From Letitica, there are two ways out of the Amazon. The easy way we came in (by plane) or the hella more interesting way (by river.) Within those water options, there are two boats: One is the expensive “speed” boat, which still takes 36 hours to get to Manaus (the nearest city in Brazil with an airport) and costs about $160 USD/person. The second is the slow boat which takes ~72 hours and costs $57/person and includes all meals. The epitome of slow travel. After our splurge at Palmari, there was no question which we’d be doing. Plus, the adventure of stringing up a hammock and hanging with the locals for an extended period sounded pretty fun….in theory. 🤣

The boat we took is a classic-looking riverboat, which has three floors, open to the world outside.

Our journey would take us three days and three nights down the mighty river at a pace of about 10-20 mph. 

Finding information about this trip in advance was not exactly easy. Few bloggers have written about it, and the information out there is apparently susceptible to changing. Therefore, from Leticia we decided to walk down to the Brazil (ha!) in order to get the most current information from the horse’s mouth, Terminal de Embarque Fluvial – Portobrás in Tabatinga a few days prior. 

From the ticket agent, to the right of the door, we found out the slow boat leaves Tabatinga on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday around 12-2 pm and that you didn’t need to buy tickets in advance. Tickets could be purchased in Colombian Pesos or Brazilian Reales and by cash or credit although with credit, it’s 10% more. No thanks. Portuguese or Spanish is spoken. 

We came back the following Wednesday ready to go when they opened at 9:00 am and bought our tickets. (If we did it again, we’d go earlier.) The earlier you can get through this line, the quicker you can get a good place to string up your hammock. This line is the Brazilian police to ensure your passport has been stamped out of Colombia and into Brazil. 

But before you do all that, you probably need to do some shopping. Some must haves:

• a hammock (costs about $8-10)
• a food container with lid
• cutlery
• snacks. The healthier the better. You’ll be eating some Latin American basics for days.🤮 Also, vegetarians and vegans BEWARE!
• mosquito repellent
• ear plugs/eye mask
• locks for luggage 
• flip flops for showers 
• toilet paper 
• towel
• something to put on bread like jam or PB. You’re gonna get a lot of it.

Don’t need:

• water
• mosquito nets 

Our boat, awaiting to carry us away.

And like with any good cruise, they brand you with a bracelet. This must be so they know where to return you if you get lost in the Amazon.

We knew from talking to locals that the middle floor was best because it offered the most air flow, which is extremely important to avoid suffocating. Fortunately we heeded this advice and got this with no problems. 

However, if we had to choose again, we’d fight for: the right side, middle second floor, towards the back (but not too far back because of engine noise.) Other considerations: stay away from a TV which tends to stay on until the wee hours of the morning and always has movies with people killing each other. Cherry! Also, try not to get directly under a light which is basically advertising an open house for bugs. Haha. All this said, good luck finding the “perfect” place. 

All set up! We even had our own electricity port dangling in front of our faces for all our “needs”. To keep our backpacks safer, we locked our houses up…and together…which stayed directly under our feet while we slept with our most valuable things.

By this time, it was around 1:00 and we found out they wouldn’t be serving dinner until 5, so growing very hungry, we had no choice but to buy food from a local vendor peddling on board. Our choices? Pork, Pork, or pork. Ugh. And so it begins….

Greg, however, reluctantly dove right in using our fork. Because they only ever seem to provide you with spoons for a chunk of meat in this part of the world 🤣 Mandy settled for rice, beans and some snacks from our magic food bag…but soon she’d have no choice! 

“That is a LOT of water!” we both exclaimed as we arrived to the first port of Benjamin Constant which is only 30 minutes across the river from Tabatinga. Benjamin Constant was a 19th Century was surprisingly a Brazilian military officer and political thinker. 

The boat began to fill up very quickly at this point. Good thing we’re past the COVID craze. People on top of people! P.s. a fine example of Tommy Hilfiger knock-off. Look closer if you don’t see it. 

Because we were suddenly in Brazil, It was unfortunately challenging to communicate with our neighbors as well. The lady next to us actually also spoke Spanish, but she didn’t seem to want to use it and just kept reverting to an incessant Portuguese babble. This was despite Mandy incessantly smiling and babbling back, “no entiendo, no entiendo, no entiendo.” 😅

Our first official boat meal tasted like Dinty Moore beef stew from our childhood. Mmm. Can’t expect much for the price though! 

Ah, now this is better! The beer fairy has come to deliver. And no these $1 beers weren’t included, but our daily ration quickly became the afternoon highlight. They were purchased at the boat’s third floor shop which sold mostly junk food otherwise.

Along came dusk and with it, those little biches…yes, that is fittingly Spanish for …bugs. However, we quickly learned from the locals to cover your overhead light with a Tshirt, which worked wonders in keeping them from flooding your hammock. And, fortunately the mosquitos weren’t too bad…until the boat stopped moving when we stopped in the middle of the night. 😁

But the amazing thing about traveling down the Amazon? The sunsets. WOW!!!! 

After a rough first night in the hammock and a dinner of picked over beef stew,  we were optimistic that breakfast would be a whole new beginning. But as we began to see people walk out of the cantina with hot dogs, Mandy’s (yes, privileged) face fell disappointingly. Fortunately (?), they didn’t serve us hot dogs, however. They only served hot dog BUNS and a square of very questionable corn bread. 🤣 And the look on Greg’s face when he took his first sip of sugar-loaded coffee was absolutely priceless. Back to our snack bag to save the day! 👍🏻

It even included delicious mangosteens. 😋

The cantina (where the magic happens) after the hot dog bun distribution. 

Moving on, the boat also remarkably  had internet! For cheap! About a $1 for 2 gigs. But we had already loaded our devices with books, podcasts and plans, so we made a pact to stay internet free! The price of the boat, on the other hand, depends on the distance you travel. 

This time table told us approximately when the boat would be stopping. 

The stops are one thing that kept us up at night. The other thing? The little ones. In fact, we looked at each other in complete apprehension when this one set up hammock right next to us. But, the adorable newborn baby was not the issue. In fact, she was a complete angel doll that barely moved much less made a peep even when she wanted a suckle. 

No, siree. It was other mischief makers of apparent legal drinking Coca Cola age. But what a fun place to make a hammock fort?!? 

Taking your kid out for a walk. Another lady had a dog that she did the same with. We, of course also wondered where the dog did its business, til we nearly stepped in it. 

It was not easy for two on-the-go people to sit still in a hammock for three days, but it was good for us.

Lunch…one of the next four meals which would be beans, rice and frango, also known as chicken in Brazil. No. More. Chicken. 😅

Mandy. Brushing the frango out of her teeth. But the toothbrushing view…SO worth it!! How amazing to have a cruise down the Amazon for this price?!

In other highlights, in the bathroom you can see why you might want flip flops and toilet paper, but to be honest we were SO grateful just to have a shower at all. Admittedly, it was river water, but after two days of being bug juicy and sweat-soaked, we happily doused ourselves with the Amazon.

And when it rains in the Amazon? It POURS! So much that all the tarps have to come down creating a very suffocating and dark effect. 

In other fun, we made friends with the only other Americans on the boat, CC and Brian from Sacramento. Before we formally met, the couple was easily identifiable thanks to CC’s Hoka shoes, but we knew immediately we’d get along with them because…they were on the same boat. Naturally, we had a lot in common and the love of travel. 

In fact, Brian, a high school Spanish teacher, is the first person we’ve ever met who has been to every country on earth. Yes, that would be celebrity status to us. Dreamy. 🥰 We later got the opportunity to hang out with them more in Rio de Janiero. 

They even gave us a peek of their third floor “penthouse”…a shoebox of a room and bathroom, which cost triple the cost of our peasant palace in steerage. 

On our last night, just as the kids were the most hyped up on sugar and we were trying to wind down (seriously parents…how do you do it?!), the boat made a mystery stop that wasn’t on the schedule. Everyone started scuffling around as the captain made an incomprehensible announcement and started pinning their hammocks to the ceiling. They separated the women on one side and the men on another and for the next 1.5 hours, the Brazilian police and their sniffing dogs made the rounds. Unfortunately, as one of the few foreigners with heavily loaded passports we got a bit of a third-degree interrogation because our itinerary stories didn’t match exactly. In the meantime, the most traveled man onboard upstairs hardly got a glance. It clearly pays to stay in the penthouse. 🤣

After passing on more hot dog buns the next morning, the boat stopped once again. Whenever this happened, of course, everyone would rush to the railing. Because what else are we gonna do?! This time, we were shoulder to shoulder with another passenger boat that looked a lot like ours. 

Apparently, we served as the Carpathia to their sinking Titanic and the hundreds of passengers had been stranded for hours. For the record, they weren’t actually sinking and there were no icebergs that morning in the Amazon. It was “only” some sort of engine failure, and we got to rescue all of them and continue our joint voyage to Manaus arriving a few hours later. Fortunately the bottom level was nearly empty so it worked out fine for everyone. 

It must be old Rose waiting to tell her story!

There’s a lot of sarcasm in this post, but truly it was all worth it as we watched the world floating down one of the most magnificent rivers on earth. It was an incredible opportunity to live in the present. We’re so happy we did it. Would we do it again? Uh. Probably not. Would we recommend it? Absolutely. 

Arriving to the (not-so) sparkling city in the Amazon of Manaus. It is here that two great rivers meet, the cafe-con-leche colored Amazon and the straight coffee colored Río Negro, the largest black water river in the world. For 6 km the two rivers run side by side and fascinatingly don’t mix. We got to see traces of this as we arrived in the city, very ready for a lay flat bed and a non-river shower. What an amazing adventure!