The Second Boat -Tabatinga To Manaus

Departure day from Tabatinga and the start of the real adventure. Be here at 8, they told us when we bought the tickets, so here we were not much after that time, but once the people waiting for the fast boat had left there was just a handful of us. I didn’t mind, the early arrivals get the best hammock space and 4 days is a long time to spend in the wrong spot.

Orderly lines of baggage were formed as people took a seat to wait. Then mysterious queues started forming, the first to exchange the paper ticket for a wristband. The second was for a police photo and passport check, if you don’t do this you don’t get on the boat I was told. More people arrived and by scheduled departure time at 12 the two queues were still being processed. Finally the doors opened and off we went up to the top deck of the F/B Diamante. Picking a spot near a window we tested our hammocks for size, it turned out that I was almost touching the floor until I knotted both ends. No need for the extra rope here.

We left in the end a couple of hours late, but our deck was nowhere near full and the space we had chosen seemed good for views and air. There was something missing on the boat though. Searching for a celebratory beer to mark the start of the hammock days we found a snack bar at the top of the boat that had no beer. Suddenly 4 days seemed like a very long time.

Then there were the meal times that would be challenging even for northern Europeans, breakfast at 6:30, lunch starting at 10:30 and dinner at 5pm. But we had our sleeping and resting position set, spaces up front and at the back for river watching and life was good. We had managed to get 2 Brazilian SIM cards the day before, but we discovered that these would really only work well when the boat stopped somewhere.

Dinner time came around and we had a chance to sample the unexciting cuisine on board. Stewed beef with some beans and rice set the tone for the coming days. But it’s included in the ticket price, it’s edible and there will be time ahead for better meals. And then before dark another fabulous river sunset behind us to match the one we saw coming down from Iquitos.

On this kind of voyage you start to test the reality against what you had imagined it might be like. I had thought that I wouldn”t worry about when I slept because I could lie awake at night listening to the sounds of the forest. No. The sound you hear day and night is the boat’s engine. Then there is the doubt about how much you can see from the boat when it is sailing down the middle of such a big river. The reality here is that you do see quite a bit, the boat rarely steers the middle course, at least in the upper Amazon. There are numerous islands and sandbanks so much of the time you are not even seeing the full width of the river. And in the stops you see the local towns.

You dont’t see a lot of wildlife, fleeting glimpses of the Amazonian pink dolphins as they surface for a second or two and a selection of river birds. Thankfully there was also a very limited presence of unwanted wildlife, mosquitoes are only a potential problem when the boat stops, out on the river with the breeze they are virtually absent. In short I never felt bored or that time dragged. Obviously finger typing this diary on a tablet also takes a while.