By The Lake

 We got off the couch, we shut down the a/c and left Manaus. But wait, we had delayed enough it was time for an early lunch, which meant fish. Check out this sign, it says they have a buffet on weekdays, the “second through sixth useful days (Féria).” 90 reals is about $16,50 per 2.2 pounds of food. 

We skipped the buffet thanks to our extra friendly helpful waiter. We got a medium sized grilled fish. We knew it would be plenty for two but in fact we took half of everything to go and had the rest for dinner.

He really went out of his way to communicate, to listen and to make us feel welcome, typically warm Brazilian kindness to foreigners.  He also knew how to fillet a fish, nice job.

Coconut ice cream with a not overly sweet brownie. 

And then back on the road, Highway 174, five hundred paved miles north to Boa Vista (beautiful view).

There were some potholes but we could hold about 45mph most of the time. There were lots of trucks and I slowed down to let them by when it was safe. We’re retired and they are working.  

I cannot imagine driving here without air conditioning as it’s hot in dry season. Yesterday was cooler than it has been at around 93 degrees but we had a novel on the radio and the windows tight shut.

I like listening to Detective Bosch who knows Los Angeles and nowhere else, as the narrative takes me out of Brazil and reminds me of the familiar. Michael Connelly’s novels are easy on the ear, for some reason I find the plot easy to follow without getting distracted. 

When we got to Figueiredo, two hours north of lunch in the suburbs of Manaus we turned right and took the paved road to the lake. The lake has been formed by a huge dam and iOverlander has a wild camp site located on the shore close to a restaurant. 

The road to the dam is heavily engineered which was probably required by the construction company. You don’t see roads like this to tourist attractions. 

There was one section that looked like an adapted air strip. Either that or someone figured they needed a four lane road half a mile long. 

Then it rained briefly but heavily, as it does around here even in dry season.

It was a fifty mile drive to the lake called Represa de Balbina, a lake created by the construction of the dam completed in 1989.

The road to the dam deployed some engineering talent but maintenance is not a priority here as happens so often in Latin America. 

It seemed unbelievable when we arrived to just park where we liked overlooking the lake opening the doors to the breeze. Until that is a shower blew through. 

There is a toilet block with two units, seats on the toilets, clean and a cold shower each and quite free. There is also a hose and an electrical plug looking a bit dubious but handy for someone wanting to charge phone. 

Balbina restsursnt closes at 6 and we were stuffed from lunch so it would wait until lunch Thursday before we leave. 

In accepting that we are off the beaten track we are resigned to not meeting overlanders traveling, no stories to tell so we were surprised to spot a camper truck already parked. 

Meet Rosie and Paolo from Salvador on the Atlantic Coast. Like us they are child free, retired and with no obligations at home. They’ve already driven to Ushuaia and are on their way to Alaska do keep an eye out. Their plan is to drive north to Venezuela and carry on to Colombia to cross to Panama. They have no visa problems entering Venezuela unlike us, but the country is such a basket case they have a back up plan to go back south and follow our route to the coast of Peru and go north that way if Venezuela is too hard. It’s a country not used to tourists, a dictatorship with few consumer supplies and uncertain supplies of fuel so it’s a tough place to travel. For us it’s impossible as our governments don’t get along so we can’t get permission to enter even if we wanted to. 

Paolo built their Chevy S10 diesel four wheel drive pickup using aluminum and fiberglass. They have a full kitchen, a toilet behind the white door with a hot water shower, 200 amps of electricity, and a diesel cabin heater and rooftop a/c. Pretty compact but you have to make the bed every day though the cabin can be used with the roof down. It’s a clever design. 

We shared our Starlink to save them

the bother of setting up theirs. And at night the air cools off and with fans we are all three quite comfortable. 

Leaving Manaus

 As this page is published we should be completing our clean up in the apartment and we hope to be getting on the road out of here and not a moment too soon.

Layne is doing well, Rusty is doing well and I am doing okay but the road ahead is going to be harsh. The funny thing is the road we’ve driven has such a fearsome reputation overlanders  avoid it and we drove it in our delivery van. The road into Guyana is so rarely traveled by outsiders we only know it’s unpaved and not great. But we’ve got this far and there is no road but forwards.

So I have some butterflies and I freely admit hunkering in an air conditioned apartment is an escape from what must be done. Growth through effort. 

Of course yesterday had its Manaus moment when a piece of blue paper was slipped under the door. It was something to do with the water connection so I went to a faucet, turned it on and nothing came out. 

Layne sent a message to the landlord and they said there must be a misunderstanding as they paid the bill so I’m guessing the problem with the connection was an unpaid bill. 

Our neighbor had also got the blue paper and he showed me where the water faucet had been taped up. In fact I had seen water employees in the complex so I guess a sweep of unpaid bills was the program. Our neighbor showed me where the water connection was taped up, below, for our unit. 

It turns out someone could twist the faucet and let water pass without breaking the tape. Imagine that. Anyway we got on with packing our stuff and repacking GANNET2, the order of the day. 

A dog still has to walk and I enjoyed the signs on the grass one last time “Don’t piss on granma” so I didn’t. I caught Rusty shaking himself which made a weird picture to mirror my grumpy mood. 

It’s been an odd time in Manaus and I’ll be glad to go but the heat is tremendous and perhaps our rooftop a/c really is working okay but is just overwhelmed by the temperatures. I miss being able to talk to people and Layne misses seeing other travelers we are so far off the beaten path. I wish I could be more upbeat but I want to get out of the jungle, see a beach, swim in salt water. That would feel good. 

We are casting off into a bit of a void but then we started doing that when we left Arequipa and came east to the Amazon basin. I need to put my big girls blouse on and get driving and lose the jitters. It will feel better when are under way. First stop a lake and maybe some waterfalls and the main road north toward Venezuela is paved. Yay. 

North to Boa Vista and Lethem, Guyana. And then this:

Packing Up

 We left the apartment Monday morning before eight; Rusty was walked and he knew we were leaving him as he watched us from the couch. I don’t think he was interested in leaving the cool apartment and indeed tomorrow we will probably have  to shoe horn him back aboard GANNET2 as we get on the road, and I know he won’t want to go. 

The doctor spent an hour going over Layne’s symptoms, her colonoscopy report from the US and her diet and happily he diagnosed a more sympathetic diet for her gut. No colonoscopy and no tests so we got a prescription and carte blanche to leave on Wednesday. First hurdle solved.

We tried two air conditioning places walking in and failing to generate any interest. What I couldn’t get across was that the air from the rooftop unit isn’t as cold as it should be but they said that’s normal in Manaus where the temperatures are absurd. We will have to live with that for now.

Now I want to take you food shopping at Carrefour Ponta Negra in Manaus. We took an Uber here from the air conditioning shop and picked up a few staples to take back to the apartment in another Uber. The cart rack had a sign in English and that’s my cue to go on a rant. Another one. Look below at the products listed for that aisle in the store. “Other flours” whatever that means. Pipioca? Huh?! Arroz is Spanish for rice so that’s okay. Realçadores? No idea what they are. 

Here’s the problem when you go shopping. The phone signal in here is so weak you can’t get online and to use Carrefour’s free WiFi you need to enter your social security number. The one foreigners don’t have but it’s a number every country has though why you need to use it to access free WiFi I could not possibly say. It’s one of those bureaucratic nonsenses that make me crazy in Latin American life.  Imagine entering your social security number in this situation. Would you? Me neither.

So I walk around with no access to the internet. I can mangle Spanish and I can speak Italian and I can read some basic Portuguese but shopping is a nightmare and I am learning how hard it is not to speak the local lingo. 

I saw some familiar Tabasco among the sauces and spices.  What fresh hell is this? No idea. 

I figured “saudaveis” is health food but how they pronounce the weird I have no idea. 

Maça means apple (manzana in Spanish). But I do know you pronounce the word “mashan.” And the fruit is not great here at $3:50 for two pounds, a lot of it is bruised and wilting like it spent a week coming up river on a barge in a hundred degree heat. 

Chatting with the doctor about the roads  he said it’s the barge owners that want to keep their monopoly and won’t allow proper roads to be built. For us it’s an annoyance but for the locals the cost and difficulty of transport has to be crippling. I’d be pissed paying premium prices to eat wilted broccoli and bruised apples and over ripe bananas.

They don’t hold back here either. You aren’t handicapped in Manaus; you are masculine but “deficient.” The Tower of Babel has a lot to answer for. and by the way if you deliberately expose yourself in the bathroom you can be jailed for between three months and a year. I could read that warning and it was on the women’s loo too in case you get any ideas. 

Our next hassle was getting an Uber. We left the store but the app wouldn’t let us arrange a pick up in the shopping center and we had a cart full of bags. In desperation I went into the motorcycle shop and contrived to explain the problem to a salesman who was typically Brazilian and to the time to not only use our app to order the Uber but sent a message to the driver to explain our exact and correct location. Then offered a shot hot sweet coffee from the shop thermos and walked out into the heat to make sure it worked out. It was a process that had us and the salesman and the driver all laughing together as we loaded the bags. There’s a lot to love in Brazil if not the language. 

And the driver was a young Venezuelan immigrant living with his brother for the past seven years in Brazil. He could actually speak Spanish so we talked about his life in Manaus where he makes a good living especially as Venezuela is such a mess. He was also a fan of President Trump for facing down President Maduro the dictator of Venezuela and interestingly he was certain the cost sunk by the US would have been running drugs as he said that area of Venezuela is notorious for doing that. It was a enlightening conversation. 

And by the way, you know “pollo” is chicken in Spanish, right? Guess what it is in Portuguese… would you believe: frango? I kid you not. Behold frango asado:

Oh and by the way we had a snack at the Carrefour cafeteria, and we had no idea what it was when we bought it. Behold a bulgar wheat rissole, and it was quite good:

Anyway here are few left overs from our meander through the store. Açougue. No idea what that is. 

Canned figs?! Quite popular apparently. 

And if you expect rapid service at checkout forget it.  Nothing to make you feel like an impatient gringo more than standing around in a glacial checkout line. It took forever. 

And so home to our temporary home. All I can think is they speak in English in Guyana. Can’t arrive there too soon. 

Our route, below. Drive on the left and speak English in Guyana and also in Suriname, formerly Dutch Guyana where English is also widely spoken. I’m flying to Europe to see my sisters from Paramaribo (para-marry-beau) the capital, in October. So we have a deadline. Layne gets to spend two weeks in the capital of Suriname with Rusty which should be easier than coping with Portuguese.