we head to the beach located right off the main strip of the town.

The sea was glorious, crystal clear water with many locals taking a dip in the afternoon. Conveniently for us we had a chap selling beer and another selling chicken kebabs nearby, perfect for our merry selves! Once we've had enough beer and kebab we head off to have a walk around. This part of Salvador definitely had an edgy feeling about with some dodgy characters hanging about, but hey the sea, sand and sun far outweighed this.

On the beach called Porto de Barra

Michael diving into the sea

Fish caught

Traditional martial arts practised in Salvador called Capoeira

Main attraction Forte de San Antonio de Barra

Sweaty Samba in the old town Lively Pelourinhos

We head back to Axl's house and watch a few British comedies and then Axl's friend Angelo invited us to head into Pelourinhos, the old town of Salvador, literally meaning whipping post, for a couple of drinks and to dance to samba, which happens every Tuesday. We head into the area and immediately hear wild beats and many people drinking in the streets, similar to Lapa in Rio, and this is on a Tuesday night.

We head to one of the main squares and hundreds of people are dancing in the street to a live gig going on with Latino and samba music blaring from the speakers. Tuesday night apparently is as crazy as Friday and Saturday nights, only the Brazilians would add an extra night in the week to party!!! We also saw the dark side of Salvador here, a tourist was happily filming the gig on his smartphone, holding it loosely with one hand, sure enough someone decided to grab it out of his hand and do a runner with it!

The gig finishes and we wander the streets, head to a local bar that brews different spirits with different flavours, so we order a couple as a takeaway. Angelo then took us to a huge samba party going on in one of the buildings. We climb a flight of stairs, the band playing gets louder and as we reach the dance floor we see a hundred or so people dancing the samba all completely sweating! They sure know how to have a good time. We join in and by the end of the night we are completely soaked with sweat but with huge smiles on our faces. Jo even got chatted up around 4 times!

For the remaining days of our stay in Salvador we decided to stay in the heart of it Pelourinhos, so we booked ourselves into a hostel smack bang in the centre. Our hostel is a complete hippy retreat, with hammocks spread across the huge vast building. Located on a dodgy street of Pelourinhos, we had to stay safe and make haste when entering the hostel as we were always getting hassled by street kids and piss heads!! Nonetheless the area was still stunning, with colonial buildings, huge churches adorning the streets.

At night we head out and eat some great local food, similar to tapas, with shrimps, fried potatoes and a meat stew with African flavours. Lovely stuff. We spend the rest of the days taking in the area, which we loved and preparing for our next adventure, our 6 day boat trip up the Amazon river from Manaus to Leticia in Colombia.