| Made it to Belem! |
[Apr. 8th, 2008|06:28 pm] |
You might wonder why I am surprised. I bought my in-country airpass at the last minute (~10 days before leaving) from a random company I found on google, Easy Flight Center. I was more than a little suspicious of their authenticity but bought the tickets anyway, having failed to find another travel company that could get them winged over to Hawaii in time. It was a great relief to see today's ticket accepted without the agent looking at me as if I had just handed her monopoly money. The flight was even on time.
On board, I sat next to a very jolly Brazilian by the name of Victor. We got chatting (in English, thank goodness) about movies (Juno mainly), bands (we both have am affinity for Weezer and I told him to look up the Shins) and musical instruments. He pointed out a bunch of good places to go in Belem and seemed a little disappointed that I will only be spending 24 hours here. We shared a taxi into Belem since he lives close to my hostel.
This hostel is awesome, although on the expensive side at 38R$ per night (twenty something dollars). That said, I had expected to spend my afternoon walking around the Belem docks looking for a boat leaving for Manaus (1500km up the Amazon) tomorrow but the guy at the front desk booked my ticket instantly for a discounted price, saving me several hours in a dodgy neighbourhood. 220R$ for a hammock-space (I splurged and spent 20R$ extra to get space on the air conditioned deck). Not bad for 5 days' accommodation and food. Will be stocking up on snacks before I leave though. I think I have to get to the boat about 4 hours before it leaves to claim my space though.
Side-note: Brazilian bakeries are fantastic! So many cakes and pies and pastries and they're all good! I can't help going into each one I pass and buying something random. Will be stocking up on their biscuits before I leave.
Having sorted my next step, I wandered off to find a biological park (=fancy name for zoo) where I could see some of the flora and fauna of the Amazon. I really went there to see sloths climbing in the trees overhead - what did I not see? There were plenty of iguanas climbing around, weird birds in cages and crazy rat-bunny-things, no idea what they were. I would post a picture so someone can google it for me but this computer is so old it doesn't have a USB port.
Then I went wandering through Belem, which is a gorgeous town with colourful colonial-style buildings, although it's a little rough in places. I did read of mugging at knife-point on one traveller's blog and Victor told me he saw someone get shot in a dodgy part of town. With this in mind, I was back in the hostel by nightfall. It had also started to rain, properly hard. Guess that's the jungle weather for you.
So tomorrow I must buy a hammock (there's a big market on the waterfront I want to check out) and catch my boat to Manaus. I might manage to post tomorrow, otherwise I'll be back next week!
Rach |
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| Comments: |
have fun on the river! :) | |
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