We booked passage to Santarem for the Brazilian equivalent of $20 U.S., this included meals, and was to take two days and nights. I used my nickname of many years, Jacaré, throughout the trip. in their language it means crocodile. I was soon greeted everywhere with a rousing Jacaré!, We changed dollars into Brazilian reals, this place is so remote that dollars have no value.
We soon found that we had to go to the market and each purchase a hammock, called in Portuguese a rede, pronounced hedgy. This rede would serve as our bed for most of our trip. Redes were strung in two rows on two decks, about a hundred to a deck. We were as neatly lined up as King Oscar sardines in a tin. The decks were open to the views and wonderful smells of the river. The views included plowing through the meeting of the black waters of the Rio Negro and the chocolate waters of the Solimoes, where they take miles to reluctantly mix. It is at this point, that this 4.000-mile-long river takes on the name Amazon. We saw a herd of water buffalo wallowing at rivers edge. Pink, fresh water dolphins called botas, surfaced for air near our ships. The passengers on one boat were a herd of goats.
The bar opened and we begin downing Skol Beer at 30 cents a can. Before long, we were surrounded by locals eager to help us learn to speak Portuguese. Here we met Cida . She became an informal and friendly guide, seeing to it that we obtained the lowest prices for meals, cabs, and other miscellanea. Jim used her as a teacher of Portuguese. Jim worked hard at learning and in a couple of days, was chatting up a storm with every beauty on the boat, and there were many.
Dinner aboard the ship was a heaping plate of rice, spaghetti, beans, farina and a chunk of meat. After the meal everyone settled into their redes. At one point we hit something big, probably a floating tree, there were many in the river. Our ship came to a sudden, shuddering stop and all the lights went out A couple of minutes later everything returned to normal and we were once more under way. Then sometime in the black of night we were slammed by a major storm. Hundreds of hammocks began a wild ballet, then as though in anger, began pounding against each other in dissonance. The temperature dropped to shivering. Waves were sweeping over our second-story deck. Passengers were putting belongings into their hammocks for protection from the muddy Amazon waters. It was as though we were in a pot when popcorn was popping like crazy. Sleep was impossible. This went on for a couple of hours. I noted with interest that no one showed any sign of anger when slammed by another person, the reaction was always a smile. During the entire trip I never saw a cross look, no cross word was spoken, tell a street vendor "no" and he leaves with a smile. These people of the Amazon have sunshine for souls. One poor mother was holding a boy-child about the length of a three-year-old. He was skeleton-thin, had no muscular control and his young mother was kissing him repeatedly. Amazingly she smiled cheerfully at everyone that passed. That was a heartbreaker.
I wasn't anticipating waves joining me on the second deck, so all my belongings were doused. I had enclosed my laptop in a ziploc bag, but water had somehow made its way through, as evidenced by fog inside the ziploc. I timidly took it out to dry and try. To my delight it functioned well.
Breakfast was coffee with hot milk, crackers and butter, a long table full of happy banter, and frowzy hair-does. One combination toilet and shower cabin for men and one for women served up to a hundred people per deck.
About midday we approached Faro Island at the mouth of the Trombeta River. This had the three of us pretty excited because it was the location where Don Francisco de Orellana and his rag-tag army were, according to the diary of Fray Gaspar de Carvajal, attacked by an army of strong, white women. naked except for spears, and bows and arrows. They recalled to Orellana's memory the Amazons of Scythia. Don Francisco made it back to Spain where he had to explain why he had mutinied from the ranks of Gonzalo Pizarro. His tale of nude, white women over road the serious crime of taking off with half his general's army. He was the first European of record to explore the Amazon. And while it's not a certainty, it is quite likely that the mighty Amazon's name can be traced back to Orrellana and the Amazons of Scythia.
Okay, back to the present.
Jim is without peer as an icebreaker. He has them laughing in minutes and leaves them laughing. He is a non-stop 24-hour a day entertainment center. It's like being on stage with Robin Williams in concert. His material is fresh and current, born of a supercharged mind. We are never alone when Jim is near.
I always kid the boys by stating that all I have to do is stand in one place and they come to me. Didn't this just happen on our flight? Morning arrived, the sun broke through the clouds, I was watching the passing jungle when I heard a very, very feminine "Bom Dia." There, standing at the railing beside me was a lovely young lady, we began chatting, she was so interesting and so attractive, and I was getting a splendid Portuguese lesson. Then I noticed Bill and Jim hovering. Reluctantly, I introduced them to Mona. Subsequent four-way conversation brought out the fact, that while Mona spoke flawless Portuguese, she had been living in Santarem, Brazil for four months, she was multilingual and from Belgium. She was the only foreigner we met on the entire trip. She conversed with Bill in French, with Jim in Dutch, and with me in English. She said she made a living as a juggler, and by making jewelry. Mona was 22. That night she joined us at the bar. She was obviously on something, her eyes were glassy and her voice hesitant. She was depressed. She then offered to be an intimate travel companion to whichever of us would accept her. It was pretty sad.
Ashore, in Santarem, we enjoyed the luxury of ice cold, freshly juiced, unfamiliar tropical fruit. Prices for everything were geared to the salary of locals, this averaged about $50 a month. No tipping, the backwaters of the Amazon has yet to be afflicted with this social virus.
Jim had read there was a great museum in Santarem. The three of us and Cida hopped a cab and went to the museum, It was small and had a few dramatic pieces. We asked the cab driver about the museum of native art, he brightened up and said it was at Alter do Chao, about a half hour drive out of town. Okay. When we got to the museum it turned out to be a tourist shop with souvenirs. But then we were greeted with a scene of extraordinary beauty- a miles-long sand island with a half dozen, small thatch-roofed restaurants, about 50 pirouges for hire to row passengers to the island and one stark, tall, conical mountain at the far end. The driver recommended Dulce's restaurant. We ordered two fish (tucanare, looks like a small mouth bass with a big fake eye at the base of its tail, a member of the cichlid family) because they were large we ordered only two. A bit of a language barrier popped up,. Dulce prepared two fish for each of us for a total of ten. Our plates arrived heaping with rice, cold spaghetti, beans and farina. It was an appalling sight. Jim, Bill, and I made our way through about a half a fish each and very little of the staples. We were amazed by the amount the cab driver, cab drivers always join you at a table and expect to be fed and watered, and Cida consumed, they downed every bit. Jim couldn't take it, he went for a swim. Total cost including cokes and beer, around $10.
Pretty sad, my camera had run dry of film and I didn't get one photo of that spectacular beach.
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