The Amazon River: Belém to Iquitos by boat

So, we arrive at Belém do Pará, at the mouth of the Amazon, strung out after 36 hours of bus, rice and beans. We've shared our pain with an English/South African couple, Philippa and Conrad. These two are taking the same onward journey as us, on a slow boat to Manaus, and make for good companions.

Belém is good for buying hammocks, so we do that. Then, after some rice and beans and the first of many incredible tropical juices we follow the Rough Guide's sagely advice and queue for the boat, some six hours before departure, hoping for that perfect hammock spot. Things are starting to go wrong already: yesterday's deaprture ran into problems and all the passengers have been moved to our boat. As we board, we do our best with the hammocks, picking a spot near the exit and away from the toilets, but as the hour of departure comes and goes, more and more Brazilians are piling in and crowding our space. A pair of Dutch teachers who've latched on to us give up the ghost in claustrophobic fear and abandon ship before the off. Apparently yet another boatload of people has been sicked off onto us. "How many liferafts does the boat hold?" Lucy asks the captain. He looks like he doesn't know, says "about a hundred", and scurries off. Maybe we're a bit worried. A nearby old hammock-hand tells us that the deck isn't really that crowded. Maybe we're still a bit worried.


- All hope and expectation, queuing for the boat


- Quietly hanging our hammocks. We've got a great spot.


- Holy hammock! Where did they all come from?


A couple of hours late, at 8pm, we depart, and our concerns recede with the lights of Belém. We take a couple of tinnies on the top deck and feel the the spirit of Amazon adventure infect us. By ten O´Clock we're swinging ourselves to sleep.

In the early hours we're awoken by a sharp maneuvre and a rending screech. This doesn't sound good, and indeed it isn't. The story emerges slowly, our best source of information being Robson, our Swiss-Brazilian compadre in the cabins. The captain has been taking cachaça, and girls, on the bridge. His attention thus compromised, he has failed to notice that great iron buoy in mid-stream and swiped it hard, taking out one of our propellers in the process. We're now going slowly.

But not to worry. We're safe, and on the Amazon! The jungle sprouts on all sides, and stilted houses peep out of the margins. Kids on canoes pop out to wave at us or receive plastic bags of goodies. Some enterprising ones moor astern while we move and sell us strange jungle fruit.


- Here come the kids on their canoes


We park at a tiny dock and crew jump over the side to make some repairs under the waterline. They do something, because soon we're off again. Lucy and Philippa decide to confront the captain about his dodgy decision-making and get, respectively, a grope and a kiss for their troubles. What a piece of work!


- The state-of-the art dock where we make some repairs


Life on board is slipping already into something of a routine. Breakfast, at six am, is some super-sweet coffee, a bun and, if we're lucky, a slice of melon. This is followed by a bit of dossing in the hammocks, then a trip up top for some sun and mooching about. Lunch, bizarrely, starts at 10:30, and is consistently rice, spaghetti, beans and meat. No variation. More mooching and snoozing and watching the jungle slip by. Dinner (rice, spaghetti and meat, no beans) at an unsociable 16:30. Upstairs for a beer or two, then an early night. It's quite agreeable and funny at first.


- We call it the "funny fruit". Looks wierd, tastes wierd, is wierd


- A lovely moment in the sun. Now I want a beer


- Conrad and Philippa waiting for us to move


On night number two, there is more drama. We are lost up a channel through the Ilha do Marajó, and stuck. Thankfully, a barge is passing and pushes us back to safety and the right path. Apparently, according Robson, we were taking a "short cut", and the captain got it wrong. We seem to be making steady progress again on day three until luncheon, when there's a great twaaang from below. Robson tells us that the propeller they fixed is now no longer attached to the boat, thanks to the sandbank we just crashed into. Our captain is looking more and more like a liability. We swap our rescue barge for a smaller boat that limpets itself to our side and chugs us along.

We are seriously behind schedule now and beginning to get grumpy. We sand-bank for the third time and spend hours rotating vainly before we finally free ourself. Another short-cut gone wrong, and the captain is lost again, so we travel backwards for the rest of the day. Conditions in the hammock deck are starting to become squalid. Our fellow travellers, 98% Brazilian, are showing little regard for public hygiene: noses are emptied on to the floor, spit is spat willy-nilly; there's shit in the toilet, shit on the toilet, shit outside the toilet, shit in the shower, and shit in a cup (given that everything from plastic bottles to cigarette packets is routinely thrown overboard, I can only assume that this last is a piece of protest art). Lots of people, including me, come down with a common cold. We are not happy bunnies.


- We're stuck in the mud. One of these boats is going to pull us out...


- Thank God! It's the bigger one!


After five days, our supposed journey time for the entire trip to Manaus, we have made half distance, where we stop for repairs. The maritime police say we cannot leave until the repairs are completed. We leave at 10pm, so it must be fixed! But no, this is the latest crime of our captain, who has tricked the cops and is still sneakily using the smaller boat to push us. At the next stop, we revolt, going straight to the police station and rousing a sleepy lieutenant with our bevvy of complaints. He shrugs and says nothing doing until the next port. Another day of rice and beans!!!

Finally we're moved, on to a far nicer boat, who make far nicer rice and beans and even sell fruit. It's an incident-free final section of journey. We eventually dock at the famous floating pontoons of Manaus at 3am on day nine.


- That's more like it. Relaxing on the Cesar Brelaz with a lolly


- Keeping watch for sandbanks, dolphins and whatnot


- Wouldn't fancy meeting that at night with our last captain in charge...


Time for a rest in Manaus, not the World's prettiest city. But it's a managable size, and has the most amazing juices. We're talking such exotics as maracujá, capuacu, tapereba, camu-camu, acai, guaraná, catuaba and mirata. It also has that iconic opera house, transported piece by piece from Europe back in the rubber-baron days.


- The confluence of black and muddy water. The black water contains tannins that kill mosquito larvae. We like that!


- The Opera House as seen from Manaus' revolving restaurant


From Manaus we take a fast, and efficient boat to Tabatinga, in a complicated corner bordering Peru and Colombia. The highlight of our journey is having one of the windows "shot" out as we passed close to the shore. In Tabatinga we eat ceviche (fish soused in lime and chilli) and I burn my mouth trying to bite open a cashew nut straight from the tree; do not try at home, kids.


- How much ceviche?


- Local taxi at Tabatinga

From here we catch yet another fast boat into Peru and the bustling port of Iquitos. Madly, it is still possible to bring your ocean-going vessel here, some 3,500km up the river.

There's more jungle action on the way, but for now we leave you with some of the amazing sights that the Amazon river has to offer...


- A bloody sunrise, 5:30am


- The shimmering water of the Amazon, a squall is coming


- And a peerless sunset.


- And yet another...