Maurice described the hotel shower as being like a waterfall, so I had to make this last one count. He was not wrong. At 7am we were walking down the long halls of the Tropical Manaus Hotel, where Erikes +1 would collect us.

Exiting the hotel, we saw the river, the river, for the first time. It was a glorious view. But way bigger than the vision in my head. For some reason I imagine a relatively narrow river with the rainforest canopy covering it, and all the wildlife up in your face out of sheer space constraints. What was I thinking? It was a giant sun-drenched river with the wildlife density of an ocean! (I know my children will fact-check this later, so I’m just claiming whatever I want here.)

Much of the day was spent driving to the portion of the river where we’d begin. 330 km in about 5 hours. I don’t know what the mph equivalent is, so I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. But I’m pretty sure this will prove the most dangerous part of our Amazon Tour. Erikes drove like a bat out of hell, probably max speed around 80 mph, but this was on roads of mixed quality with giant pot holes, where the minefield slowed us down to 10 mph. We spent about 20% of the time in the left (oncoming traffic) lane. Speed bump slow downs are optional.

We did slow down for lunch. The national sport is having some sort of televised international tournament.

After arriving at The Boat, it was already time to eat lunch. Some amazing fish, beans and rice, and salad. After lunch, Erikes’ S.O. got back in the car for the long slog back to Manaus. The 4 of us +3 additional crew embarked on our journey.

The boat has 2 levels. Below is the engine room, kitchen, head, and open area we used for dining.

Upstairs is a sun deck, shaded area for our hammocks, and the “bridge” with a cute steering wheel.

Our first 2 days involve chugging up the river to a place we can start the kayaking part of the adventure. Then each day will involve kayaking to where the boat parks each day. I’m guessing 4 hours of kayaking each day?

I took a 1.5 hour nap to test out my hammock. It worked! And I needed it. 3+ nights in a row of less than my usual 8 hours was weighing on me. I’m hopeful for tonight, too.

Today we parked in front of a termite-eaten tree. I don’t know how else to say where we are. There’s a few abandoned “houses” along the shores, but I’m sure they don’t have addresses, since there are no roads here. Maybe I’ll be able to pull up maps using photo GPS coords once I’m back in civilization and can post these blog entries? [Future Benj says, “Yes! I’ve sprinkled in maps!”]

We all went for a swim (warm water, but with refreshing streaks of cold) and then explored our “neighborhood” on kayak. The kayaks are the open top ocean variety, painted camo, and with comfy mesh seat backs.

After dinner, we lay on blow up mattresses on the sun deck to watch the stars. They are overly bright here. Like, unnecessarily show-off bright. “There’s the rest of our galaxy right there. Yup.” I’m thinking this close to the equator we’ll get sunrise around 6am and sunset at 6pm. We went to bed and I started blogging at 7pm. It’s 8:30pm now and feels like midnight! It also sounds like the jungle. We have natural white noise, and it’s louder than my usual! Here’s hoping for 8+ hours…