The cost
- Quoted luxury cabin price (for 2 people) from Hostel Manaus (double bed, tv & fridge in room): R$1000 (Brazilian Real) bartered down to $950
- Quoted normal cabin price (for 2 people) from Hostel Manaus (bunk bed): R$750
- Hammock space price from Hostel Manaus (for 1 person): R$270 (stated as R$300 on ticket, otherwise we would have had to pay the extra R$30 once on board)
- Price for hammock space direct from the boat, or bought once on board: R$300
- You need your own hammock, ours cost R$25 each, including the rope (don't forget rope!)
- The price included all meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) plus fresh, ice cold drinking water
- It is possible to sleep on the boat the night before departure for no extra cost
- Despite there being a loading jetty out to the boat, we had to get a small water taxi to the boat at a cost of R$5 each
The boat
- There are showers on board that are cold and are cleaned daily
- Toilet paper was supplied
- There is a shop/bar on the top deck that sells normal priced beer, sweets, hamburgers, toasties & toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste & sanitary towels
- The sides of the hammock decks are open to the elements, although there is a tarpaulin that can be pulled down to stop wind/rain, but it can still get a bit chilly so bring at least a sheet
- Security isn't really a problem as long as there is someone keeping an eye on things when docked
- It was possible to strap backpacks to the ceiling bars
- The boat is 3 decks, the bottom for cargo, middle for hammocks, cabins, kitchen, dining area & bathrooms, top for leisure area, more cabins, bar/shop and more toilets.
The trip
- We went from Manaus to Tabitinga
- The trip took 6 days & 5 nights leaving at 4.30pm and arriving at 11.00am
- Breakfast was at 6.30am with two sittings and consisted of bread with cheese & margarine and very sweet, milky coffee.
- Lunch was at 11.30am with 2 sittings and dinner was at 5.30pm, both always consisted of some kind of meat (varying between chicken, beef steaks, hunks of some kind of meat, dry mince and once we had pirahna), rice, beans & cold spaghetti
- Meals were served at a communal table in the dining room, where serving bowls of food were spread out down the table and you help yourself
- There was also another kitchen on the cargo deck where it is possible to take your own tupperware box/plate for the meal and then you can find a space somewhere on the boat to eat.
- Mosquitoes are not a problem while the boat is moving, but can be an issue when docked
Our journey
We awoke after our first night to a still fairly empty boat, which we found odd as we had heard that it can fill up quickly and get pretty tight for space. We arranged with Ian & Sinead to watch their stuff so they could get some more supplies from town and then when they returned we would head out. We had been told by someone the day before at the airport that the boat would be setting off at 6pm. Just to make sure we asked a member of the crew what time they we would be setting off and they told us 1pm, which caused a bit of a panic as we had to pick laundry up from Hostel Manaus at 12pm. We asked someone else to try and confirm it, and they told us 2pm. To try and save time I went up to CarreFour supermarket to get some extra supplies (flavour sachets, cookies, fruit & nutella) while Nikki guarded our belongings. When I got back I spent ages arguing with the security guards to let me walk back down the jetty to get back on the boat, but they said I needed a ticket, which I had left on board. Eventually I think they just gave up and they let me through. Sinead & Ian had returned, so Nikki & I went back into town to get our laundry and send e-mails letting people know we would be out of reach for 6 days. We got back on the boat just after midday to make sure we weren't left behind and the deck was now starting to fill up with hammocks. At 4pm we still hadn't set off and with the arrival of 2 German guys (Phillip & Stefan), an American (Rick) and another Englishman (Tom) who had set up next to us, we now had what we dubbed a "Gringo Corner". Elsewhere on the deck were 4 more English guys (Dom, Teddy, Hope & James) and a rather odd Belgian chap (we shall call him Mr. Strange). About half an hour later, we were eventually on our way.
Over the next 5 days we got to know some of our fellow gringos quite well and settled into a nice routine. We usually got beaten by Nikki at Uno in the morning, conversed about what we thought lunch/dinner could be (Burger King, lasagne, a nice Ceaser salad...), ate lunch/dinner (always some kind of meat with rice, beans & cold spaghetti), played Top 5... (- celebs you'd like to punch in the face, - historical figures you'd like to have lunch with, - injuries, - travel stories, etc.) and played a guessing game of when we thought we might arrive in Tabatinga. Occasionally our routine would be interrupted when we docked into a town, at which point Rick would go off to find women and occasionally Tom and I would get off to have a look around the town, but most of them were pretty similar, small dirt road places with run down shack-houses that had brand new plasma screen TVs in.
The scenery along the way was quite surprising, we had been expecting non-stop jungle, but were rewarded with quite varied landscapes. We would go from quite narrow points in the river, close to jungle and all of a sudden the river would widen out, with the opposite bank just a thin line on the horizon. A lot of small towns were dotted along the way, some had been built so they floated, rising as the river did, but some had been built on stilts and all that remained of them were rooftops poking out the top of the water. We also managed to glimpse some wildlife such as monkeys and lots of parrots. Relatively early on Tom & I think we spotted pink dolphins and from then on everyone was on dolphin watch. None were spotted until the second to last day when I was out on the top deck by myself and suddenly loads of them started jumping out of the water and there was no one around to confirm my sighting.
One evening we were all sat on the top deck of the boat watching the world go by as some of the crew members fired up a BBQ next to us. We got chatting to one of the guys called Raimundo and he showed us what they were planning to cook; a huge tray of various fish - we didn't know what they were but we managed to gather than none of them were pirhana. We had already eaten our meal earlier but Raimundo asked us, in a very conspiratorial manner, to dine at the Captain's table with him and the other staff. Due to the language difficulties we weren't sure if he was asking us to join him for definite so left it until at the last minute he waved at us to follow him downstairs. Nikki and I were each given some of each of the different fish to try followed by some unusual fruit that involved karate chopping to open.
We said our thanks and left them to the rest of their meal (which was a lot more varied than ours!) and headed back to play more Uno. The next night one of the crew who worked in the kitchen came running upstairs to find Nikki and I and made us follow him downstairs and into the dining room where he showed us a huge moth/butterfly that had landed in there. He picked it up for us to photograph it and handed it to us to take back upstairs to show the other gringos. Bemused we said our thanks again and left with a flapping, frantic bug in our hands. 
Over the trip we became friends with many of the children on board the boat. They would pull up a chair and watch as we played either cards or uno and smile until they got bored and disappeared off into the hammocks. Eventually they worked up the courage to ask to borrow our spare pack of cards so they could play their own games. One day there was a commotion near our hammocks and a bat, that we had seen flying around the deck durning the night, was kicked across the floor towards the edge of the boat. We all crowded around to take a closer look as it lay jerking on the floor. Apparently it had been roosting in the rafters over someones hammock and had woken them by emptying it's bowels over them. It was sharply removed by a flying flip-flop and then was about to enjoy a plunge into the Amazon but our curiosity had saved it. As we stood around debating what to do with the twitching creature it shuddered one last time and breathed it's final breath so Tom gracefully flung it over board.
During this a young girl who worked in the kitchen had come by and joined in the scene, later that evening she came upstairs and sat with us while she taught Nikki a magic trick. Later that night she and two other boys taught us how to play a card game, they taught us their names - Priscilla, Fagner and Delei and we taught them how to play Uno. Tom, who speaks Spanish, managed to translate the basic rules for them while they rolled about laughing, we eventually managed to find out that they found Tom's pronunciation of the Spanish word for "blue" hilarious. In European Spanish the "s" sound is lisped where as in Latin Spanish it isn't. Tom had pronounced "Azul" as "Athool" - the kids giggled and repeated the word over and over until it became Tom's new name and he was known as Athool for the rest of the trip.
We had some good fun along the trip, mostly attributed to the good people that were on board. We were sad, in a way, to get off the boat at the other end but we were deleriously happy to have proper beds and a choice of food in various restaurants! We said our goodbyes to Priscilla (Delei and Fagner had got off at other towns earlier that day) and the other staff and thanked them and said bye to the other four english guys while the rest of us (Sinead, Ian, Tom, Rick, Nikki and I and Mr. Strange who tagged along) headed off to Leticia to find a hostel and showers as the weather was incredibly humid and warm now we were in the heart of the Amazon.
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