Back to terra firme!

The journey down the river was beyond phenomenal, way more than I could have ever imagined. From Iquitos, I travelled on a boat that wasn´t nearly as nice as the first boat, but amongst a lot of friends that I made in Iquitos. There was a Korean guy, a Chilean guy (traveling with a regular, stand-up PIANO... I can never complain about my cello again!), a French girl, a couple of Canadians, Ariel (from Paraguay), a half Pervian/half Italian, a Colombian and myself. We were quite the international rowd, to say the least. We shared a lot of laughs and the three days to the border went quickly. It was a little shocking to see the little respect that the crew had for the river. Without thinking twice, they would dump the trash cans into the river and they served all the meals on plastic plates, which they also dumped into the river. (On the other boats, everyone carried a tupperware which they received their meals in and washed afterwards).

This was the sunset the last night:

Backing up... some tiles in Iquitos; I LOVED the tiles.

The boulevard in Iquitos, along the river:

Building with cool tiles in Iquitos:

The triple border was cool, and weird. We all shared a room in the Brasilian town of Tabatinga, for the first night, and crossed the border to the Colombian town of Leticia to work. The Colombian town was a lot nicer than the Peruvian or Brasilian sides. Every day crossing the border was a reality check for my Portuguese, switching back and forth from Spanish to Portuguese was tricky, but fun at the same time. Sometimes it just came out all jumbled.

On the boat from Iquitos was a Colombian guy named Arturo. He is an anthropologist and ``musikero´´ (that´s his term for someone who learned music empirically rather than studying). He plays just about any instrument that falls into his hands, and can rattle of the characteristics of almost every Latin and South American folk or popular music. He´s quite the character. We decided to travel on into Brasil together, and play music together along the way.

Since entering Brasil, I had to start traveling hammock-class in the boats, rather than traveling in a cabin, but since I have company it´s really easy. Someone always stays with the stuff, and at night, I just hung my hammock low enough that my butt just barely touched my backpack and I could tell if anyone tried to move it. My cello had it´s own hammock that I strung above mine, which worked out great. I never had to worry about anyone stepping on it, and I could see it anytime I woke up during the night.

The first boat, from Tabatinga to Manaus, seemed like a cruise ship compared to the previous boat. The food was self-service buffets, the bathrooms were super clean, and there was cold purified water available any time, day or night. One night, they even had bingo and I won a teeshirt, haha. We spent the Brasilian Independence Day on ship, and the captain gave us a discount on our tickets in exchange for us playing a short concert on the top deck. Pretty sweet deal, and everyone loved it. We even had an American percussionist sit in with us. The only downside to hammock class is that I couldn´t pull out my camera like I did on the other boats, because then everyone would know that I HAD a camera and it would be a lot easier to steal. So, unfortunately, there are no boat pictures from Brasil, but I assure that the sights were incredible. The river got wider pretty fast. It wasn´t as pretty as the Peruvian legs, just because we were farther from the shore.

We didn´t stay in Manaus very long. We ended up hitchiking north, on the road to Venezuela, to a town called Presidente Figueiredo, which was full of waterfalls and incredible swimming holes. We spent five days camping out, and lounging in the water, swimming holes where the water carved holes in colorful stones and Amazon jungle all around... pretty incredible.

From Manaus, we took another boat to Belem. Five days, not such a nice boat, they charged for each meal and we were in the cheapest hammock class, the level where they are constantly loading and unloading stuff. There were always nice people next to us. It was a lot bigger than the boats in Peru, had hundreds of people all in hammocks and moved a lot faster.

Belem was pretty uneventful, so we decided to go to a close-by island in the delta, called Mosqueiro. We rented a small cabin on a beach called Chapeu Virado, complete with a yard full of fruit trees, all in season. It was great, eating fresh mangos, avocados, acerolas, etc... all day every day. The water was brown, and still freshwater, but there were tides that were pretty significant, and you couldn´t see land when you looked at the water... might as well have been the ocean, only if the water was salty!

From Belem, we hitchhiked south, the first three days we went from town to town, getting two rides a day, and ending up in really po-dunk towns in the jungle. The sun was brutal, I got a really dark tan, even though I was wearing 60 SPF sunblock! The fourth day, we were lucky to get a ride from a truck driver, who took us all the way to Teresina, a two day trip. We slept one night in a truck stop, hanging our hammocks up underneath the truck, pure Brasilian style.

Now we have been in Teresina for two days, trying to recoup forces and make some money to take a bus from here to the coast... to Recife to be exact. We found a good neighborhood yesterday that has a lot of small restaurants and young people, and they have loved the music that we are playing (mostly salsa, and some Colombian music). Hopefully in the next couple days we will be back on the beach!

Here´s a couple pics from the last couple weeks...

A port in Manaus:

Me, in the main port of Manaus, next to the water level records. This year had the highest record from the past hundred years or so... can we say ``climate change?´´

Arturo and I roadside, heading to Presidente Figueiredo:

Playing music outside of Santa Rosa immigration office, waiting to get our exit stamps from Peru, but the officer was no where to be found... It didn´t take long to attract a crowd. That´s the Chilian pianist; he played some guitar too:

The owner´s dog of the house we rented in Ilha Mosquiero. I only took the picture because it looks like my mom´s dog :)

Some cool architecture in Belem:

Belem fishing port:

A boat graveyard in Belem:

A scene in the delta: