Fresh off the boat

Ola and bom dia from Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. In the heart of the Amazon and the most northerly point of our great adventure. Bit of a dump, actually. Rather hot and sticky too. We landed this morning from our 3 day boat journey and have spent most of the time trying to find a cashpoint that would conduct business with us and booking a flight to Brasilia. Now, all my information tells me that Brasilia is a complete dump too but it´s about the only place I can afford to fly to that is roughly in the right direction. All being well, we should be able to jump off the plane and on to a night bus to the glorious mining towns of Minais Gerais. From there to Rio, where we both look forward with great anticipation to watching Anthony Murombe-Chivero attempt to chat up the locals.

Sooo.....you left us in.....Iquitos I believe. Pretty nice there, we had a very relaxing time and made a foray to a nearby butterfly farm. In addition to having lots of butterflies they also take in distressed beasts from the jungle and look after them. As a result we were lucky enough to consort with a Tapir, a very long thin and pink Giant Anteater, some brightly coloured parrots and a mighty Jaguar. Hurrah! We were also hassled continously by the tame monkeys that hang out at the farm, one particular one - Junior - spent most of the time putting his hands down Elizabeth´s top and trying to filch her wallet. After that we got a fast boat up to the Triple Frontier (that´s Peru, Colombia and Brazil). That was OK, if a little longer than we expected (about 5 hours late), but the main thing we discovered was that the mosquitoes seem to find my feet particularly delicious. We hung about Leticia (Colombia) for a few days, which was reasonably pleasant, and then jumped on the monster boat to Manaus.

I´m afraid to say we wimped out of sleeping on deck in hammocks and stayed in a cabin instead. The excuse being that we didn´t want to get our stuff nicked. Now, let me tell you about the Amazon river. Well, it´s very long, very wide and....wait for it...it is literally full of water. I thank you. Unfortunately, because of it´s great size, we didn´t actually see anything of interest, apart from a dolphin on the first day. The boat was much nicer than we were expecting but all in all the trip was rather dull. And things weren´t improved by our constant diet of chicken, rice and beans (lunch and supper, every day), and the fact that Elizabeth kept beating me at cards. Also, the beer they serve on the boat is called Skol, which is quite off-putting. Really, the most thrilling thing about the trip were the fascinating little nuggets of information that Elizabeth kept producing about the geography of this great river. Used to flow into the Pacific you know, until the Andes popped up and diverted it, which is why you get sting-rays native to the Pacific in the Amazon area. Jolly interesting, what. There was more of that ilk but it escapes me now.

So there you are. We are finding it incredibly frustrating not being able to understand a single thing people say to us after all our good work with the Spanish. Finally, I should tell you that I am growing my facial hair again in preparation for The Moustache and that I have learnt to love the avocado. Tchau, Sam XXX.