Manaus

The better part of 4 days (and the entirety of 3 nights) on a boat.

Sleeping in a hammock.

Time to heal the bites and catch up on some hard earned napping.

Still managed to get more sunburned though...

Went from Leticia (Colombia) to Tabatinga (Brazil) by taxi (btw this keyboard seems to just vomit the letter a everywhere...it´s embarrasing for alla of us so let´s just pretend it isn´t happening...).

After just about falling off the back of a slow moving moto (to be fair, the pack on my aback was fairly heavy...) a couple of times (and being taken to the airport instead of the boat port) we managed to secure our tickets for the boat.

Stayed in a pretty shit house hostel in tabatinga, but it was dirt cheap and there was no slime in the shower...there was what appeared to be both blood and footprints on the sheets, but let´s not dwell on that...and hey, free drinking water!

Boarding the boat to Manaaus involved the most thorough security search I have ever been subject to (but not THAT thorough for the suspícious minded of you...).

Started with the sniffer dogs. The first of which didn´t give a shit. It was let off its leash all excited and the first thing it did was eat some garbage. Then it sniffed a lady´s butt. It would have been remiss of her to hide anything in there given she was one of the Army searchy type folk...

Anyway, another dog followed, then a detailed process of opening and showing the patrol everything in each person´s bag. EVERYTHING.
It had just been raining very heavily, so this involved me removing and opening about a million plastic bags, the guy pretending not to see my tampons, querying me somewhat sarcastically on the chain in my ´carry on´(in case we needed to secure our packs on the boat), and generally just having an awesome time.

After getting felt up by an army lady I finally made it on to the boat and we set up hammock city.

The days passed as you would imagine. Good food. The occasional beer, the occasional cachaca, some sun, some rain, a dolphin, books (amongst other things Enduring Love, by Ian McEwan, is awesome. read it.), naps, palying cards, talking rubbish, observing some great mullets, and pretending to either be able or not be able to talk to people- depending on the people.

On the last night (which was, coincidentally, last night) Stevo and I somehow managed to draw a bit of a crowd by playing cards. Last card devolved into a barstadised game of snap when we invited the wee Brazilian boy watching us to play. not. Long after that we had an assortment of wee kids, some of their parents, and a mulleted Colomabian named Wilson who thought I was the bees knees. Sadly the bees kneetidute was not reciprocated so that made for awkward times and the cop out solution of being really tired and needing an early night.

On the way into Manaus the Amazon meets the Rio Negro. The two rivers run side by side but do not merge for some time. It is amazing and rather odd to see a very clear division line in the water between light muddy brown and deep black (the nerd in me had to make a law and equity joke, but of course I wouldn´t dare stoop so low in such a public forum).

Manaaus today- had a look at the teatro amazonus (awesome old school theatre made at the height of the rubber boom), pao de queijo, delicious delicious juice, and general wanderings.

Going to see if we can go kayaking somewhere round here. Also want to see GIANT OTTERS. As I understand it, they are like regular otters. But much bigger. Much.