Brazil Part 2: Manaus Again

I neither remember nor care what I wrote last time about crossing the border. I was there 2 hours, feeding dogs biscuits. One dog did not like the crisps but still kept going for the bag as if he expected something else to be in there. I had gotten the bus to Boa Vista and afterwards had to wait ages for the last available night bus to Manaus. This arrived in the morning and I hiked in the baking heat through Manaus to the hostel. Dammit all the films were still in Drunken Spanish. Manaus was still boring and I was here for another 3 days. The fact that Glaucia could not meet up meant it was even more boring. Mayra did not write back to my message either. Plain rude. Oh well, I have no time for rudeness. I decided to put all of my clothes in the wash. Its $10 for a washing load. I got my clothes and they wanted $20 for two loads. Fuck that. I said I wanted to load it myself. I managed to fit in all my clothes to one machine and they still insisted it was two loads. So I took a little out and they realised I was not going to pay for two and finally said I can just wash the whole as one load if I wanted. Bout time. They had their revenge though, by taking two days to wash my clothes. I had put everything in the wash except for my swimming trunks and so was forced to wander around as the token naked Englishman for a few days. Had to borrow some clothes of an Israeli guy to go out for dinner with him and a couple of Dutch girls. Also met an Aussie called David who had been attacked by a mugger the night before. He had hit him in the head with a coke can, wrestled with the knife and dragged him into the hotel where the night guard beat him with a stick. He may think twice about attacking someone again.

In the morning I was given some clothes and I went to meet Gus. We went with the Dutch girls to the floating mall and around the port which was quite cool. Then we wondered around a market. I wrote useless Carrefour and at first I was not sure what I was talking about. Then I remembered. They had no change, no spoons and no clue. I came back and headed out with the Israeli. He was looking to gather up people for a jungle trip, but we were planning on leaving that saturday so it would not have worked out. We joined a couple of Americans and the 8 of us went out for an eat as much as you like at the gourmet pizza place. Such good food. Then the guy from the pizza place took four of us out to a forro club. Music was shit but we got to appear on local radio, albeit reluctantly. Was fun. He was just asking us our nationalities to drum up more people for his club. We spoke awkward Portuguese and some girls wanted to chat with us. Was impossible as they spoke no Spanish. This was a recurring theme. The Dutch girls had to avoid the advances of several Brazilian men before one drunken guy gave us a white knuckle ride home. By South American standards it was tame, but the Dutch girls were suitably rattled. I got back early in the morning and slept late.

That cost me. We had been invited to participate in a video for Manaus and the world cup in Brazil 2014 as they needed foreign faces talking about football. They said they would come at 3pm. They came at 10am and were long gone by the time I woke up. Typical. Helen arrived in the afternoon. Iberian airlines had lost her bag. You can't trust any company that has any dealings whatsoever with British Airways and these guys are no exception. I still remember the awful flight back from Cuba. She brought me my bank cards and more crucially a wind up MP3 player. Music for the first time since december. It makes a huge difference. Even if Tim has loaded on some 80s duff and some suspect reggae in the middle of all the good stuff. Manaus appears to be purgatory for me. If we waited for the bag I would be stuck here for even longer. God damn it. Fuck this city. Its like Cartagena and a black hole combined.

In the morning we decided to go anyway and Helen ran around sorting out supplies for the boat as she had nothing and then we got on board and waited 3 hours for the delayed departure. Ah the monotony of boat travel we were to experience next.