November 4, 2006
Day 402
Our boat.
The entire day was spent going down the Amazon today in one of the many slow boats that go up and down the river. I spent most of my time in a hammock watching the jungle go by. At this point, the river is at least a mile wide and moves with very little current. It will only get bigger as tributaries continue joining with the main river.
The Amazon is much more populated than the tributaries I went down in Bolivia. It seems like there are constantly a few houses in view. Most of them have thatched roofs and are on stilts to prevent flooding. Almost none of the houses have electricity. However, everyone seems to have a canoe.
Unloading the boat in a bigger port.
We stopped frequently at small towns and one bigger city called Pevas to load and unload cargo. At times it seemed like we were just constantly crossing the river. Every few hours there were a few new faces amongst the hammocks on the boat.
It was a very hot day, probably over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but we did get some relief from a rainstorm late in the afternoon. The heat was so intense for most of the day that all we could do was lay in our hammocks, read, sleep, and play a few games of chess. This is definitely not the type of trip you can comfortably do on a short holiday. Charlie is only in South America for a month, and he's been running around the boat wondering when we'll get there all day.
The photo album for this entry is here.
