These pictures show Peru, Colombia and Brazil from a boat connecting the three countries. I flew from Bogota to Leticia still in Colombia right on the border with Peru and Brazil. It's quite a dodgy town. At the airport for some reason I was the only gringo let through without having to pay for an extortionate tourist charge, and that was even after I had a chat with the official. I befriended two aussies and we walked the rather too long walk into town to Hostel Mahahtu. It was a nice setting but the owner was a dickhead. After two days I finally managed to book my 4 day boat trip to Manaus (where I am writing this from). I was terrified. There were reports of theft, violance, delays of up to weeks with breakdowns and all this when I was supposed to hang my own hammock up in a cargo ship and stay there for 4 days. It was cheap. About 100 US dollars including food for 4 days. Thankfully I met a nice English boy Chris in the queue who then saved me a space next to his hammock. This space got smaller and smaller as more and more people arrived. I befriended an older Brazilian lady who took it upon herself to look after me thankfully. It would have taken a while otherwise to figure out that the loud bell meant food was being served, that the loud horns meant we were approaching port and that lights on could mean anything from alighting passengers / onions / bananas or military checks.
There were only about 10 gringoes aboard but unusually many of them are solo travellers and a really good bunch of people. After many many card games, laughs, drinks, some vomit and plenty of stories we arrived in Manaus.
We all checked into the same hostel, hot, tired and sweaty. The next day the aussie girl Catelyn and I booked to go on a jungle tour the following day - that will be the next post. Manaus is a pretty busy, hot city in the middle of the amazon. Weird place.
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