The Brazil Amazon Trip – Starting out

A beginning

Mild but gloomy was the weather as we arrived at the port, our car packed to the gunnels with half the contents of our house, consoled by the thought that if we are burgled while we are away, the burglars would find very little to steal.

We drove into the terminal where an incredulous porter surveyed the contents of the car and promptly disappeared.

Eventually another more gullible porter, unsuspectingly arrived and was snared. He exchanged his trolley for a giant version, designed to service whole platoons of infantry, and proceeded to unload our car. Each of our multitude of cases was carefully labelled with our cabin number. Our naïve porter assured us that they would be waiting in our cabin when we had checked in – if he could manage to fit it all in.

Feeling smug and relieved we parked the car and walked into the historic terminal building, sat around for half an hour reading about the history of the place, how Windrush had deposited hundreds of West Indians, each clutching their entire worldly possessions in a single tiny suitcase, obviously not in the least equipped for the vagaries of a British winter. It filled us with guilt. They were migrating for a life-time with less than our hand-luggage.

Our optimistic porter was half right. When we arrived in our cabin, after being duly processed, half our luggage was there. We retrieved the lost bags, from which the tags had fallen off during the process of being thrown aboard, to find ourselves trapped in a corner of our tiny cabin surrounded by a mountain of possessions. Somehow, we managed to secrete our clothing and goods into a variety of nooks, crannies, shelves and drawers and pushed the empty cases under our beds and were settled. We were ensconced for six weeks, snug as proverbial bugs, wondering why on earth we had felt the need to bring six jumpers and two coats on a trip down the Amazon. Perhaps we were thinking that climate change might result in snow in Manaus? Perhaps we were thinking that we were going for six years and not six weeks?

Our first official welcome was the customary lifeboat drill. We were taught to tie, glow and whistle and made to stand for half an hour under a lifeboat. Suitably initiated, irritated and not in the least reassured, we were summarily dismissed.

As the drizzle slowly fell from a uniformly grey sky and the light faded, the ship unceremoniously shed its hawsers and leapt forth – or at least began to slowly edge out into the river, and we were away. We peered out as the Tilbury fortress slid past, staring into the descending darkness to make out the earthworks and moats.

Apprehensively we set off for our first meal, and to meet the people we were destined to spend six weeks dining with. What if they were as mad as us?

Ahead the gloom was relentless but we were heading for the bright sunshine of Brazil – or was it the fierce glow of the inferno the jungle was engulfed in?

The adventure had begun.