THE AMAZON RIVER - 4000 KM - PERU TO BRAZIL

Yurimaguas, that’s the name of port town that marks the start of my journey down the Amazon. In town Freddy and I bumped into 2 port workers at a set of lights, following a quick discussion we followed them to the port. Negotiations were made with the captain, the bikes were loaded and departure was expected the following day at 3 pm. Sweet that was easy! Spoke too soon, 3 days of delays before we even left the port.

68 km from the port, 4118 to the Atlantic Ocean. All river from here!

Ports in Peru are literally just muddy banks that the boats run into at full chat.

I secretly had a mustache for about 2 weeks, luckily this is the only photo of me in that time!

Things to note in Yurimaguas – You will be mobbed by workers as you get near the port regardless of who you are, even the locals do. These “workers” will try ripping you off and will request money for “guiding” you to the boat, no such thing as a free lunch. The 3 day ride to Iquitos cost 100 s for a hammock space up top (BYO hammock) or 60 s down one level. A cabin costs quite a bit more. The captain will lie about departure dates, the boat leaves when it’s full! Note: in this entry, 3.2 soles equal a USD.

Waiting in the "port"... c'mon boat!

Regarding the bike. Yurimaguas to Iquitos cost 170 s. In retrospect I’m quite sure it could have been done for 100 s. No paperwork was done in Yurimaguas however I think the legitimate way would be to get police permission prior to loading them onto a boat. Our Captain couldn’t be bothered with that which was fine by us.

This was our majestic ride for the next week or so.

My bikes bedroom, not long and it was covered in produce.

In total we spent 6 days on the Gilmer IV, 3 of these it was moving (albeit at a meandering pace). We passed many tiny villages where hundreds of transactions were completed, bananas on, rice off... cow here, goat there... The days were spent reading, fishing and swinging in our hammocks. Each afternoon there was a thunderstorm and rain for 2 hours. The highlight of the day was when we heard the bells ring, feeding time! 6 am, 12 pm and 6 pm a loud bell would ring. Everyone drops what they are doing, grabs their bowls and makes the mad dash to join the queue at the kitchen. First in first served and the bigger your bowl, the more you get! Note: BYO bowl and cutlery for this first boat.

Finally leaving Yurimaguas, yeeeeah!

Nothing left to do but relax.

Trying to catch some din dins...

Afternoon rain clouds drifting in, tranquil,

Life jackets, I wasn't expecting to see those here!

All sorts of insects graced us with their presence, usually on your face in the middle of the night to.

A small village trading some goods, typical afternoon weather.

Arriving at another small village... every couple of hours.

Mayhem whenever we stopped, everyone rushing on board to sell food, drinks, pet monkeys. You name it.

The “food” if you can call it that was more like prison gruel, basically slop. Halfway along this first leg my bike became an integral part of the structure of potatoes and onions in the cargo hold, in Iquitos it would take many hours to get it free.

Unloading the bikes into the muddy, chaotic port in Iquitos has got to be one of the most stressful moments of my entire trip. 100’s if not thousands of helpers were trying to get their hands on our bikes, we really must just looks like balls of cash to these guys. Eventually we made it out of the port, after yet more chaos as we refused to pay the port ‘fee’. Finally we were free and it felt pretty stupid being in a city where all the roads lead back to the river. We found a hostel, most importantly it had beds and not hammocks! How many more days on the river?

Yummy breakfast...

Iquitos port, I hope I never see it again!

Every single bloody city in the world apparently has a fascinating market that is a must see. No, no they do not. Except Iquitos, it is by far the most interesting market I’ve seen in my life and I can quite confidently say will probably stay that way for a very long time. Crocodile skulls, monkey hands, tiger skin, 100 kg catfish, rare jungle drugs. It’s all here to be bought or looked at, seriously amazing even if it is horrible. Be warned though, it is raw and nothing is hidden.

View from the hostel, Iquitos has a lot to offer!

Forgot to take photos in the market, so here is some fish.

Saturday night we went out and saw “Explosions”, the famous local band and a few others from Lima. The dancing here was ridiculous, basically soft-core porn. That day we had also organised our next boat for Monday, taking us to the tri-border with Colombia and Brazil.

The wildlife sanctuaries around town have many amazing stories of saved animals.

Manatee. What the hell is it? 

Entering the docks Monday afternoon we were greeted with the by now usual chaotic mob of locals. But we were used to it by now and managed to load the bikes by ourselves, win! After covering the bikes with tarps they became invisible and we found ourselves some nice hammock spots up on top deck. Prices here were 70 s pp and 70 s per bike. Bargain.

No help required this time!

This fat little guy was probably the most annoying person on the boat. His favourite toy, a whistle.

Yeh close enough to a big one right, lets call it a day.

The first night aboard the Maria Fernanda was going smoothly until I was rudely awoken at 1:21 am by a flashlight in my face. They were checking tickets, f***ing hell aye. This somehow woke the inner Peruvian in my neighbour and he decided to move his hammock closer to me so we were now touching and began to play loud music via his phone... over the coming weeks I would learn that this is apparently normal behaviour in this part of the world. At 4:40 am his battery died and I managed to get an hour and twenty minutes sleep before the breakfast call. This boat was strange, we got breakfast in bed!

More delicious breakfasts... if you've got a weak stomach, maybe not for you.

Quaint villages all day long!

Sunrise over the Amazon. Every morning was beautiful.

Locals stranded on some drift wood... none stopped to help.

This village was the first to load cows onto our boat.

It took about an hour to get these ones on, they kept running away. Fun to watch.

The following day we had a customs check in Chimbote (halfway to the border) and one guy on the boat didn’t have his documents, cya mate. He was left behind. Another shitty night’s sleep before a 4:45 am arrival on Santa Rosa, the island before the border with Brazil.

Another morning on the boat, another village to dock at.

Unfortunately animal cruelty like the loading of this poor fella is not uncommon on this trip.

Afternoon beauty...

Many local families aboard these boats, basically no tourists.

Our fine accommodation once more.

It was quickly becoming a stinky mess down below.

Last night in Peru, tomorrow the Brazilian border!

One final stop before the last stint.

Good-morning. Across the river is Colombia and Brazil!

Santa Rosa. The "island" we're supposed to get off at.

Information for those wanting to DYI. Customs was done at 6:30 am however passports couldn’t be stamped until 8 am. By 9 we were fully done. From here the bikes had to be loaded into a dugout, anything bigger than what I’ve got would have been near on impossible. 5 guys plus Freddy and I, and still people got hurt lifting the bikes. Haggle for the dugout, they are hard bargainers.

Another view of Santa Rosa, it's a tiny patch of mud.

Dugout ride with our captain to get the paperwork completed at 630 am.

Alright now, one bike off. That was the easy part.

The biggest boat we could find to take us across, so how exactly are we going to do this?

Someone suggested "just ride it in". Freddy's expression answers that nicely.

Hot, sweaty, and a lot harder than it looks here!

We did it. Lets go to Brazil!

Arriving in Brazil we met an older Dutch man in the port who told us an interesting story, literally 5 minutes after meeting us. “I once had sex with a lady that had a penis, I didn’t really want to and it hurt but was glad about the experience.” Not sure exactly why he told us that rape story... Now I’m even less sure why I’m repeating it here... anyway welcome to Brazil!

Getting it in was difficult. Getting it out was insane.

“Brazilian civil police in Tabatinga are the biggest class-A shits in the solar system”. A forum member wrote this while I did my research for this border. And he was correct. Hours of waiting around in the police station to get the document we needed to board the next boat and they just tell us it’s too busy and to come back the following day. There was only one other lady in there besides us!

 We eventually managed to get the document we needed (just states that the bikes aren’t stolen and belong to us) and then headed for the port, next boat wasn’t scheduled until Saturday... 4 days from now. As a side note, Portuguese is definitely not similar to Spanish if you aren’t very good at Spanish. I am well out of my depth now. Also no TVIP (temporary vehicle import permit) required in Brazil, nada!

It was a relaxed morning as we had ages until the next boat leaves, around 10 am we decided to ride to the port and try organise our tickets in advance. As we approach we are told there is a boat leaving in 2 hours, what! In a mad state of panic we rushed to get cash out, check-out of the hotel and smash all of our belongings higgledy-piggledy onto the bikes. By 11:55 am we were loaded onto the boat and it actually left on time 5 minutes later. 150 s for me and another 250 for the bike, although hectic we were loving Brazil. This boat was like a luxury cruise in comparison to the Peruvian skiffs.

What's this? An actual port?

Brazil seems so organised... blissfully so.

Basically a cruise liner, life was good!

Every afternoon like clockwork, close the hatches!

Very happy to be here... everything was working great.

We spent 4 days on the Fenix II with horrendous sleep but beautiful days. The only major downside to this boat was that the chef had too much power. By that I mean breakfast was at 6, lunch at 9 and dinner by 3 pm. Ridiculous. Mad. Out of control. I got a fever and had a panic moment with flashbacks to Indonesia and dengue but I was feeling better a few days later. After this we had a day off in Manaus. We said our farewells and I hopped on a boat for the final stint to the Atlantic whilst Freddy rode North to Guyana.

Merging of the two main parts of the Amazon.

Arrival in Manaus, first big city in weeks!

They seriously love their soccer here, yep that's an entire deck on a ship dedicated to it.

Excited to be on dry land once more!

Next night I was loading back onto the next boat... getting to be enough now.

The view from my hammock/bed/living area for the next 5 days.

4 hammocks touching mine, sleep was basically impossible.

Sunsets were quite amazing again though.

Village children paddled out to meet us, sometimes people threw old clothes and candy to them.

Short cuts were frequent down side streams of the main river.

I made it, the end... Belem!

The Amazon Star was magnificent, it was clean and had a bar, there was music and the hammock room was air conditioned! Sounds like a recipe for an amazing time, instead it was 5 days of hell. Religious wailing at all hours of the night, my hammock neighbour made phone calls daily at 4 am and almost everyone on this boat acted like children. I was fuming. During the day I dozed up on deck since I couldn’t sleep at night however the boredom had definitely crept in, get me back on my bike!

No better feeling than the open road, re-kindled my love for travel.

Tarapoto - Iquitos - Leticia - Manaus - Belem... you can clearly see the Amazon the whole way.

My favourite night on the boat was the one where I was woken at 1 am by men running around the room yelling “Queso, Queso, Queso”. Cheese, Cheese, Cheese. F**k off I don’t want to buy cheese at this ungodly hour. Seriously though I was very glad to be off the boat after almost 4 weeks on the river and over 4000 km. All in all it was like most adventures, tough, frustrating and amazing all bundled into an amazing memory. Definitely worthwhile.