Deeper Into the Amazon

Trip Start Jun 07, 2008

Trip End Sep 14, 2008

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Flag of Brazil Porto Velho, State of Rondonia, Brazil
Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Knowing I had only a few days to get to the first riverboat I planned to take, I did my best to get going quickly after my jungle trek. Of course it didn't work out as planned. The night bus out of Rurrenbaque was booked so I had to spend another night there and take the next day's late morning departure. It was supposed to be about a 15 hour trip, putting me at the border late that night. Instead, the bus stopped around 2am at a town a few hours away from the border, and the driver said they'd resume around 6 or 7am. Not feeling like checking into a hotel for just a few hours of sleep, I slept on the bus in the station with a few other passengers. We finally got to Guayaramerin mid-day, and I proceeded to the Brazilian consulate to get my visa. Of course I was told that it would take until the following day, but after a quick conversation with the man in charge, I was told it could be ready today for $130. Seemed as if I basically paid a $20 bribe to get the lazy bureaucrat to do his job

hammocks

. Visa in hand, I boarded a boat and crossed the river to Guajara-Mirim. Late that afternoon I caught a bus to Porto Velho. I arrived around midnight and got a cab (the busses had stoppped running for the night) to the port. I had planned to take a boat that left at 6pm but all the above delays caused me to miss that one. At the port I met a guy who worked on a different boat leaving the following day. I slung up my hammock on deck and slept soundly in port that night with a handful of other passengers.

All did not go smoothly after that either. Since the boat was scheduled to leave around 2pm, I took a few hours the next day to walk around the town, use the internet, get a bite to eat and buy a few supplies. Upon returning to my boat, I found it almost completely empty and the few remaining items were being unloaded onto a new boat. I ran on board, grabbed my hammock, and scrambled aboard this new boat to find it packed from bow to stern with hammocks. Determined to not get left behind, I squeezed my hammock in anyway, as many a local would later do. This boat I was on was the one that Lonely Planet warns travelers to avoid due to the need to change boats in the middle of the night about half-way through the trip. That turned out not to be a problem as on our first night, the boat ran aground and we spent about 10 hours waiting for them to free it. So we changed boats mid-day without any trouble.

Your ticket on these boats includes meals, and they aren't as terrible as you'd imagine. They're just terribly repetitive. Breakfast on the first boat consisted of only crackers and coffee, and both lunch and dinner were the same: chicken, white rice, and plain spaghetti. The second boat actually served eggs and plantains with breakfast but otherwise the same fare. The second boat was also a bit larger. It had a sun deck and snack bar up top, so not quite as claustrophobic. I was the only gringo aboard either vessel, but befriended the young Brazilian guys and girls that were my hammock neighbors. I got to practice a bit of Portuguese and they worked on their equally meager English skills. We occasionally stopped at small riverside towns to pick up or drop off cargo, which provided a welcome diversion from the monotony. Five nights after boarding, we arrived in Manaus.

Check out some photos from this riverboat trip on flickr.

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