Leticia / Tabatinga to Manaus

Wednesday: We were up early for our flight from Bogota to Leticia with AreoRepublica. The weather in Bogota was sunny but chilly and we weren't prepared for the wall of heat that met us when we stepped off the plane at Leticia...its absolutely sweltering here. After paying a tax to get it (!) we took a cab to the main square where we were accosted by several tour operators who had followed us from the airport on bike! One of the tour operators spoke good English and recommended a Residencia to us...it was very cheap, so we thought we should give it a go, the words you get what you pay for have never been more true!! Our home for the next two nights was a small orange box room, with damp and peeling walls. Nevertheless as we were only staying a few nights we thought it would do.

Leticia is a border town with Tabatinga, Brazil, and you can walk freely between them. Both towns are nestled within the Amazonian rainforest, with the heat, relaxed lifestyle and style of buildings they have a slightly Caribbean feel, reminding us a bit of Barbados. There are quite a few restaurants and shops around and a local market street in Tabatinga where we purchased some hammocks.

We had a really good meal in a local restaurant and a few beers before heading back to our shoebox room.

Thursday: When we went to bed the previous evening there was only David and Lynne, however when we woke up the next morning we found we had an extra guest...a friendly local cockroach! David, being the man of the house, was tasked with disposal of our guest!
We managed to ascertain from a local that there was in fact a fast boat service between Tabatinga and Manaus (31 hrs), which we could find no trace of on the internet. Luckily, we found a cabbie that knew about it and took us to the office...this was basically a house on a backstreet with a sign outside it, we were fairly skeptical to say the least. The boat left Friday AM which meant that we had to sort out our immigration that day before we could buy our tickets. We won't go into full details but needless to say it wasn't as easy a process as suggested by the Lonely Planet guide! There was a lot of too-ing and fro-ing, so in the end we managed to procure the same cabbie to take us to the Airport for our Colombian exit stamps, then take us to the Policia Federal for our Brazil Entrance stamps before we went back to the office to purchase our tickets. We also arranged for the driver to pick us up at 5 in the morning to take us to the Boat – although as most of our communication was in hand signals and the odd Spanish and Portuguese word how we did this is anyone's guess, but he did understand us and turned up bang on time!

When we were finally sorted, we went to Parque Santander to see the Parrots taking to the trees for the evening, there are thousands of them squawking at the same time, its unbelievably noisy!
It was fairly exhausting day, with lots of walking in the baking heat and we collapsed with a few beers and some food in the evening before we tentatively made our way back to our room, fingers crossed that there were no more cockroaches waiting for us!

Friday: We arrive at the boat in a typical British manner, on time, first there. The boat is fairly small, 2 seats either side of a central aisle. We pick our seats and try and dump our backpacks on the back seats as it appeared the boat would not be full when it departed (~ 30 in 50 seats). However, soon enough one of the crew dumped our bags next to us motioning they were to stay here....this annoyed us, partially because we had no room and that we couldn't communicate as they do not speak any English. Within a few minutes it's obvious why the bags are left out as we are boarded by 6 armed Brazilian Federal Policia officers who perform a thorough search of everyone's passports, tickets & luggage!! A massive hassle for everyone on board which delayed us ~50minutes. We eventually set off with the bags stowed under the deck, so at last we are comfy and on route. The scenery is fascinating, the boat fast and the food decent! The ride gets more interesting after lunch. Approximately 3pm we were stopped in the middle of the river once more by Federal officers who boarded us and performed another search....they had all the bags brought up from below deck and one by one most of the passengers had their belongings thoroughly searched; Lynne & I being the only westerners on board were of course included. After they departed and all on board had seen all our underwear and other belongings we felt as if we'd started to form a bond everyone. The beers came out at 5pm and it wasn't long before we were chatting to some Colombians who didn't speak much English but somehow we were able to communicate through our rough Spanish and hand gestures. This conversation turned into a Spanish lesson, with more and more of the passengers joining in. After dinner, the sun started to set and we were treated to some stunning views over the forest and river. At night time the place seems altogether different, it is pitch black and the crew use a large spotlight to sight the riverbeds on either side to ensure we don;t run aground...an impressive feat at the speed the boat travels. The sky was incredibly clear and all the stars could be seen, and more impressively when the spot light shone on the water, the sparkling Crocodiles eyes formed their own constellations on the water. The journey took a new twist when we suddenly pulled into a small port at 11pm. There were hundreds of people gathered there and we wondered what was going on; soon enough an elderly gentleman was carried on board upon a mattress and was to be taken to Manaus Hospital. He was placed in the aisle of the boat and for the remainder of the journey everyone had to step over him to access the toilets/bar/outside.

Saturday: We were awoken by an early breakfast and again beautiful views of the amazon at sunrise. It wasn't long before we again chatting to the locals, this time to a bunch of Brazilians & the crew. There was one English speaker (kind of) but we managed to communicate and had a great laugh. Once Lynne has gone back to her seat, I was shown the local Amazonian liquor – a well known aphrodisiac and medicine in the area. They suggested I should try it in Manaus, but from the look of it (mud) I might give it a miss! I was disturbed to learn that it was half empty due to the captain's liking of it, this explained his typical Brazilian charm with the ladies everyone on board had witnessed!