Around 4am the “Yes” family, wedged behind me, commenced to rummage through their luggage, talking at the top of their voices. Why? I had no idea. I named them “Yes” because no matter what I said to any of the adults or children I would get a nod for an answer. They finally settled and […]
Around 4am the “Yes” family, wedged behind me, commenced to rummage through their luggage, talking at the top of their voices. Why? I had no idea. I named them “Yes” because no matter what I said to any of the adults or children I would get a nod for an answer. They finally settled and I dropped back to sleep.
This dawn ritual would continue over the next four nights, disturbing my blissful slumber until the fourth night when in my best Portuguese I diplomatically told them to shut up. It was then that I discovered to my disbelief that the whole family would wake up and collectively prepare the baby’s milk.
My alarm clock
Each night, once I had settled back into peaceful slumber, my peace would then again be violently interrupted by the harmonious “cock-a-doodle-doo” of the boat’s roosters. One of which had nested in a box under the head of my hammock. I tried turning the box upside down, covering it with a towel to fool it into believing it was still night. But crowing from the other roosters would set him off again.
Sleeping past 6am was near impossible when the feral children would begin ruffling their feathers in preparation for the day’s rampage throughout the boat.
Sleep deprived but still excited, the second day emerged and we shuffled our way into the mess for breakfast. Meal times were like lining up outside a popular nightclub, adhering to strict admission quotas. You stand in queue waiting for diners to leave before others would be permitted admission. The deckhand would motion you in and the small procession would make its way in, dine and be herded out before you had time to digest your last mouthful.
Each morning, like cattle, we would be mustered in for our ration of dry crackers and sweet coffee. With each morning I became more irritable and the coffee became sweeter by the day. In this cattle yard we weren’t given a choice if we wanted sugar or not…I’d hate to have been a diabetic.
The weather on the first day was raining and hot and I stayed downstairs in my hammock listening to my Walkman. The Santarem sailed slowly mid-river, with either bank barely visible and apart from the odd pink Dolphin, parrot or Toucan, there was really little to see from afar.
We called into another port, which meant more passengers, more cargo, more hammocks and less space.
Lunchtime
At midday, again the collectives lined up for lunch. Not hungry, I watched the procession from afar, as feral children brought their plates and sat in small groups on the floor, stuffing and shovelling, half into their mouth and the rest onto the floor. I must have dozed off and awoke to the sound of a scruffy green parakeet perched above my hammock, screeching at me to wake.
Across the way, occupying one of three female showers, golden dentured, pipe-smoking grandmother continued to argue with family as she washed her hammock and clothes. The showers were cold, but in this stifling heat they offered the only welcoming relief.
When the sun did appear, chairs on the upper deck presented passengers with the perfect opportunity to tan away, and fry in the hot Amazon sun. Brazilians in general are dark skinned, but seemed obsessed with tanning, while “Me no Fry” liberally applied factor 30 and when the heat became intolerable, I clambered below for a shower.
Dinner in “cattle class” consisted of beef or chicken stew, noodles and farina (sprinkles of dehydrated corn), strewn over the noodles and stew accompanied by the standard dry crackers, water and sweet coffee. The trick, we discovered, was to wait patiently until the end allowing us a hassle-free dinner avoiding unnecessary indigestion.
Sunset on the river
After dinner one feral member, strategically manipulating the aerial of a small black and white TV, guided by the large crowd, gathered around the fuzzy reception of a “Novela” – soapie. Initially, I assumed a crowd like this must have been gathering to watch a game of soccer, possibly their national team. Wrong! Brazilians, it appears, are more fanatical about their soapies than “Futbol”. After the USA, Brazil is one of the largest producers of soapies in the Americas.