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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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Dodgy
Dealings on a Slow Boat up the Amazon by Heather Wankling At its mouth the distance from one bank of the Amazon to the other is almost as great as that from London to Paris. It carries 20% of the world's fresh water and is over 4000 miles long. Whatever way you look at it, its vastness is staggering, but to most Brazilians the Amazon is simply the easiest way to travel around much of their country. Manaus is a hot and humid river port, with a huge opera house built incongruously at its centre. It is also the gateway to the jungle where we had lived for the last few days. We had built a shelter from palm leaves; swum with, then caught and eatan pirahnas; watched plump pink river dolphins frolicking in the coolness of the late afternoon; tasted gum from the 'bubble gum' tree, hearts cut fresh from palms and Brazil nut straight from the tree. The people who dwelt in the jungle were calm and gentle and willing to teach. From them we had learnt which plant will provide fresh drinking water from its stem, which gives best shelter from a tropical storm, and just how well the jungle is able to regenerate itself despite the best efforts of man to destroy it. When the time came to move on from the jungle, it seemed natural to turn to the river for our route out of town. To my surprise our boat left Manaus pretty much on time, at 6.30 in the evening. We travelled west along the river, making steady progress and only stopping once to load up with supplies. A short while later I noticed the light, of Manaus ahead of us - we had turned and were now cruising slowly back towards port. Some distance from land, a small boat drew alongside us, and small bundles were passed swiftly and silently up on board our vessel. The transfer was completed in a few minutes, then we increased speed and continued on past the port, now heading east. The captain stared fixedly ahead and pretended not to understand when we questioned him about what had gone on, but our fellow passengers told us that the boat had been picking up contraband to be transferred from duty-free Manaus to a port further up river. A Brazilian traveller introduced himself and told me how he would much rather be flying. These river boats were always hitting logs and sinking - only a few months previously 40 people had perished when their boat sank - and of course even if you didn't go down with the boat the river was teeming with caymen just waiting to get you! Up at the front of the boat a gringa was arguing with a local about hammock space. The captain was called to sort out the problem and confirmed that the gringa had been there first. As the defeated man turned away with a scowl on his face, muttering, she confided in me that she'd be sleeping with one eye open in case he knifed her during the night. All in all, for the first couple of hours, I rather wished I had chosen to fly too! Within a short time, though, the rhythm of the rivet had got to the passengers, relaxing them and massaging the tensions from their bodies. The gringa made her peace with her adversary, and the nervous Brazilian made his way to the bar and sank his fear along with a few bottles of the local beer. Once we turned off the Amazon and onto a tributary, the Madeira, the banks were closer and we heard the chattering and howling of monkeys, saw brightly plumed birds, a fuzzy shape high in the trees which was a sleeping sloth, and once, the flash of colour of a toucan's wings. I felt as if I'd stepped into the pages of a Graham Greene novel. Meals on board were taken in sittings around a small table, those who were first to eat being watched hungrily by those waiting, who would pounce at the first sign of a vacated seat. The food was good and plentiful - beans, rice, spaghetti and chicken, - with crackers, jam and good strong coffee for breakfast. There were 4 showers on each deck, with water pumped straight from the river, and queues for the toilets meant that when I succumbed to the inevitable stomach upset, I gave up eating altogether - easier than being caught out on a crowded boat. From time to time we'd pass small settlements on the banks, little more than a dozen people living sandwiched between the jungle and the river. The river permeated every aspect of their daily lives. They washed in it, drank from it and swam in it. It provided their food, their only means of transport, and a place for their children to play and learn. Hour after hour, the crew sat up ahead scouring the river for obstacles, at night with the aid of a flashlight. The river was never quiet, at times as full of traffic as a major road and clearly the hub of life in the area. The time on board fell easily into a routine. Days were spent lying in the sun, watching the banks, reading, chatting, and daydreaming; evenings at the disco on the top deck where a group of 'working girls' from Manaus would demonstrate how to dance the sensuous Merengue, as we sipped caipirinhas and watched the constellations drift overhead. At night, we lay cocooned in our hammocks, enjoying the feeling of cosy privacy, despite the fact that our nearest neighbour slept only six inches away. It was impossible to stay awake whilst being gently rocked by the movement of the boat. Time passed, regulated no longer by clocks but by the rhythm of the river, ebbing and flowing in time to the heartbeat of the jungle through which it snaked. Because we
had lost all track of tine, our arrival came unexpectedly and all too
soon we found that our journey was over. Four days and 600 miles after
leaving Manaus, we pulled into Porto Vehlo, unstrung our hammocks, and
were thrust once fore into the heat and frenzy of a tropical port. First published in VISA issue 43 (November 2001) |