Boat trip down the Rio Negro

I write these lines in a coffin, that´s at least how it feels like to be in a cabin on the public boat from the Rio Jauperi to Manaus. It´s too small to enter with your rucksack, smells like dust and mould. As there is no window or aeration, it´s very hot apart from the few hours when the boat drives quickly enough for the energy to be turned on – which is seldom the case, we mostly advance at pedestrian pace. Still, such a cabin is considered to be a luxury and very expansive (200 Reais, about 80 Euro). Most of the other passengers only buy a hanging space for their colourful “rede” (hammock), which can, in spite of the cool sea breeze, be just as stiffling and even more uncomfortable, with hammocks hanging very narrowly next, over and under each other. Yesterday evening, a speed boat brought me from the Xixuau reserve to the next port. I was prepared for what was to happen: we arrived at 17:30h and the public boat was to arrive at any time between 20h and 4h in the morning. My wish to eat something and to go to the toilet in between was incomprehensible to the locals: neither restaurants nor public toilets seem to be know in this port where many people regularly wait for 10 or more hours for their boat. In the end, we found a woman who was willing to cook for us and let us use her bathroom. Satisfied, we followed the open-air Evangelist church performance until we were afraid that the ear-splitting loudspeakers of the preacher in ecstasy would cause a tinnitus. We hung up our hammocks on the floating pontoon and waited for the boat which arrived “punctually” at 4:10 am. It could have been a peaceful period if you had not always to watch out for the children who, due to lack of other divertissement, played “throwing the sandals of the people sleeping in their hammocks into the river”, to listen to the snorers’ choir and from 1 am onwards loud radio music.

Life on boat is peaceful, everybody is waiting for our arrival in Manaus hopefully between 15 and 20h while the ever green rainforest passes by. Fortunately, I have developed over the past week a new sense, needed to detect when food is served, because as I already discovered repeatedly in Xixuau, when you come a few minutes too late, there is little to nothing left. There are a variety of dishes at choice, 3 different kinds of chicken, 3 other meat dishes, noodles, spaghetti and rice. The only vegetables, cucumbers, apart from the obligatory “fejoada” (beans), are already finished when I arrive. I´m glad I have brought apples and take care not to read the remaining pages of my book too quickly.