Traveling Solo on the River

The week before English Camp I was on the JJ Mesquita on the Rio Negro with a fantastic group from Brentwood Baptist Church in Nashville, my hometown. They had brought a ton of eye glasses to give out. Eye glasses! Brilliant! I love it when each team sees something different or a different way they can help out and its so needed but still unique to that team. The team the week before them painted a house or two in each village (Thats hard work in the sweaty jungle). This team set up a table and had people come by and try on glasses (readers mostly I think) until the person found one that would work. In the meantime, they would make conversation and find out about people's lives and really care about them. It was beautiful.

But the clock was ticking and I had to jam back to Manaus to help prep for English Camp. I had seen Pastor Djard leave a boat trip early and he got on a fancy boat.

Waving good-bye to Pastor Djard

So this is of course what I expected to travel on. Djard told me Captain Rai (above in the yellow shirt) would help me flag a boat down. So wednesday I said, yes, I would need a boat to go back to Manaus the following day. "Ok," he said, "there's one at 5 am." Five? In the morning?? To quote my Brazilian friends "I no like". 

But there I was in the dark of the morning with all my stuff sitting in the kitchen waiting for the boat. Amaris, the head cook, urged me to go make sure the Captain was up and hailing the boat. I was sure he was, we'd just talked about it the night before. But I went anyway, knocked on the wrong door and woke up an American (sorry Kristin). While returning to the kitchen, I heard the boat's engines start up and knew everything was fine. But apparently what happened, I found out later, is that right when I left the kitchen, Captain Rai wandered in looking for some early morning coffee. He saw all my bags there and said "Oh Meu Deus",  turned around and headed to the bridge. He had forgotten. ha ha!!

But we were underway and he hailed the boat and soon a deck hand came for me, "Ok Corrie," then a bunch in portuguese I didn't catch. "Ja?" I said. Already?  "Sim! Agora!" Yes! Now! We went to the back of the boat and was frightened and shocked to see a fishing boat with a motor on the back charging the JJ. "This one?!" I asked horrified in portuguese. "Yes," Zezinho answered, it will take you to the other boat in front. OK, I thought and hopped on as quickly as I could. Take me to the boat in front. 

The boat in front was an open air wooden boat which looked more like a steamboat without the wheel. the motorboat pulled expertly up to the side where large deck hands caught the luggage I chucked at them then lifted me up the three feet to the deck with one hand. The deck was clear of anything but these raised little platform things which I realized alter were lids to openings to the hull below. I quickly sat down on one and watched with more than a little nervous anxiety as we left the JJ Mesquita behind. "Do you want to hang up your hammock?" the really large deckhand asked me. "I don't have a hammock." I answered. He took a second look at how much luggage I had and it looked like he stifled a laugh. I did however, have a pillow in a bright purple pillow case. I never travel without my pillow. 

The only other person, beside the deck hands, on board was a woman off to the side in a red hammock with the crest of the local soccer team on it. We were it for about ten minutes. Then one of the guys jumped into a motor boat tied up on the side and without the bigger boat slowing down, peeled off into the night. He returned ten minutes after that with a family. They were carrying one small bag for all three of them. Out of which, the mother pulled out her hammock. She had it hanging up in a matter of minutes and her two boys crawled in. 

I think they were excited to see a white girl with no hammock and a purple pillow. 

Throughout the morning, every 15 minutes or so, one of the two motorboats would peel off from the bigger boat and return a few minutes later with more passengers who hung up their hammocks and crawled in to snooze. Few people spoke in the early morning and I dozed on and off laying on top of my backpack. 

Soon the sun was up and the boat was booking it towards Manaus. Now I was guessing the boat would either go to the port downtown, which is what I was really hoping for because it would be close to my house. Or it would dock at Ponte Negro. Which would be difficult but not impossible to get home from. However, when the boat started slowing down and pulling into a port I did not recognize, I got a little nervous. We were pulling into something that looked like a cross between the favelas in Rio and the sleepy port town that Popeye pulled into where Olive and Bluto and Sweet Pea lived. 

I had no idea where I was in the city or how to find a bus to get me home or what. I mean I only had R$10 on me. But i thought, well, it be an adventure. I had all my bags loaded up and then I realized at least one person wasn't getting off here, so I asked her, does the boat go on to downtown or do we all get off here. No, no, she answered, it goes on. Whew! I dropped my bags and stayed where I was. Sure enough the boat headed on toward the city. I realize that Manaus is a port city. I've told people that with authority, sounding like I know exactly what that means. It means that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of boats in and around Manaus at any given time. The sheer number and variety of boats I saw was amazing!

This is an ICE boat!!! A Boat for ICE!!

There were so many boats in fact, that there wasn't room to pull directly up to the dock. We lashed onto another boat, kind of like ours with an open deck and the deck hand gestured for us to exit through that one. Kind of like leaving your friend's house by exiting through the neighbors'. Then when we got onto the dock, there was about a 3 foot drop and then the entire thing all the way to lad seemed covered in grain sacks. At first I thought we were going to have to scramble over them. And I was in no condition to scramble. I had my hiker's backpack on my back, my daypack on my front and my bright purple pillow in my arms. I had no center of gravity or available apendenges with which to scramble. Fortunately the woman in front of me found a place where a tire was being used as a buffer and she used it as a step. Somehow. With the kindness of strangers, I took made it down and past the grain sacks and out on the road that runs along the port. And then the REAL fun began. I assumed (mmhm) that if I kept walking toward what I guessed was city center, I would eventually come out at a bus station I know, and be able to get a bus. But the more I walked and walked and walked and walked, the less sure of this I became. Also it was about 9 in the morning and the docks were teeming with action! Men loading huge crates and boxes onto boats, people with all their belongings getting on boats, getting off boats, cars everywhere, trucks everywhere, people selling things, people shouting things, taxi drivers hollering , gay hookers doing the walk of shame, it was amazing! I wanted so badly to video all of this, but I felt I already stuck out somewhat and shouldn't flash my high-end electronics around in this crowd. So I kept walking. Finally i thought, I better take a chance. I crossed the street and headed into a cute little market that we should take the Americans to sometime. It looked like it might dead end, but then it curved around and deposited me onto a street that was more of a ramp into the water. Tiny boats, like little fishing boats, were stacked up four deep and on the actual street were piles and piles of fish. Some were merely laying on a piece of cardboard on the street. It was incredible. I continued walking away from the port for probably another half mile or so, finally found a street I knew, caught a bus and made it home. It was quite the adventure. 

The other day as I was walking around the city, I decided to walk into the port area and just see how it al connects, yknow for next time. I found the little market where I had turned off and realized if I had kept walking maybe another 300 yards I would have made it to the original bus station I was trying to get to. Ah well. Next time.