Latin America

After 7 nights on Rio Solimões the boat M. Monteiro II reached its final destination called Tabatinga.

Tabatinga is located in the Tres Fronteras area and belongs to Brazil. Half an hour walking and you cross the boarder to Colombia. Peru the third country, lays on the other side of the River.

But let’s start at the beginning.

An agent in Manaus brought me to the ship on Friday around 11.00h. We approached the boat from the riverside with a little motor boat. I had to climb over the rails to enter the big ship. Once I was there I watched a bunch of young guys loading the boat with cargo, lots of cargo. My cabin was not accessible in the first hour, too many carton boxes were blocking the way. The entire first deck was packed with cargo. The second and third deck are for passengers only. There is enough space to hang appropriately 660 hammocks down from the ceilings on both decks. All in all are 6 cabins, where the third deck cabins belonged to the crew members and the captain, the second deck was for passengers only. My cabin was the smallest and had no shower or toilet inside, but the agent mentioned already that they only had this one left for me. I wondered if I paid too much for this little cabin in the end. The lights didn’t work but at least the AC did its job.

The first 4 days were calm and peaceful. There were less than 50 people on board and it was easy to get around and make some friends. I met an enthusiastic traveler from Liverpool who spent his last 30 years as a nomad. His specialties are wild camping and talking about all the COVID conspiracy theories. Then there were some Venezuelan people, some of them worked on the boat unloading all the cargo, others were married to some Colombian drug smuggling families. Even I couldn’t speak any Portuguese or Spanish (due to the hot weather my brain wasn’t working properly) I made some friends by giving away my cigarettes.

The first sunset was absolutely epic, unfortunately all other sunsets were hidden behind clouds. Every day we got a decent breakfast at 6.30h, usually bread, banana or papaya, coffee and some kind of meat cake. At 11.00h was lunch time. All people were queuing in the second deck to get some delicious rice, noodles and meat. Sometimes there was salad or vegetables too. The bell rung sometimes at 17.00h or at 18.00h for dinner time. Dinner was just like lunch a big load of rice, noodles and meat or fish.

For the last three days the amount of passengers was tripled. Most people entered the boat in Amaturá. Many kids were running around, teenagers started to flirt, card games turned into gambling tournaments and the TV zones were more and more crowded. I really enjoyed this spectacle.Les mer