Our Journal

2 September    

Downriver to Santarem and Alto do Chao

Departure day arrived so we drove out on to the dock and found the boat without its captain, just a lot of deck hands.  The captain apparently had had a heavy night of drinking and had been taken away in handcuffs.  They tried to start lifting the bike on deck without measuring clearance, which was clearly too small.  It took Matt jumping in front of them waving his hands and screaming to get them to stop their nonsense.  Seeing we were about to give up and look for another boat, they told us to go down river to an easier dock where the boat would meet us.  We drove over only to find ourselves back at the stairs we hadn’t wanted to risk in the first place.  As soon as we pulled up guys surrounded the bikes touching everything, wanting to get contracted to lift.  After some makeshift negotiations, six guys lifted the bikes one at a time down the stairs, over the plank, and parked them right next to the boat - an incredible labor of muscle and screaming.  We couldn’t put the bikes on the boat yet so we left them on the dock.  The lifters surrounded us demanding an outrageous sum of money.  We ended up settling closer to their number than ours and they left after handshakes and smiles. 

On board everyone was quickly staking out spots for hammocks.  We got set up and waited around for a couple of hours until it was time to put the bikes on board.  The next thing I knew Matt was walking down one plank while pushing the bike over another, one fault of balance and the bike would have been in the water.  I hesitated, thinking maybe Matt would take care of mine as well but everyone was calling for me to do the same.  The whole boat and dock where watching so nothing to do but step up and walk the plank, not that I wanted to.  The plank was set straight out until the weight of the bike pushed it into an incline down to the boat.  When the plank shifted I stutter stepped and heard a communal gasp.  We landed safely and there was a quick applause.  We had misunderstood (or had been misled) and thought that the bikes where going on deck with us, but the real plan was to put them in the hull.  The chef on board had done this five times before and was the head of the operation yelling at us and everyone else.  A kind of pulley system was set up with the giant ropes used to tie the boat, and with grunts and yells the bikes made it down safely.  We wandered over to a deserted part of the deck to collect ourselves and wondered what was coming next.

The boat didn’t look like it was leaving anytime soon so I wandered up the dock stairs and found a sandwich stand.  There was no change so the woman running the kiosk sent an old man walking on one crutch to change my big bill.  Moments later our boat sounded its horn and I saw Matt below running up the dock screaming for me.  I frantically tried to get the cook to throw whatever she had into a bag.  She just laughed flirtatiously and continued cooking.  A guy in a neighboring booth asked what boat I was on and told me to calm down.  “That boat isn’t leaving anytime soon.  The captain is still in the bar across the street.”  Silly me, I mean how could a boat leave without its captain?  I sat nervously watching eggs being fried.  The sandwiches did look good.  The boat horn sounded a second time, Matt screamed like a banshee, and the plank was being moved away.  Everyone around me was still saying the boat wasn’t leaving, and even if it did I could take a little boat out to the big boat.  What was I doing listening to these illogical people, people who didn’t seem to understand that time moves in a continuum?  Peg-leg with my change was nowhere in sight so I wrote him off as a thief, dashed for the boat, jumped on the side and crawled in.  I explained to a woman next to us what had happened and she immediately asked someone on the dock to go and get my change.  The boat was floating a few feet from the dock and we could only laugh at our seven dollar sandwiches.  The boat floated further away.  Then, no lie, the woman on the dock showed up with the change in hand, but she was too far away to throw it.  By now a few others were following what was going on and started screaming for her to swim.  I yelled for her to enjoy her dinner tonight.  A small motorboat appeared speeding around the dock and someone yelled for him to get the change.  He whipped around, picked up the change, and rushed it out to the boat (see photo).  The money had changed hands six times, any one of which could have pocketed what was a couple of days’ wages to most.  Why do I feel like these people are more in touch with the moment, that I am always observing through a filter, lagging a little behind?

We had bought passage on the lower deck since we thought the bikes would be there.  There were two other levels, one with air conditioning and another with private cabins.  Our level was a mass of hammocks staggered together.  A cute little toy that a lot of mothers had given their kids was a play cell phone that makes several different rings.  At one point there were three little guys under my hammock having a ringing competition.  I contemplated asking a mother how much the noisemaker costs, snatching it out of the little ones hands, throwing in the Amazon, and handing the money over to mom.  The two days were spent in sleep deprivation.  A kid wailed through part of one night.  I remember staring up at the ceiling in a daze listening to this kid’s cries of agony when all of a sudden Matt’s face appeared crying out mimicking the boy before he escaped to the upper deck to breeze and silence.  The repetition of scenery, brown water, blue sky, green strip of rainforest on the horizon broken up by the occasional rancher’s house or small pueblo.  Everyone around us had plenty of experience with boat travel.  Most just laid around in their hammocks, others whiled away the hours staring at the river.  Not much else to do.  We started a game of dominoes but were soon sent to the domino Schule by a guy who would put down a domino two and three plays ahead of time and then play that same domino.  He seemed to already know what I was going to play so I gave up and retreated to watching from my hammock.  Matt stayed in for a few rounds trying to purposely play the domino that didn’t make any sense trying to throw him off, but the guy just shook his head looking at Matt strangely, knowing what was going on.  We pulled into a couple of ports along the way and the boat jolted into activity with vendors swarming.

I was in a dream state by the time we reached Santarem in the wee hours.  We had a long wait watching the sun rise and fishermen set out before the bikes could be hoisted out.  Getting them out was less stressful.  We mounted the boxes, started the bikes and mine immediately stalled on the dock as I went to turn it around.  Too tired to be embarrassed by all the eyes watching, I played with the battery wires trying to figure out what was wrong.  A fuse had blown so we replaced it, but still no ignition.  We scraped off corrosion, rewired connections, but after an hour were still at the same place, stuck.  A local Tenere owner we had talked to before saw our dilemma and went to bring his mechanic.  Fearing a visit to a small town mechanic I didn’t pay him much mind when he showed up.  My bike has a system where putting it into first gear with the kick stand down cuts off the engine.  This had been disconnected by the previous owner.  The mechanic walked over, connected two wires I hadn’t seen, and the bike started right up.  Then I was embarrassed.  We followed him to his shop where he rewired, soddered and taped everything back up.  He wouldn’t take pay.  We collapsed at a hotel and slept until afternoon.

Late afternoon we heard drumming.  Santarem was too big to walk so we got on the bikes and drove around.  The drumming was coming from a school so we parked at an outside café and had pitchers of fresh orange juice and listened.  Dark came so we started the bikes to head back, but when I went to pull out to the right my bike died again.  The fuse had blown again, same problem unsolved.  I had left the extra fuse back at the hotel so Matt went back to get it.  30 minutes later he returns with two car loads of guys who put a fuse in and told me to follow them back to their shop.  On the way to the hotel Matt had seen some guys drinking beers at a shop where two big bikes were parked.  Pulling into the shop I turned sharp to the right and the bike died again.  The owner immediately diagnosed the problem without even looking, pointed to a wire that had worn away and was shorting out when I turned sharply to the right, probably worn worse by all the lifting on and off the boat, or when I had new lights installed in Caracas the electrician hadn’t taken into account the wire being pulled around.  They wouldn’t take pay so we bought some beers across the street stayed for a while laughing at our Portuguese.  Two were Japanese descent, one actually born in Japan.  We saw they were calling their wives promising to be home momentarily so we said goodbyes and moved on.

We quickly learned that drivers are nuts here, whizzing dangerously close, forcing their way between cars and motorcycles.  The moto-taxi was everywhere, you just hop on the back and put on the driver’s extra helmet.  On the way back we passed by the river and found a spot where families and young people were strolling around.  We stopped at a buffet where you pay by the kilo and spent a couple of hours watching the procession.  We heard about a forro festival (music typical of this region) and went back to the hotel to change and go out.  About that time we realized we didn’t have any more Brazilian money so we tried to change at the hotel, no luck.  So, we ended up with the cheaper option of sitting on a street corner near the hotel on the Liberty Plaza where a statue of a slave having just broken his chains looked down on us.  Meanwhile we tried hard to avoid the gazes of the prostitutes mulling about.  The next day was full of its frustrations.  My bike started and then died again.  Matt took off to look for a money exchange place while I changed the spark plugs.  They were filthy meaning the mechanic in Manaus lied and hadn’t changed them.  The bike started back up and Matt returned without money, beat by the heat.  We ate at the hotel and went out in the evening to look for a bank machine.  Near the center we finally got money out of a machine in front of an Evangelical gathering at a high school.  It sounded like a rock concert.  We left the bikes at the hotel and cabbed to the river again where there was supposed to be live music of the non-Evangelical kind.  It turned out to be a political rally with a candidate named Maria screaming with microphone at full volume, fireworks punctuating her tirade every few minutes.  We weaved through the masses until we found our same spot on the river away from the mob.  Santarem is a town of about 200 thousand and it felt like everyone was out walking the riverwalk.  Later, cabbing back to the hotel we got another lesson in maniacal driving.  I’ve been driving in Barranquilla for the last three years, Matt in Caracas, and we haven’t seen anything like this.  No surprise to see in the paper that traffic accidents are on the rise in Santarem.

Next morning, we packed the bikes and drove a nice road out to Alto do Chao 30 km away.  The road led straight into a pueblo and ended right in front of a view of the river.  We slowed and coasted the bikes to a halt under the shade of a tree and looked out at a white sand peninsula.  Moby’s “Porcelain” seemed to play as I exhaled.  We had obviously done something right.  A quiet beach town isolated by days of travel in either direction.  You can swim or cross by boat to the “island” and there are shack bars and restaurants along the beach.  The mob of tourists we saw on Sunday when we arrived disappeared and there hasn’t been anyone but locals caught up in preparations for a giant festival next week.  National Geographic supposedly is arriving to document the festival.  We’ve spent a couple of evenings watching the sun set on one horizon, then turning around and watching the moon rise an hour later on the other horizon.  A group of hippies sat in front of us howling at the moon and buzzing the Pink Panther on some homemade kazoo sounding instrument.  We tried to join in blowing on bottles which got them all laughing.  Later they all went to pay and got in a big fight with each other pushing and screaming because one supposedly stole some of their jewelry selling money.  Peace guys.  Last night we sat on the island watching the moon rise with a panorama of lighting in the distance.  We’re slowly shifting into local pace, busy mornings and evenings and resting during the heat of the day.  Matt went to get his haircut and found no barber shop but a woman sewing in her house who also cuts hair.  No door bells here, just clap you hands a few times and yell hello and they come to the door.  He asked for a buzz cut and then tried to pay but she told him that that was no hair cut and wouldn’t take money.  In the mornings the elementary kids practice marching with drums though the town and the high school does the same in the evening.  I’ve never seen a pueblo so full of activity, everyone in preparation.  One plaza has giant heads and figures that will be in a parade, others are building palm huts to sell things out of.  We have a week to explore the area before the mobs descend. 

um abracao, Chris

contact us:  chris@isabm.com   matt@isabm.com