SANTIAGO, CHILE - 25 June
It's not just Chile, it's damn cold! (couldn't resist)
I'm reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged right now, which describes a town hidden in the mountains. Santiago had the same feel, as we passed over the Andes (which is, by the way, the most beautiful mountain range I've seen) and dropped through a veil of mist in to the city. It seems like a city hidden away from the world. I'm disappointed that visability is limited to four city blocks, as I can imagine the impressive view of the mountains that one could see on a clear day.
When I arrived, I was approached by a few of the "helpful" types that you usually find hanging out at airports. One guy produced a set of crumpled hotel brochures, asking me what I was looking for. I told him the information booth. Then, when I remembered I had to change my ticket, he "helped" me to find the ticket booth for Lan Chile. I finally had to be rude and tell him to wait downstairs, because I couldn't stand his attitude that I was just some lost and confused foreigner. After all, I may have been lost and unable to speak Spanish, but with a passport that reads like the roster of the UN, I wasn't flustered by the situation.
After I shook the first guy, I was approached by another guy -- who I was a bit friendlier to, because for some reason he reminded me of myself. However, he made the mistake of asking me how well I knew Santiago. "Not at all?" he responded to my answer, and we both knew what that meant in his eyes -- I could be taken without being any wiser. Eventually, I found the proper hotel information booth, despite his attempts to divert me. "Okay -- don't trust anyone!" he called after me in frustration.
But I did trust the girl at the booth, who found me an affortable apartment/hotel and free transportation.
I've been asked to give more travel tips, so here's one: stay in an apartment/hotel whenever possible. In my experience, they are usually as (if not more) affordable than hotels and they are a lot more spacious, with a small kitchen. And cooking for myself has been vital on this trip to ensure I get a vegetarian meal.
I've skipped my travelogue covering my experiences from the Amazon River, Manaus and Sao Paulo. I guess I'll have to put it in the book I hope to write.

AMAZON RIVER - 5 June
I'd put off showering for as long as I could. The thought of the hot, mildew and urine smelling toilet/shower combo made it a question of which smelled worse, me or the WC. In the end, I decided that since I'd made a few friends, I had better wash up if I hoped to keep them.
One such friend, was the heavy-set guy with a potbelly. He had a name, but I soon forgot it after Hanna had slapped his belly and dubbed him "Gordo"(Fat). From then on he was known as Gordo, and not to be the only one with a nickname, he started calling me "Gringo" and to my horror it stuck. "Gringo!" he called to let me know that it was time for lunch or dinner. "Gringo!" he called up to me, that I should join the folks down at the pier when we had docked for a stop. My objections of "Nao gringo" were largely ignored, and I usually found it was to my benefit to respond, as in the time when he was bringing fresh bread and cheese to the group.
Gordo was the life of the group. With a loudness on par with Marlene's, he used his weight as a comic device. And he never failed to surprise. For each meal, there was a table below deck that would fill up with people. When the table was full, no one could sit down until everyone had finished and left. After that, the den-mother lady cleared the table and set it anew. When the last spoon was in place, she would blow on a metal whistle and the group that was waiting patiently would march in and sit down. Once, waiting normally as usual, we heard the whistle and started in. The den-mother lady was surprised and waved us out again. As we turned to leave, we saw Gordo, laughing, and whistling -- his lips bubbling out in such a way that it sounded exactly like a metal whistle.
I was lucky that the meals met my most basic nutritional needs. Coffee and crackers with butter in the morning and rice, pasta and beans for lunch and dinner. You might think that eating the same meal twice a day for six days would get tiresome, and you'd be right, but it was still something to look forward to as it broke the monotony of the day.
Indeed, my days were looking quite similar. Study a little portuguese with Hanna, avoid Marlene, read a book and watch the jungle go by.
I learned to play the dominoes game, and that was a fun way of passing time, but I was never able to join in the conversation.

AMAZON RIVER - 4 June
I awoke in my hammock to a pink and cyan streaked pre-dawn sky. It was filled with thick grey clouds stretching behind the boat and creating a rectangular frame around the orange sky awaiting the sun to rise. As the sun peeks over the horizon, it again amazes me how quickly it moves. Within moments its full roundness is visible and seconds later it has ascended higher still until it is hidden by the clouds. The sky is as cloudy as it is clear, dark and moody in one direction, clear and beautifully picturesque in another.
I was surprised to awaken so early. I had been kept up the previous night by a loud drunken group of folks playing dominoes on the side of the bar opposite of my hammock, towards the rear of the ship. In the morning, this group returned above deck and I was reassured that I would not spend the trip without company. I had attracted the attention of a couple of young girls who tried talking to me for a while. As I was understanding nothing, I eventually had to ask them to write down their questions and I then labouriously looked up each word in my dictionary. So, it took about 2 minutes for me to understand that they were asking where I was from, and also to see why my answer, "Manaus," was inappropriate. My foreignness soon caught the attention of the louder group. Again we covered the basics of where I'm from and where I'm going, and laughed about the fact that I understand "nada." One woman, Marlene, was particularly persistent in her questions. Eventually she mimed putting on and removing a ring from her finger and pointed at me, which I took to mean, was I married. She seemed happy that I wasn't. So happy, in fact, that she disappeared below deck and reappeared with her hammock which she placed next to mine. Now -- in her day, Marlene may have been attractive, but today, what she had lost in looks she had gained in loudness. Her goose-like laugh, and bloodshot eyes were not exactly winning me over.
I conveniently pretended to understand less than I actually did as she appeared to be joking about me marrying her. She then asked for pen and paper (which, as with books, surprisingly few people brought on this trip) and wrote me a few notes. This gave me a bit a peace, as she went away while I translated. The notes roughly translated to "I find you attractive, I want to hug and kiss you." Once translated, I quickly pocketed them and returned to the book I was reading (Lord of the Rings). When she returned, I acted as though I had forgotten about the notes.
She brought some of her friends over to try to help me understand. One was a heavy-set guy with a big beer belly. After listening to Marlene, he began to make rude hand gestures and then pointed to Marlene, who didn't seem to mind.
I didn't want to lie, and I didn't feel as if I could diplomatically tell her I didn't find her attractive in broken portuguese, so, in portuguese I wrote: "my love is in New York." Which wasn't quite a lie, in the "I love NY" translation, but if it so happened that she misconstrued this as meaning I had a lover in NY, all the better. She did and left me alone for while.
A girl named Hanna overheard our discussion and claimed to speak English. As it turned out, however, after the basic expressions were covered, she was as dependent on my phrasebook and dictionary as I was. Still, she was eager to learn English, so we practiced phrases from my book for a while.
That night, Marlene was drunk again, so I went to sleep with her repeating some English sentences she had picked up: "My name is Marlene... kissa me... my name is Marlene... my name is Marlene... I'm 'onna love you!"

BELEM - 3 June
After what seemed like an endless walk along the riverfront, next to a menacing looking barbed-wire fence, I found an entrance through the wall towards the pier. I used my usual tactic of showing my ticket to people in uniform, stating my destination, and then watching their body language for clues. Finally, one guy overheard me and waved at me to come over. He looked at my ticket, nodded and then snatched it out of my hand. I found that a bit worrying, but he didn't appear to be a shady character. However, when I could not follow him as he disappeared behind the booths and I was surrounded by people trying to sell me twine for my hammock I was sure I had been taken.
Luckily, he reappeared inside a booth and started writing up a second ticket. Still the cynic, I was sure I was about to be asked for an additional service fee, that I wouldn't be paying if I knew any better. I did remember, though, that the guy who helped me get the ticket had imitated the gesture of someone writing on a pad as he pointed to my ticket. I assumed that maybe that was his way of telling me I would need to get a boarding pass of some sort. There was no extra fee, and when I found and boarded the boat, I was pleased to find that the ticket was legitimate as well.
I thought I had arrived early, so I was surprised to find that the lower deck was already full of hammocks. As I was looking around, my perplexed expression drew the attention of a stocky, den-mother-type who began to help me look for a spot for my hammock. As there was no room downstairs, she showed me the way to the upper-deck, which was completely empty. She then hooked up my hammock, gestured that I should keep an eye on my belongings, and disappeared below deck.
That's one of the benefits of travelling along. One person, lost and confused, is a sympathetic character. Two or more people, equally clueless, travelling in a group are considered a nuisance. I think I've become quite good at playing the bumbling, yet charming (i'd like to think) foreigner. It's amazing how far I can get in a conversation by just saying "umm..." and "ahh..." I usually do that, and try to guess what they're saying, and I don't always have to reveal that I don't know portuguese. If they start looking at me like I'm an idiot, then I know it's time to reveal that I don't speak the language, and usually we both laugh about it. My travels have actually made me lazy about learning Portuguese. Maybe it's due to the realisation that on my list of languages to master, Portuguese ranks fourth after French, Japanese and Spanish. The other thing I've realised is how two people can communicate across language barriers so-long as they don't become frustrated with each other. My boat ride would bear this out.
I found being on the upper deck relaxing, and enjoyed the fact that it wasn't as crowded and claustrophobic as below deck. However, when I wasn't joined by any other passengers, I began to wonder if they knew something I didn't know. For instance, how cold it would get overnight.

BELEM - 2 June
It's just my luck that the first real conversation I'm able to have in English turns out to be with a couple of hookers.
I was sitting out in the park, minding my own business, sipping my beer. I had wandered aroud Belem long enough to realise that there was little to do other than just that. I wasn't able to find a seat in the shade, so I was the only one sitting out in the sun, and I was starting to work up a sweat. Even after a few people left their tables, I was too stubborn to move, I was trying to stick to the pretense that I was trying to work on my tan.
After a while, I couple of girls at a table in the shaded corner caught my attention. While they were speaking Portuguese, the message was clear: "why are you sitting in the sun, like an idiot when there's a table over here in the shade." So I moved to the adjacent table and with my standard line "no falo Portuguese," I expected the conversation to end. Surprisingly, both of them spoke English. We chatted for a while, until the older one, Lucy, began to make sexual references. Most blatantly when I asked, "so what is there to do in Belem" and she answered "have sex with the girls." Now, were I six or seven years younger I might think I had found myself in an 80's teeny-bopper film, but now I'm older, wiser and more cynical, so I'm thinking -- hookers.
Still, I was bored, and desparate for conversation, so I deflected the sexual innuendo and tried to keep the discussion clean. So we had an interesting discussion on what other career options might exist for hookers in Belem looking for a change in career. But the conversation was soon exhausted after my suggestions of bartending and going back to school were shot down. The younger one was more interested in talking about this, the Lucy was becoming more agressive, and amusing -- in a psychotic sort of way.
She told me about how she was recently jumped by some girls and they scared her "client"away. Then she showed me this little knife that she carried to protect herself. I laughed, and told her it looked better for cutting cheese. I asked if she had any other weaponry I should know about. She did. Her belt unhooked and had a padlock on the end of it, which could apparently be swung about for head bashing purposes. I should say that all of this was done in a way that wasn't threatening at all, I found it all funny, really.
Still, when I realised that I wasn't going to talk someone out of a career in prostitution after a 30 minute chat, I decided it was time to go. Lucy tried to change tact, and asked if she could be my translator for R$10/hr. I declined.

BELEM - 1 June
What do you call a man with no legs or arms? Or so the joke goes. It's a lot less funny when you actually see this guy, sitting in the middle of the street like a living Greek Herme. But there he was in front of the vendor booths. Someone had done him the favour of giving him a cigarette.

BELEM - 3 June
I should stop assuming that every mode of transport operates daily. I had hoped to get a boat on Sunday from Belem to Manaus, but that proved impossible.
I set out early and headed down to the riverfront, where the Rough Guide made it sound as though I´d be able to find lots of boats lined up and ready to go on the hour. Instead, I discovered a modern development with shops and cafes, but no one selling riverboat tickets.
I continued past this, and walked down the pier, but there were only small fishing boats in sight.
Defeated, I returned to my hotel. I´ve been staying in the Hilton, which is one of the reasons I was hoping to leave after two nights. To do a trip like this, a good approach is to switch between abusing and pampering yourself. After a 39-hour bus ride and looking forward to five or six days sleeping in a hammock, I felt a short stint at the Hilton would be right on target. And as it turns out, the off-season rates were pretty decent. (The R$3 water from the mini-bar is where they get you.)
Another benefit of staying in a place like this is that you can be fairly sure that they speak English at the reception desk. (Although, not for room service, it took me 10 minutes to order a pizza.) The lady was able to make a few phonecalls and find out where I should go for tickets. It turns out that I was looking at the wrong side of the street along the riverfront. Opposite to where I had been walking was a small shop, advertising boat tickets.
At first it appeared to be closed, but a man in the front banged on the gate until he had roused another guy from the back. We had a little conversation, where they said a bunch of things and I replied "Um... Manaus?" and eventually we understood where and when I wanted to go. Unfortunately, there wasn´t a boat before Monday.
Then the first guy took me a few stores down and spoke to another guy who issued the ticket. I was ready to thank him and part ways, when I noticed he was making the pinky-out, thumb-to-mouth universal sign for "buy me a beer?" Which I was ready to do, but instead we went back to the first office, where I talked to the other guy, and showed him my ticket. The two guys exchanged a few words, in which I guess the equivalent of "oi -- don´t fleece the customers for beer" was said, because the guy stopped making the beer-sign and waved goodbye.

BELEM - 1 June
Sorry about all these crazy '´' characters. It's these damn foreign keyboards. They don't know where the apostrophe is supposed to be!

BELEM - 1 June
There´s a very special kind of helpless feeling you get when you don´t know where your bus is and can´t speak the language to ask anyone about it. That was the situation when I was in the Salvador Rotoviaria (bus terminal) waiting for my bus to Belem. The best I could do was to look for people in uniform and point to my ticket making little whimpering noises. The first guy simply waved me off in a vague direction. Eventually, an older guy pointed clearly to platform 32, and I felt reassured that the bus wasn´t where it was supposed to meet me, not vice-versa. Still, my stomach continued to flip-flop as the clock went past the scheduled, 6:30 deparature time until I saw someone else holding out his ticket and asking about ´Belem´.
There was another reason for my stomach to be flip-flopping. I had arrived at the mall across from the Rotoviaria with about 3 hours to spare. I thought I´d buy some reading material, that I was desperate for given that I had only a book on the psychology of art and semiology -- both of which make for dry reading on the bus. So I bought a rediculously over-priced import of Mixmag and read it to kill time, which I did brilliantly, as I was temporarily transported back to the UK club scene that I´ve grown to miss. Unfortunately, time passes a little too quickly. I lazily filled a plate at the nearby food court, and then asked the cashier-lady for the time. She told me the time, but I could only understand that it was something before or after 6pm. Either way, I was unsettled. I had to gobble down my food in record time. It was an unpleasant experience. I felt like I was in one of those sitcoms where fat-kid Johnny enters the pie eating contest. "Hey, Johnny, you won!" "Urp!" replies Johnny, putting a finger to his mouth and puffing out his cheeks. Then the laughtrack kicks in, and a fade-to-black. However in real life, the story continues and I have to find my way out of a mall that has seemingly tripled in size.
Sadly, I had become a Salvadorian mallrat. In fact, no matter where in the world I go, I tend to gravitate to the malls as little air-conditioned, westernized, capitalists oasis. As I said before, I hadn´t had much luck finding proper malls in Rio, so I´d been feeling a little mall-deprived. So, to make up for this, I had made multiple visits to three different malls in Salvador. However, now, in my panicked state, they were all blending together in my mind. I couldn´t remember if the food court was on the ground floor, the cinema on the third and the exit on the second, or was the food court on the third floor, the exit on the ground and the cinema on the second? Eventually, I went three floors up, three floors down, wound up back in the food court, where I´d started and made my way out of the parking garage. I didn´t even know they had a parking garage.
In the end, the bus arrived and I got on, ready to face what would be a 39-hour trip.