El Barco

Ageing and used, safe enough. Peeling paint and rusty steel. Waxy ropes and very loud.

El Barco had three levels, perhaps 30m long, open sides.

The bottom levels mainly contained cargo, the crew´s quarters and the kitchen.

The middle level had the mess area, toilets/showers and most of the passengers.

The top level had a small bar, some tiny air conditioned cabins and the remaining passengers.

All of the passengers, bar a few inside tiny and expensive (relatively) cabins slept in hammocks swinging from every available hook.

Of course, after la selva I had become accustomed to sleeping in a hammock. This is not to say that it was in any way comfortable. I did however become comfortable with the product of a night in a hammock; a sore neck.

My hammock swung on the top level, I purchased my ticket prior to boarding and the vendor had obviously assumed that I wanted ¨first class¨, being a gringo and all. Later I discovered that my ticket had cost only marginally more than an ¨economy class¨one. The only advantage of being on the third ¨first class¨ level was its lack of toilets. In the night, when the head overflows, or people miss, urine splashes about on the rustry steel floor below the hammocks. On the top level, there was only one toilet, broken anyway.

I had been warned that the quality of food on these boats is very poor. Wrong. Basic food, but sufficient. Still, I was glad that before boarding Carlos and I went to the market at the waterfront in Manaus and bought some extra supplies. I bought a big branch of bananas, yellow at the top green at the bottom, 5 litres of water, one kilo of oranges and some bread and cheese.
















I had planned to talk to you about all of the horror stories plastered over the net, circulating amongst backpackers and in travel guides regarding the boats on the Amazon. Stories about food, delays, insects, theft, rape, and unfriendly Brazilians (impossible!)

Instead, lets talk reality.

Our cargo consisted of Brasil nuts, sugar, a palette of microwaves and two jet skis. I spent a lot of my time sitting on the bow (bottom level, always empty) shelling and eating stolen buts. Learnt to break the nuts open pretty cleanly by the end.

Also on the bottom level was a small palette of cargo belonged to someone moving house. They were not aboard. TV, DVD, sofa, chairs, coffee table, dining table, bed, cupboard, fridge and other stuff. On day two I went downstairs to do some nut cracking. As I walked past a small space in between the sugar and the jet skis I saw a blue flicker.

Some passengers from the middle deck had carefully opened the palette which was wrapped in clear plastic. The had set-up the TV and DVD player in front of the sofa and coffee table, just like home. They sat and drank beer, watching the only DVD they had, a collection of Guns n Roses video clips. They assured me they would put it all back neatly as if nothing had happened. The captain and crew were of course fine with this. I heart Brasil.

I made some lovely gringo friends on the boat:

Justine Belgium)
Anneke (Belgium)
Christine (Germany)
Andreas (Germany)
Lars (Denmark)
Thomas (Austria)
Jorge (Portugal)
Shane (New Zealand)
Sarah (New Zealand)
Giovanna (England)

Hope you are all well.

It was great to be able to share travel stories with fellow travellers. So far I had not done much of that. However, I spent most of my time speaking with the Brasilians aboard. I took advantage of the situation, all of us stuck on a boat. They poor people had nowhere to hide! Actually, as per the Brazilian spirit everyone was always more than happy to talk, slowly and patiently. Sometimes we passed a Portuguese-English dictionary around like a conch.

I sat on the bow at dusk, watching the colors change and the river snake. I thought I would read a lot whilst on the boat, instead I was captivated by the changing light. I was hypnotised by the purple brown river. Did not read much at all over the 5 days (four and two halves, really.) I am not very good at describing landscapes, so instead, I will share an extract from the one book I did manage to finish whilst aboard.

"Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, think heavy, sluggish,. There was no joy in the brilliance of the sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted , into the gloom of overshadowed distances."

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, p30.

Francis Ford Coppola adapted Conrad´s story to Apocalypse now.

I adapted Conrad´s story to my river trip.

Later that night the storms started.

They continued over the next two. We swung wet all night, belted by winds and cold rain. When morning broke we thawed out over overly sweet coffee and a plain stale white roll.

On day three something special started to happen. At first I was confused. Why is the Shaman (there was a Shaman on the el barco) throwing garbage bags overboard?

Then, I saw it. Children in dugout canoes were frantically paddling toward our boat, yelling and doing a little dance. In the Brazilian spirit of giving and sharing, the Shaman was throwing bags of clothes, toys and books to the kids.

It was not only the Shaman. He was just first. The whole boat it seemed was prepared for tis. Many of the passengers had plastic bags with gifts/donations for the riverside children. I was done with my mosquito net, and I had a map of the world in my backpack. I quickly put them in a plastic bag and tied it firmly before throwing it overboard. A canoe with mother and child plucked it for the river and continued to search for more.















These children live in riverside communities - usually mixed indigenous and non indigenous families. They no longer live deep in La Selva, rather on the edge of the rivers. Of course, here there are no roads. Living on a riverbank is the Amazonian equivalent of living on a road. I spent two half-days with one of these families before and after La Selva. Their lives are affected by western culture and industry, yet they remain pure and simple. Fishing, farming and reproducing.

The gift giving continued for the whole day. Armies of canoes approached our boat as we passed each village. The river narrowed in parts, got wide and narrowed again. I saw more and more examples of the industrialisation of the river. From what I saw, the region is purely a resource bank. The river serves as transportation. I saw the largest ships I have ever seen. I saw oil tankers and cargo ships, but also once-were-trees dugout canoes.

By day five my bananas had ripened progressively as the fellow passengers helped themselves. I had timed their ripening perfectly. My bread was stale, oranges gone. Small achievements such as these must be mentioned.

We arrived at the coastal city of in Belem after 5 days (four and two halves, really) travelling at 22 knots per hour with the downstream flow of the river.

No terrible food, no delays, no insects, no theft, no rape, and no unfriendly Brazilians.

The boat experience was not the National Geographic picture that we have in our heads. In fact, nor was La Selva. Closer, but not. The river experience, was very special nonetheless. It was honest and pure. At times a little testing, but always special.

Now, only two weeks left to experience the oh so special North East. The true heart of Brasil.