Travel Diary: Northwards through the Amazon to Venezuela (January 2024)

Despite us having just spent 5 days doing nothing but laze around as we “cruised” up the Amazon river, on arrival in Manaus we were both shattered from the journey and so when we found a rather pleasant camping spot outside of town it was an easy decision to spend 2 nights andd have an “active” rest day in between. “Active” in that we could slowly potter through some jobs although one of those did result in Stuart hurting his shoulder when the drill slipped while he was trying to fix a bracket on Mr Jones snorkel.

In the buildup to the Amazon ferry trip we had run our supplies of fresh and frozen food down quite low as we weren’t sure where Mr Jones would be parked on the boat and if he would be able to receive enough solar power to maintain the fridge/freezer battery. Our intention had been to shop in Manaus before heading out and we had done some on arrival but had eventually called it quits when both of us started to exhibit warning signs “that enough was enough”, so after our rest day we had to make a 1 hour round trip back into town before being able to hit the road north.

Brazil generally has excellent gas stations/truck stops and for transit days they have become our go-to place to spend a night but as we discovered on the section from Manaus north to Venezuela this was not the case, with most possible stops being quite small and dirty. Late in the afternoon we pulled into one such spot just before the native Waimiri-Atroari Indian forest reserve as we had read that it was not allowed to drive the section through the reserve after a certain hour. The conductor of Mr Jones was feeling quite sorry for himself after a long hot day in the car as not only did he have a sore shoulder but was now suffering with a cold that he must have picked up on the boat, efforts were made to console him with a cold Fanta from the stations little kiosk followed up with a beer.

The efforts clearly worked as the following morning, he decided to drain and change Mr Jones coolant before we set off. The changing of the coolant had been on the to-do list ever since our less than satisfactory encounter with mechanics in Fortaleza, we had the 10litres of fluid necessary to do the job but had never been in a spot suitable to do the job as it is next to impossible to do without spilling at least half of the old fluid on the floor. With a dirt parking area and plenty of rain each day to dilute the impact, Stuart had decided that this little garage in the middle of the Amazon jungle was as good an opportunity as we may get for a while.

The drive through the Waimiri-Atroari reserve was spectacular in respect to the dense nests of the forest but sadly this also means you see very little other than a mass of green next to the road and it all tends to blend into itself. Just the other side of the reserve we crossed the equator (our 3rd time on this continent and so stopped for the obligatory photo). Compared to other equator “crossings” it was a very low key affair with no touts demonstrating the theoretical physical effects of being in the northern versus southern hemispheres and so forth.

Our overnight destination for that day was the National Park of Virua where we hoped to spend a few days and get the opportunity to soak up the sounds, sights and atmosphere of the rain forest. In order to visit you in theory need to send an email requesting this a few days before arrival but as we travel with no fixed itinerary we had only done this the day before and then since then had not had internet signal which meant the rangers were a bit surprised by our arrival, it was however not really an issue and easily solved by signing the manual register.

The campground is in a beautiful clearing in the forest but unfortunately it was oppressively hot (even by our standards) and so after only a very short while we decided it would only be a one nighter. An aspect that totally surprised and mystified us was how quite the forest was, we took a short walk into it and apart from the dense vegetation meaning you cannot see very far off the path to spot birds or wildlife we also heard no activity, apart from the briefest glimpse of a solitary monkey. It was so eerily quite that we actually could hear a leaf falling.

Two hundred kilometres south of the Venezuela border is the town of Boa Vista and it was here that we had or first (and thankfully only) opportunity to wander if visiting Venezuela was a sensible thing to do, the reason being it is home to some very large white tented refugee camps. That night though as we sat in a river to cool off from the days heat it was more, for us, about reflecting on our journey through Brazil: in total over our two visits we had spent 309 days in the country and visited 25 of its 26 states plus of course the Federal district of Brasilia, had countless fantastic experiences and only a few negative ones (mostly with regards diesel injector specialists). Sadly, after all those days our Portuguese is still terrible!

Muito Obrigado Brazil.