Two Days on the Amazon

We left the jungle house at 6 or so in the morning. We had to leave early because 6 am in Leticia is 7 am in Tabatinga, Brazil. I was with that couple I talked about in my old post. Not so bad, but still…I wasn’t looking forward to 2 days in a row with them. The girl said “hopefully we can find three good seats in a row!” Yeah…. We made it to the boat, which looks like its made out of legos. I am not kidding. See for yourself. We got inside and the crew there thoroughly checked everyone’s bags. The guy checking mine busted the zipper, which I had spent about an hour the night before fixing with needle and thread. But he fixed it real quick, and it wasn’t that bad.

Well the couple grabbed a row of three seats near the front of the boat on one side. I put my bag up above them in the baggage storage area, and thought for a while about where I wanted to sit. I decided to sit on the other side of the boat, but also in the front. It was hot in there and there were two doors over there that were open, so I wanted to sit there, and be by myself. It worked out great. The doors were open basically the whole time, so there was always a great breeze, but that made it cold at night! And the one door was right next to me, an emergency exit. I was sitting like 5 feet above the river! It was crazy to think about that, and that I could fall out at if I stand up and get dizzy or something.

The boat was kind of like a plane without wings, but not that nice. There were rows of seats, and they were ok. Meals are provided (not always a good thing) and you just hang out and do whatever. We left at 10 am or so and started the two-day trip down the Amazon to Manaus, Brazil. It wasn’t a full boat, so that was nice because I had some space.

About an hour into the trip, we start slowing down in the middle of the river. We were making stops at certain places, but we weren’t going towards land. I looked back and had seen a small black boat cruising around, but didn’t know what it was. It turns out that it was the federal police, and we got pulled over! There were five or six policemen that came on board and checked everyone and everything. After looking at your documents, they looked through your bags. I asked one of the crew if they were mostly looking for drugs or guns or what. He said both. Luckily no one stuck any drugs in my bag while I wasn’t looking, because I wasn’t sitting right under it due to moving to the other side of the boat.

I asked the guy if they ever find stuff, and he said they do, and they did that day! He told me there was a lady in the back of the boat with handcuffs on. I hadn’t seen it because she was sitting down. It turns out that she was sitting right in front of the couple, right in front of where I would have been sitting. When the boat slowed down, she and her baby ran to the back of the boat and hid in the bathroom or somewhere.

Somehow they figured out that she was missing and found her. She had a package of drugs around her waist. She looked like she was 20. Really skinny, innocent looking, she was with her baby. It was pretty sad. They took her off the boat with her baby. Then we left. It was pretty wild. I am glad she didn’t stand up and put some drugs right into my bag which was right above her!

The rest of the trip was without similar events. It was amazing being on the Amazon. The river is so wide that you cant really see much other than trees on either side, but that was even great. It was just cool to be on the Amazon and think—I’m on the Amazon. The sunset on the second day was incredible. The scenery in general was great. I will have to upload pictures. I talked a lot with a Colombian guy, which was pretty cool. I read quite a bit. I also just looked out the open door there a lot, just thinking and relaxing. It was a fun trip. Two days is definitely enough though. It is the longest I have ever been without touching land.