It was a funny night, in a tangle of weird dreams, hammocks and mosquito nets.
I've never actually slept all night in a hammock before!
Today we went to Ver-o-Peso market to get supplies while Paul and Richard looked after all our stuff.
We got a coconutwhich the man de-shelled for us, a bag of mini papayas, giant passionfruits, apples, bananas, fresh brazil nuts (which are a completely different thing!!), an avocado the size of a squash and some tins of veg and instant noodles... etc, etc.
The market's great, it's huge and bustling with stalls selling crazy looking fruit, animals, crafts, herbs and spices and medicinal tree barks and powders and little bottles of exotic lotions and potions, fish and meat and boating equipment.
There's hardly any other gringos there and the stall holders loved watching us not knowing what anything was- everyone wants you to taste their stuff, so we had plenty of those amazing brazil nuts...
When we got back Paul had his hair cut by the on-board transvestite hairdresser & now it's our turn to lounge around in the hammocks watching crates and crates of mainly veg and alcohol being loaded up onto the boat.
We're surrounded by a tangle of every colour hammock, all sorts of people going off up the big river for their various reasons- no other gringos again though.
I can hear so much going on, bundling stuff all around and people shouting in occasionally understandable portuguese, little fishing boat engines spluttering past.
And apst my mozzie-bitten feet & my 10 real stripy hammock I can see this huge huge huge expanse of thick brown amazon water, with a tiny grey gold distant strip of rainforest sandwidged between it and the heavy grey sky.
It's been hot and sunny all morning (though so humid and stuffy), but we've heard some rolls of trovao and the daily tropical storm is looking imminent. Hoping it doesn't catch the boys on their shopping trip!
(it's funny being with English people, we haven't mixed as much as usual with the locals, & I have to admit they have been much less inclined to mix with us! But Richard has a guitar so I'm sure we'll make some friends this evening. We do feel a lot like gringas though)
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