Friday, August 22
Location: Manaus, Brazil
Today's weather: 27░C.
This morning I woke up at 9am, still feeling tired
from all my travelling the day before. I was also still
feeling sick, so eating was difficult. But I wandered
into town and stopped off at Sucos dos Skinas
for a Suco (juice) de Guarana. Sucos dos Skinas
make the best juices in all of Manaus (and anywhere else)
– their Guarana with lemon (and without honey) is
the most delicious drink that I've tasted anywhere.
Guarana has lots of caffeine (which helped wake me up),
and is reputed to have many other medicinal properties
– I swear I felt much better afterwards. I then went
around the corner where I got a very thorough haircut for
just R$ 4.
At 11:30am I stopped off at Lojas Americana, a shop
where my friend Maria works. I stopped by to say hello
and to give her a few small things that I'd bought in
Peru. We talked a little, and made arrangements to go
dancing in the evening, along with her friend Marlφ. I
then went  shopping
to buy my ticket for the riverboat to SantarΘm, and
various things that I thought I would need for my journey
– film, shorts, a pair of jandals, fruit and other
food, and a big packet of sweets which is always useful
for sharing with the local kids. Compared to Peru, Manaus
is very hot – my clothes were drenched in sweat
within just a few minutes walking around.
The riverboat office in Manaus is basically just a
simple shed containing lots of small stalls with vendors
selling tickets. Since there are lots of boats travelling
to the same place, the salespeople are very competitive
– and seem to pounce on any potential customer as
soon as they walk in the door.
"Where do you want to go?", one of them
yelled out in Portuguese.
"SantarΘm." I replied. And instantly, there
were two salespeople gathered around me, arguing with
each other to sell me tickets! I bought a ticket costing
R$ 30.
I then returned to the hotel, where I had a cold
shower then spent a few hours working to improve my
Portuguese from a book that I brought with me. Studying
in the heat was difficult in the heat, and I soon fell
asleep. I went for another walk in town in the early
evening, and then went to meet Maria outside her work at
8:30pm.
Maria was standing near the doorway of her work. We
chatted for a few minutes, then wandered down to the bus
stop at the end of the street. We caught a bus back to
the suburb where Maria still lives with her mother and
two brothers (most people in South America live with
their family until well-after adulthood. They usually
only leave home when they get married and are ready to
have a family of their own). Maria's oldest brother,
Donald, was very interesting – he is trying to learn
English so dragged out his English language book and
tried to manage a conversation by looking up words. The
resulting conversation was very slow, and sometimes a
little strange – his English was even worse than my
Portuguese! Part way through the conversation he uttered
"Jesus will return!" – I wasn't sure what
to make of this, so just nodded my head and smiled.
Maria's youngest brother amused himself playing video
games on the family's nintendo.
 Maria's house was
simple by New Zealand standards – but it looked
well-kept and very comfortable. The good thing about
living in Amazonia is that the weather is always fine and
warm, so houses can be constructed much more simply and
cheaply than in New Zealand.
After chatting with Maria's family for about an hour
and a half, Maria's friend Marlφ arrived. Marlφ had a
car, and had offered to take Maria and I off to a nearby
club where we could go dancing bolero. The club was full
of couples and groups of friends. Most of them were
extremely good dancers – making me feel
self-conscious about my "two left feet". But my
dancing seems to be improving, and Maria is a very
patient teacher.
While we were dancing, the strap on Maria's watch
broke so that it was lost somewhere on the dancefloor. We
didn't notice until afterwards when we saw her watch was
missing. Maria, Marlφ, and I spent a while searching for
the watch and asking around – but couldn't find it.
I think the long day (and night) of travelling the day
before took its toll – I kept dozing off, despite my
best efforts to stay awake. Maria and Marlφ both kindly
took pity on me, returning me back to the hotel at the
early hour (for Brazilians) of 1am. The return trip was a
little strange. My hotel was in the "worst"
part of town and Marlφ was obviously nervous about
driving through the dark streets nearby – making
sure that the car windows were wound up and the car doors
were locked. Fortunately the trip was without incident.
We got there, and I slowly staggered past the hotel desk
and up to my room, feeling very exhausted.
   
|
