Sunday...15th March

We're in the Amazon!
When we got to a wide bit on the first night I hopped out of the hammock I was lounging in to see why we were rocking so much- I asked Richard, are we in the sea?
But we're not! The water was the classic rich amazon muddy brown, & if I really strained I could see a tiny light on the other side.

It is a crazy expanse of water, I knew it would be big but this is bigger than I ever could have imagined, and it stays huge as well!

About half the time it's narrow or we sail near the edge, so we can peer into the vegetation, and see all the kids in their canoes coming to hitch a ride, sell some juicy rainforest mysteries & row back home to their little huts on stilts by the dwindling edges of the forest.

The other half though, like now, you can sit and look for ages at this huge expanse of water thik with mud and the occasional patch of water hyascinths(- manatee food!) and a tiny tiny strip of forest in the very distance under the enormous sky.

It turns my stomach, the sheer size of it- I've never seen so much fresh water and I didn't think there was so much- we've been chugging along up it at a good old pace for a solid 2 days and nights now.

I keep thinking about how deep it must be- I don't know if it goes a long way down like a basin or if after the initial drop it's mainly flat... I will have to find out. In fact when I write this into the blog it will remind me to look it up, yay! Good old internet.
((1t's about 150 feet apparently))

I made another spider, & gave it to Javier the smiley Argentinian to hang above his hammock- nao filtro do sonho, melhor, filtro do mosquitos!
(better than a dreamcatcher, a mosquito catcher!)

Freddie the Amazonian craftsman then gave me a load of chunky wire to teach Ash and Javier to make them- so I made a life size tarantula so they could see.

Later a Brazilian guy came up and asked how much, so I asked- how much do you think?
"8reais"
"10?"
done :)
I gave 5 to Freddie and brought some fruit when we stopped at a small port today with the other 5.

There's definately stuff going round on the boat, so we're being really careful.

Back in time slightly- last time I wrote all we knew from piecing together various rumours was that we were meant to be changing boat then setting off. So when a wooden boat pulled up alongside boat no.2 we figured it must be boat no.3 and piled all our stuff onto it along with the frenzy of about 200 others- being passed everything from freezers to suitcases to babies once we were on the other side.
To add to the chaos it was absolutely chucking it down typical Belem style, so standing near the edge of the boat guaranteed a soaking, & the planks between the two boats were lethally slippy, on top of rocking...
We didn't make ourselves at home though, from boat 3 we just waited for boat 4 to pull up and clambered through onto that one. A cheer went off when it set off... but it soon seemed horribly to be going the wrong way..

Well it was- we went to this other dock - and had to load ourselves onto number 5.

By now all our stuff was so mixed up and no- one knew where each other were, let alone where they were sleeping. Pretty soon it was clear it was not going to be easy to find a place to sleep- hammocks were strung between every possible thing- across the eating area, over the stairs, in the smoky smelly corridor bit outside the toilets by the engine - all in a tangled mess around each other. And still they let more people on from the shore, more and more bodies squeezing into the thick hot damp mass with bags and boxes & a bit of rope and hope to hang their hammocks.

Of course me and Ash couldn`t find our hamocks anywhere... I scratched my head and remembered at some point handing the bundle over to Paul, so wove my way through the tangle, down the ladder to where I thought he was- he scratched his head for a bit and thought he`d given it to Christian...

Eventually e found them strung up in the middle of the lower deck where Javier had found a `space` - we relaxed & took our bags down there.

Between us we had all of Freddies thngs; his jewellry & crafts for selling, but we couldn`t see him anywhere which was worrying. There was time though- the earliest being rumured was 6 and it was 3 or so. I thnk he had just got off no.2 when the chaos began.

When we were sitting waiting for the boat to set off, huddled with the masses as far away from the edges as possible so as not to get wet, I had a little moment with Ash- ``uuuurgh I don`t know if I can do this... I`m going to go mad, maybe if I`d not been on a boat for the last 3 days I`d be ok, but not now, I mean how are we going to sleep?``
Apart from that horrible coach toilet it was the closest I`ve been to tears on the whole trip. I just could`t forsee it being even slightly o.k.

By the time the boat started moving there was a huge cheer onthe top deck, everyone who`d been through the whole ordeal from boat no.1 was jumpng around hugging each other, & Freddie popped his head up as well which was a relief!

Of course it was a taunt, we were ony going to the first port where we spent the last 3 days to wait around for another few hours.

We eventualy set off for real a nice round 50 hours late, and I have to admit the cheer was slightly less enthusiastic than the last few times.

But after a great night getting to know some of the newcomers on the top deck and after moving my hammock to under the awning outside the bar on the top deck as well and sleeping brilliantly in it, after waking up to the sight of the Amazon stretching overthe horizon, we were definately well on our way.
Aaaaaaaaaah...