Llama for Lunch (26 page)

The entire ceiling was painted to appear as though you were standing under the four legs of the Eiffel Tower and each of the four segments was painted to represent a different form of art – ballet, music, drama and opera. All around the side walls there were lights in glass shades and immense paintings that had been created in Italy by a famous painter, who later came to Manaus to hang them. Everything except the wood for the beautiful floors, which were made from highly polished boards of brazil wood and jacaranda, had been brought from Europe.

From the level of the top box it was just a short walk across to the ballroom, which was also absolutely fabulous. It had an upstairs orchestral gallery with a front that was decorated in the same way as the boxes in the theatre and Carrara marble featured around the walls and doorways. The lights were Venetian Murano glass, mammoth great specimens two-and-half metres across with masses of bulbs and shades in several colours. The ceiling paintings had also been executed in Italy and shipped out later. In the centre was an angel who, as you walked across the room, actually appeared to follow you. Weird. By the time you had reached the other end of the room she had turned around and was facing you. I don’t know how it was done but she actually moved. On one side of the painting a nude reclined with one arm outstretched and, as you crossed the room, she lifted herself onto her elbow. Amazing. These paintings were vividly colourful affairs but I wouldn’t want to live with them. I have enough trouble with the cat following me about.

From the outside balcony you could look down on the town, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t go up into the dome. When I said I would have liked to look at what appeared to be its stained glass, I was told that it was not glass, but tiles, which completely cover the dome’s exterior. Although it was strikingly colourful and attractive I wondered, Why the dome? It looked strange sticking out of this classical building. It belonged on a mosque. But the dome certainly was a landmark – not only could I see it from my room, but it loomed large from many vantage points in the city.

Afterward my guide told me that I could stay and listen to the Amazonian ‘sympathy’ orchestra, who were practising for their concert. What good luck. I placed myself in the plushest box and revelled in the wonderful opportunity I was given to absorb the ambience of this enchanting building, said to be one of the best opera houses in the world.

I strolled downtown and bought a bath mat, fed up with not having one any longer. Then I went on to the post office. (No short cuts. No buses. I’d learned.) But the post office, which lurked in a dowdy modern building – I had been expecting something elegant, old and classical – shut at five. Surprisingly there was no siesta here. It was so hot during the day that shopping would have been much more agreeable at night. There were all manner of amazing goods to buy. Ever felt the need for a stuffed piranha? The number of staff employed by shops staggered me. I wondered if it was just to give more people work that three employees did one job.

The intricate method of paying was amusing. When you bought something you were served by one person who gave you a piece of paper, but smacked your hand when you made the normal grab for the goods. No such unseemly haste here! This piece of paper merely stated the price of the goods. You had to take this to the cashier and no matter how small the shop was, they would have a cashier, usually encased in glass. You paid the cashier, were rewarded with a receipt and then you proceeded with the goods to yet another person who wrapped them for you. You should not be in a hurry when shopping in Brazil. Even in a small juice bar or buying buns from a baker, the ritual was the same. At restaurants you paid the cashier, then another person seated at a table by the exit collected your receipt as you left. For what reason? Even outside shops that had only a few feet of frontage six assistants might be stationed whose job it was to lure customers in. At the supermarket in the main street I counted eighteen assistants manning the checkouts, as well as a staff member who was posted at the entrance to them and whose mission was to direct customers to the next vacant counter. This supermarket was massive but unfortunately it was not air-conditioned, and it was always packed solid with crowds of people. You stood sweating for ages in long queues just to pay or to get your veggies weighed.

When I finally managed to broach the doors of the post office I found that downstairs, where no one but a platoon of security staff hung out, it was beautifully air-conditioned. But air-conditioning doesn’t climb steps and I nearly died of heat exhaustion upstairs where all the business was done. Ten tellers fenced in wire cages were stationed in a row behind a long, polished wooden counter, while in front of them stamp seekers stood dripping sweat in a line a kilometre long.

The cathedral was more interesting than the post office but it was very grotty outside. The grounds were strewn with rubbish and people slept on the steps, or reclined in the shade of its walls. It was not an attractive building but it sure was huge. I probed all the way around it seeking a way in and eventually found a big rusty gate that squealed ominously as I wrestled it open. Inside the cathedral I was alone, except for a couple of young women who were restoring part of the murals. Then it was afternoon, so I did what all sensible people in South America do. I had a lie down.

Early mornings in Manaus were cool, and redolent with the damp scent of the tropics. The woman in the high-rise apartment building across the way hung her washing out on her verandah. I hung mine on my tiny balcony and it waved companionably at hers. There’s nothing like hanging out the washing to make you feel you belong.

I saw few beggars in the streets of Manaus and they were mostly cripples, but once a respectable-looking woman came up to me in the supermarket with a child on one arm and a can of milk in her hand. I only realised afterwards that she had been asking me for a contribution to the milk. In the streets I noticed that most people were quite dark-skinned. Brazilians are a symphony of colours as a result of the intermingling of whites, black slaves and Indians. The women wore such sexy clothes that at first I had thought that there were an awful lot of prostitutes in this place. Their clothes suited the tropical climate but I never before saw so much skin exposed on the street. Even older women, on some of whom such garb was not entirely suitable, wore tight and revealing get-ups.

At the port, looking for a boat onwards to Belem, the town fifteen hundred kilometres away that sits at the mouth of the Amazon, I asked a policeman the whereabouts of the ticket office. A young girl who spoke English was allocated to help me find a cabin. She sent me to view one with a jaunty fellow in a red knitted beanie cap who looked like a pirate. The boat was called the
Santarem
and appeared very new. My shiny clean cabin had its own bathroom and the entire boat was air-conditioned. I was told that the boat sailed the day after this but I could live aboard as soon as I had a ticket. I paid for one and the young lady cashier who had helped me passed her hand under the glass shield to shake mine and wish me ‘bon voyage’.

Next morning I woke to hear great claps of thunder and rain falling. It had looked like rain for days but had chosen to wait until I was about to move house to do so. I sloshed to the wharf and collected my cabin key. The first time I had gone to the boat to inspect the cabin the captain, who was Portuguese in looks, had appeared and shown me to it. This time he popped up like a cockroach out of the woodwork, stowed my bags, pointed out that my lifejacket was stored in a little slot at the end of the bunk, led me to his cabin and told me that I should just call him if I wanted anything. He didn’t say what.

A couple of hammocks had already been slung in the open part of the deck, but so far I was the only occupant aboard. The boat’s air-conditioning was not on yet and it was too hot to stay in my cabin, so I walked up-town and took refuge in the library. Another glorious building, the exterior was a classical design painted in two shades of pink and white. Inside it had either black and white mosaic tiled floors or wooden parquet ones. Silver wrought-iron banisters with brass-plated stairs curved from both sides of the foyer up to the second floor. At the base of the staircase were four beautiful metal lamps with multiple shades of fluted amber glass. The polished wooden counter stood between them and an epic painting hung at the top of the stairs. In the reading room three people were asleep at desks. I thought this was fitting as, in contrast to the elegant foyer, this was a horribly functional room.

Returning to the
Santarem
, I sat on the deck watching as men loaded it and other boats docked so closely together that they were almost touching. An enormous amount of shunting, shoving and shouting was taking place. Cases of beer shot down a plank to land in our boat. Bags of flour were loaded from the back of a truck – one man pulled the bag to the edge of the tray while another hoisted it onto his shoulders and then humped it down to someone else who took it into the hold. All the labourers were covered in flour. The one who was taking the bag onto his back wore a flour bag tied around his head like an Arab gutera.

In the evening I walked to the town to make a phone call home. I had thought that it might be dangerous on the wharf in the dark of night, but the place was crowded with people out enjoying the cool air. I finally found a phone that worked and, after buying some more guarana drinks – maybe it
was
addictive – I came back without any problems. During the day you needed your ticket to check onto the wharf through a turnstile. Fortunately this wasn’t manned at night – I’d forgotten my ticket. The boat’s air-conditioning was now on, and with a vengeance. Freezing, I stuck up the vents with sticking plaster from my first-aid kit, read a book and then had a very good night’s sleep despite the partying of the folk in hammocks on the boat next door.

The
Santarem
appeared to be constructed mostly of metal. The sides and roof of my cabin were tin. I had two portholes that opened onto the deck, two bunks, one on top of the other, and enough room to walk beside them. There were plenty of hooks, a power point – and even a phone. The minute bathroom was spotless and everything worked. The toilet even accepted loo paper without throwing a tantrum. However, the water that flushed the toilet came directly from the river, and was almost black.

The
Santarem
had three decks. The top housed six two-roomed suites, as well as a sitting room and a bar that I never managed to find open. On the deck outside, two open-air showers and seats were at the rear and the captain’s cabin and the bridge were at the front. On the second deck, ten cabins, including mine, and the purser’s office were in the front and the central open area was crammed with dozens of swinging hammocks.

At each town many passengers got on and off, but this boat was nowhere near as full as the last had been. I found two other foreign travellers, a young Austrian couple, on board. Behind the hammock space was the dining room, once again in close proximity to the ablutions that the hammock-dwellers used, although this time the dining room was enclosed. Cargo was stored on the deck below this one as well as in the hold underneath.

The activity in the port woke me early in the morning. I got up and did my washing in the minute bathroom, made coffee with my invaluable immersion heater then sat on deck watching the wooden boats bobbing up and down all around. The
Santarem
didn’t seem to move as much as they did, probably because it was made of steel.

While it was still cool I walked downtown, picking my way among the bustle on the wharf. It was much hotter there. I lunched in a kilo restaurant where the food was upstairs but you entered downstairs. After eating I paid, went to the loo and threw the receipt in the bin. When I came out of the toilet I found two ladies examining my receipt. I took it and threw it in the bin again. They looked at me in horror and the penny dropped. I needed that receipt to get past the guard downstairs – it was equivalent to throwing money in the bin. I explained to the ladies that I was just an ignorant tourist and thanked them profusely. They saved me a lot of embarrassment at the exit.

Back at the boat I found the action had stepped up even more. Labourers zipped everywhere off-loading cargo from many trucks, while vendors sold drinks and bags of fruit. I bought some delicious little apples. I would have liked oranges too, but they came already peeled and hawking them around in a naked state in string bags leaves a lot to be desired in the hygiene field. One ingenious fellow had his peeling machine mounted on the handlebars of his bike.

The sailing time posted for the
Santarem
was four. We sailed at about five, not too bad for this part of the world. The captain and crew appeared on deck for this occasion looking spiffy in white shoes and white uniforms with gold epaulettes on their shoulders – they were a far cry from the bare chests and grotty T-shirts of my last boat’s crew, and I was suitably impressed.

The captain blew three long blasts on the whistle and we backed very slowly away from the wharf – an interesting procedure in that crowd of boats. Leaving the busy harbour we passed among a congestion of huge tankers and container ships that had sailed all the way from the Atlantic, as well as canoes, navy boats and the ubiquitous wooden riverboats. As soon as we left our mooring another boat immediately pulled into the space and three others also departed heading downriver at about the same time as we did.

For a long time we sailed past Manaus, which was strung untidily along the river’s edge, then we crossed the Meeting of the Waters, where a fat man told me all about it in Portuguese, none of which I understood. Looking down into the water of the inky black Rio Negro where it frothed away from the prow, I decided that the foam was about the colour of the head on a glass of stout. As I leaned on the rail the captain walked past, patted my arm and smiled at me. I hoped someone else was now steering the boat. I found a shaded chair on the top deck and watched the sun set in the cool breeze as we rode along the river. There were only about twenty passengers on the
Santarem
’s top deck. A wooden boat passed us with music blaring and I was glad to be missing that.