Belém

I got settled in at my place in Belém and the first thing I planned on doing was getting my stuff settled for my next city. I wanted to go to the northeast of Brazil and see Recife or Fortaleza and then get down to Bahia. Plane tickets were expensive, so I walked out the bus terminal. I expected bus tickets to be cheap even though the distances are far. But they weren’t! I got a roundtrip ticket in Argentina from Buenos Aires to Mendoza (a few years ago), 13 hours or so, and it was like $40 round trip, unless my memory deceives me. Here, for a similar bus ride to Recife—16 hours I think—one way, it was over $100. And no food! The ones in Argentina give you food and beverages. Because of the schedules and all, I didn’t think I could go to the northeast. So I came back the next day and bought a bus ticket straight to Sao Paulo. 2 days, $170. Not too bad.

Anyway, that took up the morning, so I got back, had some lunch, and went around the city. I made my way down to the docks of Belém, which was really cool. I sat there and read, walked around, and enjoyed everything. It started to rain and so I sat under this covered area for a while to wait it out. I fell asleep for a while. I kept looking at my watch, but I had done something to it and it had stopped or it was on the second clock or something. So I thought it was 4:30 or so and it was actually around 6. It was still raining and so I went and walked around the market which was covered. The market is the Ver-o-Peso market, a famous one. It is pretty cool, and pretty old. But it was raining and it was getting dark, so I made my way back to my place. It was kind of a disappointing day because I had spent lots of time figuring out my travel plans and also asleep by accident.

The next day is when I bought the bus ticket to Sao Paulo. After that, I had plenty of free time and it was sunny. I went back to the market and the dock, and was able to see a lot of the old town. Belém is almost 400 years old and at the mouth of the Amazon. It has some really great old buildings, forts, and so forth that are really cool. It was really fun to see it all.

I had been eating these great burgers ever since I got into Manaus. Some of you know what they are: the X burgers. It is really quite funny…the letter X in Portuguese sounds kind of like cheese, and so the burgers you can find on the street corners and in the restaurants around all say X-Burger or X-Bacon or whatever it is. I think it is supposed to mean cheese burger, but it got messed up somehow in the translation. Really funny. I ate the X-Bacon for like 3 days straight, I swear. Other than breakfast, of course. It is so good. Beef, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. I had one the night before I left Belém that was like the X-Bacon from heaven.

That day I had an interesting experience. I was at the dock reading, at a bench we will call Point A. This young guy came from the direction of Point B, if you will. He looked kind of shady, but it was daylight and there were lots of people around. I wasn’t too worried. He came and sat down a few benches down and then asked me what time it was. The oldest trick in the book! I didn’t care if he saw my watch or wanted it, which I got at Walmart for like 7 dollars. I pulled it out and told him the time. I didn’t have anything valuable with me and wasn’t worried still, even though he seemed a little shady.

I got up and walked toward Point B, the direction from which he came. I stopped at the end of the dock there and watched these kids jumping into the river. Lots of people still, a security guard, etc. Then a few minutes later, he came over and hung out as well. I thought it was pretty funny. Then instead of leaving, I figured I would go back toward Point A and see if he followed. I stood near this couple that was making out, so there were still people, and lots of people walking around. He came back! At this point I thought he was just stupid. That is where we were originally, and he seemed to be wandering around with no direction, only seeming to be in the same places that I was. After a few minutes, I went back to Point B. He came there too!

Now I was a little weirded out. And it seemed like other people were watching me too. So I left the dock area walking pretty fast. I was still in a major area with lots of cars and people, but it was still weird. After walking on the street (in the direction of Point A but not on the dock, on the street), I turned around after a while and the kid was on the same street coming in my direction! It was so weird. And then I saw a woman walking toward me. I didn’t think much about that, until I took a right turn back into the dock area (where lots of people were, police, etc.) and went back in direction of Point B but inside the stores near the dock. I saw the kid make the turn too but go into the bathroom. Then I saw the woman I saw going in the opposite direction on the street…she was there in the store! I couldn’t believe it. I thought the whole world was after me.

I left the stores near Point B and that was the end of it. It was pretty weird for a while. I felt like I was in a weird movie. But the rest of the night was good, especially with that X-Bacon.

Manaus to Belém

I really need to keep cracking on this blog thing. I just realized that I was in Manaus like a month ago! I will try to catch up.

The rest of my trip in Manaus was pretty uneventful. I woke up the first morning and I wasn't sure but it seemed like I had some beg bug bites or something. I have no idea what those look like, but I had something. It was all on the front of my body too because I was sleeping on my stomach because of that rash I was telling you about. And that is when I knew that the price was too good to be true. :) It actually was just fine. It was just funny to feel like I couldn't sleep on my back or on my stomach. I wasn't sure how I would sleep! No big deal though, it all went away, even the rash after a while. I did the same things as I did the first: walked around, checked out the architecture, the fish market, the plazas, and everything. It is a cool place.

On Sunday night, I headed to the airport. Like I said, it's pretty hard to get out of Manaus if you aren't on a boat or a plane, and I had my boat time already. So I got a flight to Belém that was pretty inexpensive. It left on Monday at 4:30 a.m.

I brought three books with me on the trip and the third was going really fast, so I decided to buy a new book the day before I went to the airport. I went to this bookstore, was checking out some books, and it started to rain. It started to rain really hard. It was amazing. I don't know if I have ever seen rain like that. The sidewalks looked like a waterslide with an inch or so of water constantly running down. The water splashed up onto the sidewalk from the street too and so there were these small rapids at the curbs. And even inside the bookstore, these puddles started to form. But none of them were near the door! And I know that the building had at least another story on top. I don't know where all the water came from, but the bookstore was flooding. It slowed down, and then I left. It was wild! I've never seen puddles like that in a bookstore....

I bought "Around the World in 80 Days" in Portuguese and hoped that I would understand most of it. I started that night when I got to the airport and really enjoyed it. There are always words, especially in literature, that I don't understand but it went really well. I enjoyed the beginning that night in the airport, and slept as much as I could before boarding the plane at 4 am or so.

We got on the plane, and I had a window seat. I like to see stuff out the window, but I don't like being cramped into the wall. Especially when people hog the armrest or are really big. So I usually don't like the window, but thought it would be nice to rest my head against and to see stuff. The guy next to me wasn't big, but he was kind of an armrest hog. And he was hogging the armrest he shared with me and the one on his other side. Then a stewardess came around with a bowl of candy in wrappers for people to have. You know how those things are, people take a few treats. This guy next to me reached his hand in, hesitated for a second, and then pulled out like ten pieces of candy. I couldn't believe it. He stuffed them in his pocket, and maybe my memory is fading (it has been a month), but it seems like he did it again at one of our stops. I was disgusted. An armrest hog and a candy snatcher, right there next to me.

I fell asleep on the flight and Belém was the second stop. At our first stop, I woke up. I didn't know where we were, so I tapped him and asked him to make sure that we weren't in Belem. He told me where we were and then started to make some conversation. He asked me if I was Italian, I said no. He asked me if I had ever been to Belém, I said no. He told me that I needed to call him and have him show me all the sights. He gave me his name and number. It was nice of him to offer. Josimar was his name. And as we finally made it to Belém, he was leaving the plane and he did the "Call me" thing with the hand and mouthed the words. It turns out that it means the same thing in Brazil as it does in the U.S. I didn't call him.

It was still pretty early in the morning when we arrived. I got off the plane, got my stuff, and took a bus into downtown Belém. I will write more about that in a few days!

Manaus Day 1

After two days on the boat, we arrived in Manaus. I had the inner part of my right left and the outer part of my left leg sunburned pretty bad (from sitting next to the open window) and this weird rash. I didn't know it was a rash until I looked in the mirror, and it was kind of scary. I think you probably don't want more details than that.

Anyway, Manaus is a pretty cool place. It is hard to get to by anything other than boat or plane. There is a bus up to Boa Vista, from which you can get to Venezuela and Guiana, Suriname, etc. pretty easily. Manaus has a lot of cool early nineteenth-century architecture, a lot of which came from rubber companies who had a big presence there back in the day. Because of that, there are some really great buildings such as the opera house and other things. I will have to put on some pictures whenever I can get them off of my camera.

We arrived at the dock and I left the boat with the couple I mentioned in my previous posts. The hostel owner in Leticia told us about a place to stay in Manaus. But I didn’t want to stay with them at the same place and then get stuck hanging out with them for a few days, I told them I was going to wander around a little first. The English girl was like—wander around, in the rain? I said yes, and that it wasn’t raining that bad. So I was checking out the area near the dock there, where there are lots of little shops and markets with food and clothes and all. I liked it. But every ten minutes or so, I would come around a corner and see the couple, and then have to hide before they saw me. I know that I probably sound like a little kid based on some of the things I do; I agree that they are childish. :)

Anyway, I avoided them. But then I realized I didn’t know of another place to stay, so I decided to go check out the place and at least then be able to get in and out without meeting up with them. I was carrying all of my stuff and the sun came out, which means that it got hot and humid. I arrived at a place, which turned out to be different from the one they went to but I did not know that. I signed up to get a room and had to exchange money first. I left, went to an exchange place, and the guy told me that there was nowhere in Manaus that exchanged Colombian pesos. Turns out there is basically nowhere in Brazil that exchanges Colombian pesos. Whenever I can change them, I will in essence be $75 richer because the 150,000 pesos are useless to me right now!

I had no Brazilian reais and so I needed to find an ATM. I looked and looked, still with all of my stuff, and all of the ATMs I tried wouldn’t take my cards. I never liked Wells Fargo or Chase anyhow, and this didn’t help. I had tried a few and was walking across this main plaza in the city. This guy and his wife or girlfriend asked me if I was looking for a hotel. I said I had found a place, but wasn’t set on it. He told me he could get me a great deal on a private hotel room. It was really cheap. I thought for a little, wondering if this was a scam or something, and said I would take it. We walked there, and it turned out to be a decent place. I think the normal rooms were really nice, but I got this room in the basement that was ok but not great.

The first one we went into had a big puddle of water and a big dead cockroach upside down in the middle of it. I decided against that one, and then the next one had some other problem but I can’t remember what it was. It seems like it was dirty. The last one we tried was clean and that was fine. It had three single beds, which is kind of weird now that I think about it, a few fans, and its own bathroom. I left my stuff, and headed out to keep looking for an ATM. I tried probably 5 or 6 at least, couldn’t get anything. I finally saw HSBC and figured I could take out money there, and it worked. The first thing I bought was a can of guaraná, and it was beautiful.

After getting some food, I was checking out the opera house that was a few blocks away from the hotel. Then I saw the couple, and my first instinct was to get out of sight. But then I remembered that I owed them money, and couldn’t pay it back because I only had 3 bills of 50,000 Colombian pesos and no Brazilian reais yet. I was going to pay them at the place we stayed or at least go back and find them to pay them, but hadn’t done it yet. They had paid for the taxi ride back on the day we boarded the boat. So I came up to them, shot the breeze a little, paid them, and got invited to a thing on the river the next day with them. I said if I wanted to, I would be at their hotel in the morning. That was the last time I saw them.

The rest of the day I was exploring around town and reading. I enjoyed the architecture more than anything, with its great colors and turn-of-the-century features. It was really hot and I had this rash cream all over, but I really enjoyed the first day in the city.

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.