Cruising the Amazon in a hammock
One of only two foreigners on the Amazon Star, Brendan van Son rides a ferry locals use to travel between the Brazilian towns of Santarem and Manaus
Every journey starts with a choice: the easy way or the hard way. The easy way gets you there fastest, but the hard way almost certainly involves an adventure.
On a month-long trip searching for off-the-beaten-path destinations in Brazil, I found myself in Santarem, a gritty port town in the Amazon. I had the choice of a 45-minute flight to Manaus for $150, or a three-day boat ride for $40. Whereas many locals make their choice to save money, I chose the boat for the potential of adventure.
I board the top-heavy, three-storey boat that will be my sanctuary — or prison — for the next 72 hours. On the second deck, a semi-enclosed platform is already full of strung hammocks. The area is about six metres wide and 30 metres long and it’s packed with people.
I grab a string of rope and begin to set up my hammock in an open part of the overcrowded deck. As soon as my hammock is strung, a woman walks up shaking her head and mumbles disapprovingly in Portuguese. She takes it down and restrings it correctly. Without a word, she looks at me, laughs and carries on with her day.
Matt, a British traveller with a Solomon beard, strings his hammock next to mine. We’re the only foreigners on the boat, a fact that’s made obvious by the curious looks of locals wandering past.
The semi-open-air deck where we’ll all sleep side by side is a mass of hammocks. Then, just when you think there’s no space left, someone manages to string up yet another — if not beside you, then above you. A bit of rough math tells me there are about 175 of us stuffed into the space.
The journey
It’s easy to romanticize these journeys. A boat trip up the Amazon: locals in canoes, children waving from the decks of straw huts, pink dolphins jumping through the wake and flocks of exotic birds swooping overhead. And certainly, I see those things. But mostly, it is about getting from one place to another. This is not a cruise — there is no pool, play area or entertainment.
The faces of the passengers on board tell you travelling this way isn’t meant to be fun. They sit on white plastic chairs looking apathetically out at the chocolate milk river and the green landscape, or at the bar listening to evangelical music, drinking one-litre bottles of beer. But mostly, they just sleep.
Life on board
For the kids, however, this boat is a playground. They race along the floor, chasing each other as if in a giant hammock fort. Six of them swing at each other in games of hammock bumper cars and, on the top deck, they race through the open-air shower as if it were a water park.
For me, this boat is also rehab from a technology-addicted life. There is no Wi-Fi, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. These hours on the river are my technology juice cleanse.
I spend my time wandering around the boat, watching people. And the people aren’t afraid to watch me. Many of them come from Amazonian villages and don’t often see foreigners — let alone bearded, blue- eyed, blond ones. From time to time they become brave and stop to ask my name, where I’m from and, mostly, what I’m doing on a local boat in the middle of the Amazon River.
When I’m not wandering, I find myself staring off at the shores looking for signs of life. It’s easy to fantasize the journey to be a wildlife safari — monkeys chirping from the treetops, caiman chomping on a fresh catch on the beach or a jaguar stalking a capy- bara through the brush.
However, in reality the forest is far too dense to see any of it. I spot a pair of scarlet macaws flying in the distance and occasionally one of the famous pink dolphins will breach the surface of the river for a quick second. Aside from that, the wildlife stays hidden behind its forest force field. Human activity is equally as sparse. But sometimes, we’ll cruise past a small village on stilts. The local kids paddle out in their canoes to wave and beg that we throw them bags of potato chips from the boat.
Last leg
It isn’t until the third day that we start seeing relatively heavy signs of human life. We’re getting close to Manaus, the capital city of the state of Amazonas.
And to be honest, it couldn’t be too soon. The heat on the boat has be- come oppressive. The air feels like a warm wet blanket on my skin.
On board, the people are restless. Some have been on board since the mouth of the river and the city of Belem — a journey that takes about seven days. Then, about 54 hours after boarding, we see the port in the distance. Soon, the thick forest melds into the concrete jungle of Manaus, at the confluence of the Negro and Solimoes rivers. I untie my hammock and enter the heap of people desperate to get off the boat. It has been an arduous journey and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy to see a swarm of aggressive taxi drivers.
I open the passenger door of a car and a wall of air-conditioning slaps my skin. My phone bursts with notifications. I smile. Sometimes, you need a couple days away from it all to realize how great the modern world can be.