Cruisn´on the Rio Amazonas

Rio Amazonas sunset

Night time is party time on the roof of the boat

the good ship being loaded by hand (about an hour before the captain walked off)

Rio Amazonas sunrise

our stateroom day one

by day three....

feeding time at the zoo.. 10 at a time - 150 people total

Is it fate or not that we find ourselves booking a boat trip on the Rio Amazonas (Amazon River) almost 16 years to the day from when Lori and I (along with the Alexis Creek Gang) exchanged vows in the Niut Mountains. I seem to recall some mention of a honeymoon consisting of a cruise on the Amazon River in a newspaper article that was contained in the Williams Lake Tribune. Better late than never so here it is: Honeymoon cruise on the Rio Amazonas!
July 29th finds us in the sketchy river town of Port Velho, Brasil purchasing a ticket for a three day (2 night) ride down the Rio Madeira to the Rio Amazonas and then up the mighty Amazonas to the even “sketchier” city of Manaus. One has to start wondering what sort of honeymoon cruise we are in for when the entire cruise (including transporting the motos comes to 540 Reais (app. 270 dollars)!
Monday: July 30th
Our first honeymoon task is: Load the motos on the Dois Irmaos (2 brothers) (our honeymoon scow herewith referred to as the 2 Hemorrhoids) When we purchased our tickets we had the opportunity to check out the scow and noticed a near vertical 100 meter clay bank with partial wooden stairs leading down the river bank to a plank then one boat and another plant to our scow. The ticket agent insisted that a crew was required to carry the bike to our scow but I took one look and said no problem riding down. In the end Lori agreed to pay for the 650 to be carried down while I tried to ride the 250 down. So at 9 o clock the river banks were covered in a crowd of well wishers, wishing to see a 25o arrow into the side of a boat at the base of the clay cliff. By the time I rode the 65o down and across the planking onto our scow the crowd was roaring its approval…so much for my 30 seconds of fame!!! Chris continued to get back slaps every time he walked by the ship loaders for the next two days we spent in port.
We were then escorted to our berths…two hammocks on the second deck! I noticed that several families had already staked out their territory but seeing as that we are supposed to be leaving at noon there seemed to be lots of room for us and our mountain of junk…no problem.
So 12pm, our time of departure comes and goes…the boat is slowing filling up….now its dark…We now realize that the Brasil River Boats do have something in common with Indian and Nepalese buses…they are NEVER too full!
Tuesday: July 31st
A pretty rough night sleep. First of all have you ever tried to sleep in a hammock when your butt lies about 3 feet lower than your feet and head…doesn’t work for me!(although Lori sleeps just fine) Secondly the old battle axe that is sleeping next to me (hammocks are now slung about 2 feet apart) snores like a boar pig in heat but that isn’t the worst of it. What really pisses me off is that she can let rip with farts that are twice as deadly as mine! Finally a meal…its some java and two biscuits for breakfast! Its 5pm and the 2 Hemorrhoids appears to be fully loaded as we pull out of port and into the Rio (a day later than scheduled)…but not for long as just as we leave the Brasil coast guard boat (that has been tied up on shore right in front of us for the last two days) stops us minutes after leaving “port” (mud bank) After a one hour search we are ready to proceed downstream – apparently the motorcycles were supposed to be stored down in the hold, but with all the sacks of potatoes, wooden boxes of garlic, mountains of green bananas and watermelons literally stacked from floor to ceiling around the motos, no one was ever going to see them…Hallelujah!!!
Wednesday: August 1st
A great sleep…on the floor of the boat with all the scavenging varmints…much to the humor of all the locals and Lori who are swinging away, bumping butts in their hammocks. Its still dark as we pull up to the river bank in some small town and you guessed it…took on more passengers and hand hauled freight! (now the hammocks are strung less than 2 feet apart and you and your neighbour are very cozy)
Time to leave…well maybe not as the 2 Hemorrhoids and the river bottom seem to have become one! After much revving of motors, reversing and swinging back and forth and using a second boat the river bottoms decided to let the 2 Hemorrhoids be on its way!
The sun is shining, beer flowing and lunch digesting…all is well….until El Capitan runs the 3 Hemorrhoids into a sand bank in the very middle of the Amazon. Some eight hours later with the help of three boats we are once again free and enjoying our honeymoon cruise.
Now that we are temporarily free and moving its time to talk about food. With about 150 people on board and room to feed 10 people at a time things get very interesting at the feeding trough! The head waitress is a little Hitler (but with a lot nicer butt (along with tattoos and piercings everywhere)…none of the guys could figure how she (and her helpers) could ever bend over and not show everything with the incredibly short tight skirts they were wearing! So the food is dropped on the table and ten people go for it (literally…these Brasilian folks are extremely laid back about almost everything except their food!)…good Canadian manners will leave you with a plate of NOTHING! Not only that but you are expected to eat your meal in one minute flat because the next group of ten is waiting in queue for you to leave your spot! Instead of handing out spoons we would have been better served with shovels!
Standing in queue took up about 2 hrs every afternoon and evening-this was a major activity on our cruise-no trap shooting, or swimming pools on this boat.. (except we got smart and stayed on the top deck drinking beer, playing with kids and talking with the locals until the end of meal time)
Thursday: August 2nd
Progress is slow, slow slow but all is well as there still is some beer left and the great Brasilian tunes pound out all day at about 110 decibels! These folks are so friendly and love to have a good time! We all have lost any faith that we had in our captain as the 3 Hemorrhoids seems to spend more time stuck to the bottom than cruising down the river…I swear that a flock of vultures are following us down the river just waiting for our scow to become a permanent part of the river bottom! At one point we lost all power as it seems that the propeller caught a few miles of the boats wiring and chewed it up. The captain kept yelling at some poor crew guy to keep going down to the prop (he had a hose in his mouth and a compressor pumping air into the hose so he could breath…the water is as thick as mud…and finally after his third or fourth attempt we have power!) to be continued... For now El Capitan is managing to keep the boat in deep water and it is nice and relaxing to watch the beautiful Amazon jungle sweep by. We find it surprising that we observe so little wildlife (including birds) but the sunrise and sunsets are gorgeous!

Friday: August 3rd
No problems last night and after the queue for our standard breakfast of coffee and a bun is finished we retire to the roof to meet our Brasilian friends. Today we leave the Rio Madeira and pass into the famous Rio Amazonas (Amazon). The Amazon is running high and the huge expanse of mud brown water (that extends well into the tropical jungle) is covered with islands of bright green plants floating their way out into the Atlantic. Now we are moving slowly as we head upstream to the rough river port of Manaus. Because the river floods huge patches of shoreline there is surprisingly little development along the river banks and the scenery is even better than what the Rio Madeira offered.
A thankfully uneventful day and as darkness settles in we are nearing our destination.
A great sleep is interrupted by….people screaming, kids crying and the sounds of our scow hitting trees. The El Capitan must have been asleep at the wheel as we have run into an island! (with the lights of Manaus in sight!) After everyone gets settled down there is no hope for any sleep for the remainder of the night. Morning light reveals we indeed have put a dent in some Amazonas vegetation but lie immediately adjacent the famous floating docks of Manaus.
We will not bore you with the details of unloading the boats and getting our bikes off BUT the saga is not finished! Although none of the occupants of the boat complained while on board I guess the port officials received an “ear full” and visited the boat to talk to El Capitan and check the boat/captain papers. Guess what…our boat was being piloted by the boat owner and the crew that loads and unloads the boat! The real Captain stepped off the boat an hour or so after it left port! Will the real Captain please step forward? The owner got a car ride downtown to the police station!!!

Brasil

swamp riding

at the equator (someone forgot Gretzky´s hockey stick)

one of the larger Amazonas turtles

Amazon rainforest - this about says it all

Fellow biker Felix rides from Austria thru Africe over to SA and finally is stopped in a parking lot in Brasil

Foz de Igauzu from the Brasilian side

One of hundreds of bridges we crossed on our dirt excursions through the Pantanal

The most common resident of Brasil`s fantastic Pantanal is the Caiman

We found at least one tree that the cattle ranchers forgot to cut down!

A very docile Giant Anteater!

Gruta do Lago Azul...a really neat lake in the middle of a huge cave near the beautiful town of Bonito, Brasil

Grand or Toco Toucan. It still seems strange to see these gorgeous birds flying around in the wild!

Iguazu Falls (the Devils Throat) from the Brasil side

You don´t want to fall over on this road! Actually our smiles kind of faded when the road turned to red mud a few km´s later!

Blue fronted parrot...strangely enough beautiful parrots are one of the more common birds in S America and can be found in the largest cities, deserts and of course jungles.

This used to be jungle. Riding through Brasil (and many other S American countries) has made us really dislike what man has done to the environment in order to raise cattle! For literally thousands of km´s the jungle has been cut and burned to support a few cows!

July 15th, 2007 and time to enter Brasil and start the long road North! S America border crossings are a pleasure and our first taste of Brasil is with a very friendly border crossing official who had to spend over two hours trying to get our temporary import permit on the computer.

After spending some time on the Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls it is time to check out the Brasil side and unlike some folks who said the Brasil side was not worth while viewing, we had a great time. The gorgeous blue sky weather and rainbows around the Falls along with a fantastic hostel (camping because Brasil is really expensive!) sure helped out. We also had time to check out a fantastic bird aviary...definitely the nicest one that I have ever visited and had a fantastic collection of Brasil´s rare and endangered birds.

One thing sure became apparent very quickly...Brasil is one large country and a 30 day visa is not going to allow a lot of time to explore! Not only that but it is expensive to ride as fuel is running about 1.60 a litre and is total crap fuel...needless to say the Hondogs are NOT happy running on Brasil crude! (Every fuel station has alcohol for vehicles for sale and it is cheap...but it would be interesting to compare the environmental costs as huge areas of jungle have been cut to produce corn and sugar cane which is then rendered into alcohol for cars (no doubt subsidized by the government).

July 19, 2007 Our first stop is the beautiful town of Bonito on the famous Pantanal swamps some 3 days riding north of Foz de Iguazu (where we visited the falls). After checking our some interesting caves we hit some dirt roads in and around the southern Pantanal...by far the most wildlife we have seen in our travels this trip and in one hour we saw a Giant Anteater, 2 Mangay cats (rare!!), Cabyberras (largest rodents in the world and can hide in swamps underwater for very long periods of time...believe me!), caimans (American crocodiles). Our bush camp was awesome as I have never seen so many species of birds in my life and a walk around the pond next to our tent revealed 3 crocs!!! However the next day was another story as our road of a hundred bad bridges turned into a silt bed...literally axle deep silt with ruts that sent Lori to the ground several times. After struggling for 6 hrs to cover 100 km´s (and seeing lots more wildlife including a pair of Tyra´s) it was a pleasure to hit blacktop. Now we have 1000 kms to cover to our next stop at the north end of the Pantanal and all we can say..."Wheres the Jungle?" One long boring ride of three days through corn, sugarcane and cattle fields...every once in a while a small block of the original forest remains intact and they are beautiful! A local rancher stopped and invited us to his place to see how he lives and we had a wonderful lunch with him and the ranch hands before hitting the blacktop again!

Now its "road trip" time as we try and pack on the km's! Travelling this main road north is pretty easy as the traffic is light, and the truck stops serve up good grub (usually a smorg (all you can eat) or pay by the kg!) Not a lot to mention in terms of scenery except the long downhill decent into the large city of Cuiba that crosses through impressive jungle scenery. Out of money and needing some MC parts we ventured into the city...3 separate and serious looking MC accidents had us looking for a quick exit and by mid morning we were on the side road to the small town of Pocone where Lori took a break and I headed out on a quick trip down the Trans Pantanal, a famous dirt road that bisects most of the famous Pantanal swamp. An fantastic ride and the "croc hole" was great...picture well over 200 Caiman in a patch of water about 200 by 400 metres and laying up to three deep in places. Way too many birds to even mention and some Capybara with young hi-light the afternoon ride.

A massive thunder and lightning storm overnight was spectacular but the nice dirt road I travelled over yesterday has turned into a quagmire that kicked our butts! No Trans-Pantanal today and when we were stopped by the police they took one look, laughed and said "Pantanal..No" ha..ha and let us go.

Now we are really on a long road trip as our destination, the rough port city of Porto Velho lies about 1200 km to the north. Pleasant riding but I would guess that less than 100 km of the ride has any jungle left on it...sad but true. However those small patches of jungle that remain are a revelation...beauty beyond description and covered with macaws and parrots. I am sure that most everyone has seen Scarlet Macaws in zoos etc. but to see them flying around in the wild is truly a wonderful sight! They are beautiful in flight and at one bush camp night in the jungle (complete with a fire and no bugs!) we were treated to flocks of scarlet and yellow & blue macaws as well as parrots flying over us constantly. It seems strange but the beautiful and colorful parrots are one of the most common birds in S America...they are extremely adaptable living in large cities to remote jungle areas and are all very colorful and definitely have " an attitude" making them our favorite bird!

We arrived in Porto Velho on July 28th (and the Hondog 650 celebrated its 50,000 km birthday!) and did some exploring around town. The most famous site in this relatively large city is the old train station...it was estimated that almost 20,000 slaves died in the construction of the rail line across the Amazon (to Porto Velho which was a rubber producing city at the time). All that remains of the rail system is the station with its old trains etc.. and it is really interesting if not run down!

You may have read the Amazonas boat ride so we now move to the tough river (Rio Amazonas) port of Manaus where we landed on August 3rd and hooked up with Felix. Felix is an Austrian biker heading on a round the world trip (15 months) and had just ridden through Europe and Africa and landed in Buenos Aires. He is the 2006 world Ultra-Triathlon champion (for those of you that do not know what a ultra-tri is: it consists of 10 iron man marathons run back to back and covers 38 km swimming, 1000 km running and 1800 km biking all done within 9 to 12 days with a max of 2 hrs sleep at night...tough...don't ask!! (However I am happy to report that even Felix was not tough enough to haul his BWM 800 out of a parking lot he got stuck in in northern Brasil...all the way through Africa only to get stuck in a Brasil parking lot...he'll never live that one down!) In Manaus we checked out the conservation Park where officials are trying to breed the rare Amazon Manatees and Giant River Otters and got to see various other Amazon residents including the Amazon Electric eels. (If the electric shock from these 7 foot monsters doesn't kill you their looks will...UGGGLLLY!) We also checked out the local graveyard which is full of very beautiful rock carvings dating back to when Manaus was a "rubber barons" paradise (she has definitely changed a lot over the years and one look at the slum areas puts any thoughts of walking around at night out of ones head!)

The ride north is on..and it is absolutely beautiful as unlike the area south of the Amazon River the area north is relatively untouched save a lone narrow road running due north to the Venezuelan border. The Brasilian authorities have settled some sort of land claims with the indigenous people in this area and our map indicates "indigenous reserves" where one can travel through during daylight hours but cannot stop or take photos etc. These areas are absolutely fantastic...narrow road through a virtual wall of green vegetation. Of course we did stop (virtually no traffic) and take photos and at these stops the sounds of the jungle were intriguing. All sorts of birds calling (mainly those noisy macaws and parrots!) to a background of cicadas. I bet if one were to use a decimal meter the everyday sounds of a morning and evening in the jungle would read in the 80's (during the heat of the day the jungle is a "dead zone". We also had the opportunity to take a few nice refreshing dips in some streams...just the thing one needs on these 30 plus degree days!

Needless to say we had a great ride and after spending a few nights in the northern city of Boa Vista (no we didn't see a single snake (boa included) and in fact saw very little wildlife period save a few monkeys and coati and the birds including toucans. The ride north from Boa Vista reveals a major change in ecosystems to grassland Savannah covered in what appears to be some species of oak tree. The views are panoramic with endless vistas where the bright green grasslands meet a gorgeous blue sky full of white cumulus clouds. The occasional mountain is covered in trees, the traffic is light and there are virtually no people or villages...riding heaven for sure!

Its getting dark (and I do not have headlights or a starter thanks to a short in the Acerbis headlight) as we cross into Venezuela (only could get our immigration stamp and will have to return tomorrow to clear our MC's. Goodbye Brasil (the land of 1.50US/lit (of what is loosely referred to as gas) hello Venezuela (the land of 2 cent/litre fuel!!!)

Uruguay

Welcome to Uruguay...and you really are welcomed!

Taking a road break...flat countryside and bad weather

A typical roadside scene in Uruguay...beautiful trees along most of the roads

Hello Uruguay!!!! As we are getting a little tired of the flat, monotonous scenery of eastern Argentina we decided to take a short side-trip into the small country of Uruguay. The border crossing was short and simple (so simple that they forgot to complete the paperwork on our MC´s but more on that later!)
As per our usual practice one of the first things we do when entering a new country in get some local currency (especially when there are no money changers at the border which was the case in Uruguay) and in undertaking this mission is when we learnt our first lesson about Uruguay. The people here are insanely friendly!!!! In the first city we stopped at people swamped us wanting to know everything about us, where we came from the Hondogs etc. I had women wanting to give us perfume etc. and when we left we were literally chased by a woman that just wanted to kiss us and wish us a Bueno Viaje (good voyage)! The guys were just as friendly minus the kisses and perfume!
Our short impression of the countryside: incredably clean with beautiful rows of trees along the roads, all immacuately clean. Huge, obviously very rich ranch owners so one travels long distances without seeing any houses or villages etc. Very flat terrain...the highest point in Uruguay is 400 m ASL! Lots of forestry plantations (alot of ranchers obviously plant trees on their land)
The cities: The cities are not very clean and the outskirts are covered in slums ...not a pretty scene but even in these areas the people seem very friendly.
General conditions: One of the most expensive countries we have visited with oil costing about 8 dollars a litre, fuel just over 1.20 US litre, food and room well above Argentina but slightly less than Chile.

We ended up riding about 1000 kms in Uruguay and actually cut our journey short when we got lost in one city about 4 times due to poor (like no) signage (thats my story and I am sticking to it!) and as usual really crappy weather. (This was the same time as Buenes Aires was receiving its first snow since 1918!)

So after a few days of riding around and enjoying the company of the very friendly Uruguay folks we turned north and had a very quiet border crossing. The crossing was total chaos as we were sent from one office to another (back and forth between Uruguay and Argentina customs etc.) and although the crossing took over two hours not a single vehicle went by...very strange..until we left and realized that some sort of protest was taking place and the road was blocked with trees. No problem on the Hondogs and the protestors laughed and waved as we rode through the ditches around their blockade.