Up the Amazon from Belem to Santarem, Brazil

The Amazonia also registered as Liberty Star.














When Itola and Carol left us in Belem we had put our hammocks up four hours before the boat was

scheduled to sail at noon. The blogs we had read said you had to be on the boat early to get a decent hammock place. The boat had two decks for sleeping in hammocks. We took the upper most deck as it was further from the engine noise.It also had open sides so it would be cooler for sleeping. The lower deck had sliding windows and these closed the space in. We finally left at 4 pm- Brazilian time!

While we waited we watched the cargo deck being loaded first with boxes of melons and then sacks of onions. The men oiled the plank and slid them down to more waiting hands.

Later came a car that had a few attempts to get centred on the bending planks.At one point the car rocked on three tyres. Then followed the motorcycles.

Our gear sat on plastic pallets and we later found out that the deck floor flooded whenever it rained.
Before too long we were chockablock.

The hooks to hang the hammocks are about two hand spans apart so you are kept awake by legs and arms in your head and back whenever your neighbours turn over. Some hammocks are so big they can hang under their neighbours while others are small and hang above them. As well as going left to right some hammocks hang at right angles under all the others and it can be quite a tangle to get out when a crowd have hooked up at a stop in the middle of the night.The capacity for the boat is 500 people and some of those are in the few cabins at the front of each deck. They have a bunk bed and some have air con as well so families with little babies jammed into these. They had a toilet and shower too.

This place was elevated quite a way above the river because of the rise of the river.













Children paddled up to the boat and some passengers threw them gifts wrapped in plastic bags. Other children paddled to play in the wake of the boat.

Some of the children were very young and very competent on the water.

There were only men's toilets on our deck and John said that often they were flooded or didn't have  water. We had a stainless steel tank of chilled and filtered water on our deck but it ceased to operate after the first day so we had to go to the lower one of fill up our water bottles.

There was a small shop on our level with a few plastic chairs and tables where you could buy beer, other cold drinks and tubs of instant noodles, biscuits and crackers or have a sweet coffee. The sound system blared whenever it was open and at one point  a music video projected onto a screen. It was also where the smokers could hang out.

We had stocked up on cereals with powdered milk and fruit for breakfast which we ate at our hammock. We had crackers for lunch with tomatoes and more fruit. In the evening I made coleslaw with cabbage, capsicum, onion, tomatoes, cucumber, canned corn, and carrots then added tuna and mayonnaise. It worked well and gave me something to do as there is not much to do in the heat on the boat.

On the lower level was the canteen where you could have all your meals. Every meal was the same. Fried chicken or beef with spaghetti, rice and a small spoonful of salad. We decided to eat there on our last night for dinner and it was fine.

Every night it rained and cooled the boat. The blue tarpaulin would come down and flap in the wind and the rain poured under it. We slept on our micro fibre towels to keep ourselves warm as the damp got into the tight weave hammocks we had bought. The locals were wrapped up in fleece blankets.

Barges of timber and logs passed us as well as boat loads of cows like these simians. Itola told us of a boat sinking and the locals eating the animals after they had been in the water for three days and of course they all got sick.

There were always people fishing. These fish traps looked huge to us but we later saw how huge the fish can be so it made sense that they had such robust traps.

The locals near us on the boat were pretty chatty. They would ask us things and with a bit of sign language we could work out what they were saying and chat away. We shared children and grand children photos on our phones and they would point out things they thought may interest us. Sometimes they would wake with the rain at 3 am or 4am and chat away waking everyone on board.

We saw pink dolphins rolling in the water and once saw a toucan fly across the water. There were several parrots but it was hard to see their colouring as they flew from the palm trees or headed off in the evening.

Some of the locals would bring their long boats up to the boat and tie up on the tyres alongside. They sold acai drinks in plastic bags. It is the seed of a palm tree.

They also had cooked river shrimps which the locals munched and scattering the shells on the deck. Some women took bags of them up to the upper deck and dried them in the sun. One town we were told was famous for its salted cheese so there were bags of cheese hanging on the hooks above hammocks.

Some of the communities were very small and all seemed to have a Assembly of God church at their centre. There were boats being built from local timber. Some had crops of bananas and cassava.

This village had a game of football being played by a team of women in red and blue. The riverside was crowded with all kinds of parked up boats to watch the activities.

One of the characters on the boat was a Brazilian guy from the south. He had half his head shaved and the rest in dreads. He walked about serenading people with his recorder or small guitar that sounded like a ukelele. In the evening he practised juggling or riding his unicycle. At the cheese town stop he headed off with his clubs to entertain the locals to make money but missed the boat as we headed off. He raced alongside the wharf desperately waving at the boat when he could see it was not going to stop he leapt into a locals boat and got him to chase us. Finally he got on board with a cheer from the audience and a beaming smile.

During the stop at the town a man who had been unwell on the boat had died and was taken off by the police. It was very sad as his wife had been by his side coaxing him to eat and caring for him as he lay in his hammock.

There were a few foreigners on the boat. Not far from us were Bella and Zoe from England. Bella was going to teach at a school in Lencois as she had been studying Portuguese. As a part of her course she had to teach the language for three months. Zoe came to spend time with her.

Lorraine, from UK and her French husband Jacky, were with their son and daughter on a year long round the world trip. Lorraine's sister and niece joined them for part of trip. It was great to hear everyone's stories.

Some villages were so waterlogged that they had to build walkways from one end of the community to the other linking them all up.

As we got closer to Santarem we saw goats and water buffaloes

and a lot more cleared land for dairy cows.

This is a photo of Bella's locator beacon that her mother made her carry so she would know where Bella was at all times. Bella could send emails through it and it automatically updated her mother every four hours. It shows our route and location.

After reading several blogs by people who had done this trip, I decided that three days would be enough to say we had experienced the Amazon journey from our hammock and we opted out of the next three days by stopping at Santarem and booking a flight onto Manaus. It takes longer to go up the Amazon than down. We left the English/French family and the girls to enjoy the next three days by themselves.