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Belem - Manaus (finally)
Written on: Friday May 9th, 2008
A journal entry from: Round the world
After a 36 hour bus journey from Salvador to Belem, during which our bus driver managed to hit a guy on a scooter (luckily very slowly so we think he was ok), we spent one night in Belem and then headed off to the dock to board the Amazon Star for a 5 day journey to Manaus .... !
What shall we tell you first?! We'll start from the beginning - during our first night on the boat, the Captain got drunk and hit a huge metal buoy with a BIG red light on top and managed to break two of the four propellors. Ok, a mistake, not so bad. On the second night, the Captain got LOST (yes, LOST) and grounded the boat on a sandbank which completely wrote off the already damaged propellor. We limped along until another boat came to our aid and towed us for about 4 days. During these four days, we hit a further two sandbanks (don't ask me how) and eventually, for the last 24 hours of our journey we were transferred to another boat which actually worked! We arrived in Manaus this morning after 9 days on the river! We are so used to being in our hammocks that sleeping in a bed tonight will be quite strange! :)
Aside from all that, the river is beautiful, we have seen kingfishers galore, herons, an eagle, some parrots and at night you can hear all the sounds of the rainforest which is incredible... we do have lots of photos but the internet is too slow to upload them here so we will try once we get to Peru and are settled in!
We are boarding another boat tomorrow which should take us to a place called Tabatinga, on the border of Brazil, Columbia and Peru, the journey is supposed to be 7 days - fingers crossed we get a sober captain and an unbroken boat!
Hope you are all well, lots of love,
Philippa & Conrad
xxx
P.S. We were reliably informed that Amazon Star is the problem child of the Amazon so if any of you are planning a trip up the Amazon, do not use this boat ... you have been warned!!
From Mum/Julie on May 9th, 2008
So relieved to hear from you - as we are going to be 'incommunicado' for a week now. Somehow Dorset doesn't sound very exotic compared with Brazil BUT it is the Jurassic Coast we are going to. Hope the next leg goes better - watch out for poison arrows, piranhas and mad seafarers! As you already know, anything is possible in Brazi! Sounds wonderful. Take care and God bless. Loads of love xxxx
From Laura & Mark on May 11th, 2008
Wow what a journey. Glad to hear you kept your heads above water! The scenery sounds amazing. Only 7 weeks until our wedding!!! Scary and exciting (mostly scary!). Big love and hugs xxx
From Mom on May 12th, 2008
Hi guys - sounds like a good time. You horrid people depriving the poor fishies of some nibbles lol. Hope you are still enjoying and have'nt been eaten alive by mozzies.