Tempo Amazonico

The only odour more potent that my sweat drenched t-shirt that I had been wearing for 3 days straight was the smell of mangos that rotted on the ground and the fresh rain that had stopped only minutes before I finally set my feet on solid ground. The tall steel structures and ancient ships that dotted the shore and the stevedores leant sleeping against the docks were not part of the image I had conjured up in my mind of the Amazon. It certainly smelt like what I imagine the Amazon to be and the humidity was something that not even the North Queensland tropics of Australia could prepare me for. All that mattered to me at that point was I was off the boat that had been chugging excruciatingly slowly up the Amazon River for the previous 3 days, and I was ready for tropical fruits picked from the tree, hiking and canoeing through the rainforest and beaching myself on the Isla do Amor, the elusive “Caribbean of the Amazon.” Arriving in the city of Santarem, I was certain that I must have missed my stop and disembarked at the wrong port, maybe the ticket man mistook ‘jungle’ for ‘bland concrete jungle.’ It was time to put my bush league Portuguese skills to the test and ask around the friendly looking locals. In true Brazillian style, the locals were more than happy to help, offering recommendations, welcoming me to their tropical paradise (err...) and trying to help. Of course despite the best intentions, a combination of my poor Portuguese and directionally challenged locals meant that it took a number of attempts before I was on a bus bound for the rainforest. 30 minutes and a very sore rear end later I stepped off the bus in a small village and into a very brief but heavy as hell shower that managed to soak what was not already damp and humid in my backpack. Less than 5 minutes later as I squelched through the muddy streets, the weather changed its mind again and the sun came out again. The smell of mud mixed with strange and exotic fruit from trees that I had never seen in my life was both repulsive and magical at the same time. If I hadn’t know I was in the Amazon earlier, I definitely knew it then, especially when I saw steam rising off my arm. “Hostel please?” I begged at the first place I stumbled up to. “We have hammock space,” the short brown eyed man informed me as he gave me a big toothy smile. Done! I strung up my soaked hammock in between a dreadlocked Argentinean and a sporty looking Spanish woman, lay down and basked in the occasional breeze that blew through the hut as I enjoyed a mid afternoon siesta. The tropical fruit, canoeing, hiking, trees and swimming at the beach would just have to wait until tomorrow. I was on Amazon time there, and that was all that really mattered.