Thoughts from a boat

I've never liked the word adventure. A part of that is probably because it doesn't seem to mean anything real. Adventures are something that happen in books, to people who aren't real. They go on long travels and see and do amazing things and meet wonderful people (and a bad guy, probably).

But I've traveled far and long, everywhere from Australia to the US and now South America, crossed Europe by bus twice, and had to sort out a mess of missing plane tickets on multiple airports. And I still wouldn't say I've had an adventure. I've just been to places. That's not an adventure.
Until now. For the first time in my life I thought this might be an adventure when I decided to take the boat to Peru instead of flying. I couldn't figure out why, but taking the boat felt like an adventure. However, on the boat I had plenty of time to think about that why, and I think I might have an answer.
An adventure requires a share or unexpected, of unplanned. Taking the boat felt like an adventure, because I didn't know exactly what I was doing. Because once I got to Tabatinga on the border of Brazil and Peru, I had to figure out what to do from there on. Because I didn't have the entire passage booked form Manaus to Iquitos, which left room for something to go wrong on the way, because I could only make a general plan, and a more solid, confirmed plan only existed for a short period of time at a time.
But, a part of me reminded me at this point, if all you need is the lack of a plan to something be an adventure, then Explorer Belt three years ago should have been an adventure. That's basically the defining quality of EB: you're dropped off a but (with a partner) in the middle of nowhere, and given a map, some money and an address where you need to be in ten days. And, well, some tasks to complete on the way and a phone number you have to call every couple of days at least, to check in.
That phone number, I think, is the key here. Because even if there is no other plan than "get to this address in ten days", and you make up the more specific plan literally as you go on, having a phone number to call in case of emergency, if you need help, makes all the difference. Knowing you can get out in the middle, that someone will come pick you up if you just ask, makes all the difference. Because on a boat, I have about the same amount of plan as on EB: get off at Tabatinga on the border, find a way to cross to Peru, find a way to get onwards to Iquitos. But unlike on EB, I didn't have that number I could call and know everything will be alright.
So that's the conclusion I got to, during my days on the boat on the Amazon river, about why going to Iquitos by boat feels like an adventure while nothing so far in my life has: because I have to make things up as I go, and because there's no safety mechanism to get me out half-way through. If I can't figure out how to cross the border or find a ship onwards, I'm stuck at the border until I figure it out.

(For the record, I never liked this scene in The Hobbit. Partly because I still don't like the word adventure, partly because no one, especially not a hobbit, wakes up in the morning and thinks "I'm going on an adventure", but mostly because this is completely different to what happens in the book. Because no hobbit ever would wake up and decide to go on adventure.)

Ok, so last Tuesday afternoon I got on a boat. It was supposed to leave Manaus at four. It didn't. It left at about seven thirty. Because apparently a few hours this way or that won't really make any difference in a trip that lasts for almost six days.

 Here's the boat.

And here's the upper deck where I had my hammock. You can't see it here, because it's behind me, because I had a mosquito net and the photo is a lot better when there isn't a mosquito net covering half of it.

Boat day 1

 Here's sunrise above the Solimões river.

There are these trees around, quite a lot of them. I mean, I'm talking about particular trees. There are also in general a lot of trees here. But starting from the first day on the boat, these trees caught my attention. Partly because they were leafless, which was unusual. All the other trees have leaves. And partly, because they had these red and/or white fruits all over them, while other trees had no fruits that I could see.
I assumed that's the point of them: to not have leaves, so that the fruit can be clearly seen. Also supported by the fact that the fruits were red and white, which really stood out against the green of the other trees, but wasn't hidden in the leaves of the tree itself, because it didn't have any. So it would seem to make sense, that these trees disperse their seeds by making their fruits as visible as possible, so all the animals will see them, eat them, and take the seeds somewhere else.
But that wasn't entirely satisfactory to me. That's because these trees were always near the water line, almost always growing out of the water now that the water level is high. As far as I could see, there weren't any of these trees farther in the forest. And to me it would make more sense that a tree that grows right on the edge of water, in water when it's high water, and clearly grows the fruits when the water is high, would use the water to disperse the seeds. I would imagine that simply dropping the seeds in the water around the tree and letting the current take them away would not only disperse the seeds farther (because the river probably goes a lot farther than what ever animal eats those fruits), but would mean they don't need to drop and then regrow their leaves, because it's not important that something sees the fruits.
But I don't know. I never got an answer.

Boat day 2

There are these villages along the river. Or, no, they're too small to be villages. (Well, there are also villages.) They're more like clusters of a dozen houses. and I keep wondering about them. How did those people end up here, in the middle of nowhere along the river? Did their parents, or grandparents, or even great grandparents just hop on a boat one day and head up (or down) the river until they decided that this particular spot at the river's edge is what they're looking for? Why this spot? Why leave populated areas in the first place? What are they doing out here? So their kids go to school, and if they do, where are those schools? How do they make a living? I never saw any farms, only a pig here and a few cows there. Mostly it's just the houses. And a church, every few clusters.
They do have electricity, though. I think there was a power line running along the shore for the entire day. It's not visible all the time, but any time there was a clearing, the power line was there.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, though. I suppose it's good that electricity is provided for everyone. On the other hand, this river shore (or a lot of it anyway) would probably be untouched by humans if it wasn't for the power line and for whoever put it there. Also, communities that size would probably be just fine with solar panels on roofs, not to mention the fact that a solar panel on a roof still provides energy even if a tree happens to fall a hundred kilometers away, while the power line might be snapped. But maybe someone thought solar panels for all roofs is too expensive, although I'm not convinced that setting up and maintaining hundreds of kilometers of power line in the forest is any cheaper.

Boat day 3
Here's what I realised today: the sun is rising later every day. I got confused this morning as I woke up at about five thirty and it was still completely dark. The sun rises at six, so by five thirty you already start to see the sky getting lighter. Except I didn't. And then I realised that it's because I was hundreds of kilometers west from Manaus. In Manaus the sun rises at six. There it rises later.
It was an odd feeling. It's not that I'm not used to the sun rising at different times. I live in Finland. The sunrise and sunset times depend on the time of the year. Longer days start earlier and shorter days later. But here, the day lengths stays the same. We're traveling more or less west. The sunrise time doesn't change because the Earth's angle towards the Sun changes. The sunrise time changes because I'm moving. As is my insignificant position on the planet could affect something as vast as the Sun and the Earth.
The funny thing is that I'm writing a story that is set on a tidally locked planet. My protagonist has spent his entire life in a place that's really close to the day-night-line. So close, that the slight wobble of the planet in relation to the sun makes the sun set every once in a while, and then rise again a short time later. Maybe two months ago I wrote a scene where he's heading to the night side of the planet on a boat, thinking about practically this very same thins: for the first time in his life, the sun isn't setting because of the movement of the planet in relation to the sun but because he himself is moving. And here I find myself awed by the same thoughts I put into his head only a little while ago.

 (It rained today.)

Boat day 4

What's under the water? It's flood season now. The water level is abuot as high as it gets. That means there are meters of something below the surface that isn't below the surface during low water levels, half a year from now.
I have been taught multiple times over the past five months that at high water, the rivers flood an enormous area, covering forests that are specially adapted to not only survive the flooding, but to take advantage of it. And in some areas along the way, I have seen areas that are clearly flooded forests, with the trees sticking out of the water. But more often than a flooded forest where you can't see how far out the shore actually is, the shore has been a lot more clear:  a meters high straight wall sticking out of the river. And do I find myself asking: what's down there? In a flooded forest there's the lower half a forest down there, but what about in the areas with the wall-shores? How far down do the walls go? Are the walls actually ten-fifteen meters tall, and that's always where the river shore is? Or is there a bottom somewhere close beneath the surface? What's growing on that bottom? It doesn't seem to be trees, I would be able to see that. Some other plants, not as tall and that only grows for the low-water season? How much of flooded are is there? How much wider is the river now than it is in January?
What's under there?

Boat day 5
Here's a thing I've noticed to be different between Finland and Brazil: Brazilian people respect other people's right to make noise. Finnish people respect other people's right to not have to listen to other people's noise. In Finland, you only have to listen to other people's music on public transport if you happen to get a seat in the same train car as an unusually annoying group of teenagers. Or middle-aged people. They're usually worse than the teenagers. And well, the radio might be on in the bus, but it's never loud.
In Brazil, on the boat, you listen to other people's music when they get bored. There was this one guy the other day who just came to sit next to my hammock because there happened to be a chair there, and started to play his music through portable speakers, quite loudly. Then he just sat there, for a half an hour, listening to his music. Headphones are a thing, people. If you want to listen to your music in a place where there are other people, maybe use head phones. Also for a lot of the time there was music played on the big speakers on the boat, which would in general be fine, having some music on the background, but it was loud. Loud enough that even though I was in the back corner and the speakers were at the other end of the boat, facing the opposite direction, the music was loud enough to make it hard to listen to podcasts. So that was annoying.
When I got on the boat, I took a look at the lower deck, decided it was too full and thus would be too restless, went up to the upper deck, where was a lot more space, and chose a spot at the far corner, away from the TV and the speakers and a few meters away from all the people, thinking this would be the most quiet and calm spot. I was very wrong. The empty space around me invited people to take a table and some chairs and come sit in that empty space with their friends (who they made while on the boat, in about half a day, which is something I would never be able to do), and make all the noise. The same thing about the back of the boat, which was right next to me. People just decided it's a good spot to hang out. Including in the middle of the night. Because apparently respecting other people's will to sleep isn't important, and it's ok to stay up drinking beer and talking loudly until about three in the morning.
I'm just saying, this would never happen in Finland. Maybe the noise during the day would happen, on a boat ride this long, but I would imagine that in the middle of the night people would let people sleet. Unless you happened on the same boat with an unusually annoying group of teenagers or middle-aged people.

Boat day 6
Was a very confusing day.
The previous evening we had arrived in Benjamin Constant, which is about 20 km downriver from Tabatinga. We stopped there in dock for the night. They unloaded cargo both in the evening and the morning.
In the morning we were told to pack up, and then we got off the boat we had come all the way there, to take a smaller, faster boat the last bit to Tabatinga, apparently because the water levels were... too low... for the big boat. Wait, what?
Isn't this the high water level season? It has been rising all rainy season, and no in the beginning of the dry season it's at it's highest. Right? Maybe the highest point was a couple of weeks back, but still, the water levels should be high right now.
Right?
Yes. In Manaus harbor they take up the river level daily, and it was at its highest this year two weeks ago, from where it has now come down 12 cm.
So yes, the water levels should be high. Or maybe... We've been only talking about the water levels in Manaus and down stream from there. Maybe the peak is earlier in the year this far upriver, and the flood wave has only now reached Manaus more than 1500 km down river? Because there's no way that the water levels are even at their highest too low for big boats to make it to the port in Tabatinga.
I don't know. Either way. We took a small boat to Tabatinga, where I was told that a bunch of the people who were on the same boat with me were also going to Iquitos. It turns out this was a group of about ten Venezuelans. So I decided to join them, because I didn't really have any idea how to proceed from here. And I was very, very lucky that there was a group of people going to Iquitos I could join, and that I happened to hear that they were going to Iquitos, because I would have been absolutely and completely lost if I'd tried to do it alone.
The depth of my ignorance of over-land border crossing was revealed very soon as we headed to the Brazilian Federal Police to officially leave Brazil. I had not realized I needed to to that. The only times I've crossed the border not by plane it's been by car on a road, where you don't really need to know what's happening, you just need to keep driving until someone stops you and asks to see your passport. Here we actually had to walk 15 min through the city to get to the place where we officially left Brazil.
Then we walked back, took a taxiboat across the river, walked a bit in the village on the Peruvian side to get to the immigration place there to officially arrive in Peru.
And then the Venezuelans knew that there was a slow boat leaving that evening and a fast boat leaving very early the following morning to Iquitos. Thee of them were taking the fast boat, so I just went with them. The slow boat would have taken another three days, and by this time I was pretty much done with boats, and I really wanted to have time to see Iquitos before I leave for Lima.
And then we just waited. I could have gone out to see the town a bit more, but since none of the others spoke English or Portuguese, they explained everything to me in Spanish (which I don't speak), and I didn't quite trust that I had understood everything correctly. so I figured it's safest to just stay together with the others, in case I misunderstood something and the boat is actually leaving already in a few hours and I'll miss it.

So we just sat around. By the time we were officially over the border it was about mid-day. It was a long wait. There was this big, old, rusty boat half way on the muddy bank that the speed boat would basically use as a dock. That is where we waited, sitting on the mid-deck of that old boat. All day. We were also allowed to sleep there for the night, in our hammocks.
After it got dark there was some amazing lightning on the Columbian/Brazilian side of the river, in the north. It was orange, and made no sound.

Boat day 7
We woke up at three in the morning, after very badly slept six hours (yes, we went to sleep at nine. There was nothing else to do, and we knew about the early wake-up). We packed our things, then waited for about a half an hour to be let on the speed boat. At four most of the people were on the boat. We waited for another hour, because the scheduled departure was at five, and there were still people coming on board every now and then.
At five we left. And then it was basically twelve hours of this:

Well, I actually did sleep for the first two, because it was still dark, and because I was very tired. But after that it was ten hours of that. It only rained for a bit at some point, but the clouds were dark and heavy and very low, all the way from Isla Santa Rosa (which is the name of the place on the Peruvian side of the border) to Iquitos. that was all right. They pretty much matched my mood.
(The slow boat to Iquitos had been in dock right next to the old boat on which we waited in Santa Rosa. It had left the previous evening, some time after dark. We passed it at seven in the morning.)
I was too tired to wonder about anything more profound than are we there yet, and the fact that after some hours, no sitting position was comfortable anymore. 
We arrived in Iquitos at about half past four that afternoon.

I didn't write yesterday evening, because I was very, very tired. I had slept a total of maybe 17 hours in the previous three nights, and those 17 hours were not good-quality sleep. So I decided to sleep first, write later.
I also could have written earlier today, but I decided that since my time here is limited, I want to spent the daylight hours doing something other than sitting at the hostel writing. Next week I'll be on time again.

Now, so that I don't finish with quite as depressing a picture as the previous one, here's a photo of a sunset on the Solimões river:

~matu