Slow Boating up Rio Madeira

Environment
Porto Velho
Irate call
Cinnamon

Porto Velho was the starting point for our Amazonian adventure. After a brief, but concise, tutorial from Pete on what to look for in a good hammock we headed off shopping. With pigeon Portuguese numbers, a calculator and a pile of coins I haggled with the shopkeeper and got 13 reais knocked off the cost of my mossie net and hammock. Delighted with my mini triumph I treated myself to a tiny 'sweet pizza', consisting of bread base, mozzarella, condensed milk, banana and cinnamon. Sounds like a weird combination I know, but oddly enough it works and was oh so tasty!

On our day of departure we headed down to the pier at 12pm in order to secure good hammock spots on board our slow boat ferry. Our destination was Manaus and it would take us 3 nights to get up the Rio Maderia. When we arrived at the pier the boat was being loaded with onions. In the blazing heat men were hauling three massive bags off a truck and onto the boat. Kilos upon kilos of stinky onions were being loaded - at least we would have a natural insect repellent beneath us. After a guide on how to string up a hammock we all got to work putting up ours, packing tightly together as our reserved area was small and a lot of the group weren't too keen on having to share space with strangers.

The boat was supposed to leave at 6pm that evening but onions were still being piled on at that time, so we got a new departure time of 8pm instead. Well 8pm came and went and still more onions kept coming over the bridge to the ferry. News filtered through that our new departure time was now 9am the next morning. We were all fine with this, what's one more day in the grand scheme of things really.

That night we hung out on the third floor deck, chatting and drinking. Usually I am one of the last few to go to bed at the end of a night, and our first night on board was no different. Some people were anxious about sleeping in a hammock, others were just not looking forward to the cramped, sweaty conditions as it was considerably hotter on the second deck than the airy top one. These fears were not alleviated by the appearance on deck of people who had unsuccessfully tried to go to sleep. I was delighted as for the most part there is usually just two or three of us up late, but here we were at 2am and a big group up and about. Common complaints were "it's like a bloody sauna down there", "there's too much noise", "so hot!" and my favourite "there's a sea of cockroaches down there". That little nugget had me balking slightly. At 3:30 we called it a night, the full moon had given us quite a show. Wandering down to the sleeping deck I was delighted to discover that people seem to be drama queens. I didn't find it too hot (but then I am a cold Mary to be fair), nor did I spy a single cockroach by the hammocks (there were a few small ones in the toilets though). Speaking of, after being on the ferry just 5 hours the toilets began to smell rank. It wasn't an issue of cleanliness, as god bless the crew member who scrubbed them clean a couple of times a day, it was just a foul smell that unfortunately lingered and caught on the back of the throat. For the first few days I was practically gagging each time I entered them, had to hold my breath a lot of the time. Once we got underway the smell didn't so much improve but I reckon I just got accustomed to it.

The river water was a murky brown colour, consisting of faeces and every bit of rubbish that the locals could fling into the river. I was literally agog at the disregard people have here for the river. Everything gets chucked in without a second thought: beer cans, cigarette butts, plastic bottles. I felt like going, "Oi, what do you think you are doing bozo?", however sadly I did not have the Portuguese translation (nor the courage) to do so. Instead I silently fumed at their behaviour and sadly shook my head at how little they seemed to care about their environment.

Day two brought many promises that we would leave in the next hour or so, that meant that we could not stray too far from the boat in case it took off without us. The onion trucks kept rolling in so the majority of us took it in turns to leave the boat and grab food while the rest stayed behind and kept an eye on the luggage. Finally at 8pm, 26 hours after its original scheduled departure time, the ferry left Porto Velho and headed along Rio Madeira.

On our first official night on board a whistle rang out at 9pm and all the locals started forming a queue on the side of the boat. Worryingly they all seemed to have their own bowls and cutlery. After much bewilderment we concluded we were in a bit of a pickle. Explaining our situation to the kitchen crew resulted in her uttering "Oh my god! Oh my god!" And putting her face in her hands - not a good reaction by any means. Fearing a lack of dinner unless we secured implements we got desperate grabbing empty water bottles and slicing them in half with penknives. Bowl-like contraptions were now available - sorted! Supper, after all that excitement, was a beef and noodle broth, so we simply scooped the mixture into our bottle and slurped the content from our makeshift bowls. They might not have been Meadows&Byrne quality, but they did the job.

Right, I can see I am rambling dangerously in this blog post and it's getting a bit wordy so I'll just do a wee summation of how we spent our time on the boat.

Days were spent usually with a mixture of: swaying in hammocks staring out watching trees glide by, comfortably lounging reading books/kindles, nibbling on snacks, playing backgammon, completing crosswords, drinking vodka, nattering, and happily dozing.

Nights consisted of: swaying in hammocks gazing at the lightening storms, watching the full moon rise over the river, comfortably lounging reading books/kindles, nibbling on snacks, playing backgammon, completing crosswords, drinking vodka, nattering, and lightly sleeping.

It was an amazingly chilled out experience and I loved every minute of it.

Two wee stories to finish with.

We discovered that the majority of us are rubbish at doing exciting stuff when drunk. Mikkel's tale of blowing up a fridge in the garden with C4 dynamite and getting an irate call from a neighbouring farmer about his horses eating polystyrene made all the rest of our stories seem terribly dull and boring.

Kirsten made us seem like a bunch of terribly rude people when a young Austrian couple asked if they could play their guitar near our hammocks. (The night before, while on the open 3rd deck, we had been subjected to the worst guitar playing and 'singing' from them). Having had a couple vodkas she proceeded to tell them to "Go Wild!" and then had the audacity to up, leave and return to her hammock at the other end of the boat. Meanwhile the happy couple sat on the floor by my hammock and went about locating their music sheets. Jeanne decided it was time for a fag, and me and Vanessa went to keep her company at the other end of the boat. Pretty soon we were joined by all the other Odyssey group members that had been within earshot of the couple. Realising that the couple were now on their own, I felt fairly shitty, and returned to my hammock. While there one of the locals turned off the overhead lights (obviously they did not appreciate the music either), but bless us the couple still persevered, with the girl holding the music notes high up directly under the guitar player's nose so he could make out the chord as they softly sang horribly out of tune. After much persuasion we managed to convince Kirsten to go talk to the couple and explain that she had been wrong to give the go ahead for them to play as people were trying to sleep. The situation was hilarious and we spent the next few days gently mocking Kirsten about her "Go Wild!" comment.