Parle vous French Fry

Brenda had read that fuel was way cheaper in Fr. Guyana so we did not bother to fill up on the Brasil side, even though the warning light had been on for a few kilometers already. We did find the Police Federal building where we could get our passports stamped, but not for another hour because they are closed from 12 until 2pm. While we waited we found the ferry terminal which was also closed until 2pm.



Back to the Police station and at 2pm, not a minute sooner the gate opens and a group of people step inside where we are greeted by an officer. He collects all the passports and then goes inside the building, we all wait outside in the heat. He returns in about 10minutes with our documents and we are on our way to the ferry. R$120 each for the 10 minute ferry ride across to St.George, Fr. Guyana. There were no other cars on the ferry so I am not sure how they make any money transporting two bikes.

Now the fun begins, once off the ferry we ask where to get our passports stamped. One of the dock workers replies in good English, turn right at the big Mango tree and the Police station is on the left. Okay, down the street we go and into the police station parking lot. An officer sticks his head out the door and we ask if this is where we get our passports stamped, he makes some arm gestures and says something in French. Ah crap, yet another language to figure out. It is actually embarrassing to admit how little French we understand when it is our second official language. In any event I thought he said to go to the next block or something, there is another Police station on the GPS so we go there and try our luck. They send us 6km out of town to the bridge that is completely constructed but not open. It has been like this for years. Once at the bridge the officer tells us in English that we should be at the first police station for passport stamps, he even phones to make sure. Back on the bikes we go however we are very low on fuel, a little too low in fact because Brenda runs out just before town, I did not notice that she was not behind me and made it to the Police Station. I wait for a while but no Brenda, great, back on the bike and start backtracking. There she is pushing her bike along the road, good that she is ok, I take off to the gas station to get some fuel. The only gas station in town is closed for the day and on the way back I run out of fuel. Now we are both pushing our bikes down the road. Son-of-a-@#*. Well apparently the first police officer was telling us to park on the other side of the building, not other side of the block. We get our documents stamped, and they do not ask for proof of insurance.

Good bye Brasil

Now we just have to push our bikes to the Hotel and wait for the gas station to open in the morning. Good thing it is a small town and it is only 3 blocks from the Police station to the Hotel. We roll up in fashionable style, sweating and smelly I’m sure. We are quickly approached by a drunk guy on a bicycle asking where we are from and if we need a place to stay .I think he was offering for us to stay at his house but this was all a bit too weird for me. I brushed him off and proceeded to try and check into the hotel, which was closed, at least for a few hours more according to the drunk guy. Then a young traveller walked up and helped with the situation. He had been waiting since noon for the hotel to open, and when he had called they said at 4pm, as did the drunk guy. It was now 4:30 and still no sign of opening, maybe at 5pm. So we sit and wait, then the traveller suggests that we may be able to buy gas from the boat Captains, this makes sense and would allow us to ride out to the gas station instead of taking a cab or walking or whatever. This seemed logical that they would have a bit of extra fuel for their boats.

A little bit of bike pushing for exercise and humility.

Drunk guy on left, traveler in middle, dirty bike guy on right.

So begins the mini-adventure. I talk with one Captain then another, and finally a friendly little guy motions for me to get in his boat and he would take me to get some fuel. Back in Brasil. Okay, illegal entry into Brasil for a few minutes should be okay. He takes me across the river first where we drop off a person, then we go downriver to a small village general store and buy some fuel from a barrel, then back across the river to pick up a passenger and back to St. George.

Our Hotel for the night. All closed up in the middle of the day.

By the time I return, Brenda is just checking into the hotel that is now finally open. It is almost 5:30pm.

Welcome to France.

A little bit of mud.

But for now, we keep moving and the early Sunday morning depart from Macapa means there is very little traffic. It is a beautiful morning with some puffy clouds to keep the heat manageable. The goal for today is Calcoene, which is not much of a town although they do have an airport, gas station (with no gas) and a couple of hotels and shops. The terrain and foliage is tropical and we see our first Water Buffalo, doing what they do, wallowing in mud.

Another little river to cross.

There is not much to see along the way other than livestock. The villages we pass through are very rough and dare I say primitive. Not shooting arrows at us primitive but very basic houses and no care about curb appeal. So basically the poorest of the poor. By the time we reach Calcoene it is once again raining and we pick the best looking Pousada we can find. It turns out to be a very nice room with white tile floors, comfy bed and of course much needed a/c. The desk clerk rambles on in something that is a mix between Portuguese and Creole. Very confusing. We ask about a restaurant and he just laughs and points down the street. I take this as there is only one in town and it is over there, you know, that-a way. When we actually go out to find it we realize that he may have meant there are none and his arm flap was in reference to the next town or something. Either way we walk around the town, taking sneaky pics of stuff and end up back at the hotel. Luckily Brenda smuggled some goodies from the breakfast buffet in Macapa and we ate that for supper.

I spend a bit of time before dark checking over the bikes in preparation for tomorrow’s journey to St. George. This will be our first long stretch of dirt road in a while and with the rain falling we hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Youtube has become a great resource for viewing road conditions via other peoples video posts. This section is BR156, and if the videos are a wide variety from dry season to rainy season. We are technically starting into the rainy season but it has been a drier year thus far. It still rains almost everyday but not for very long, and the afternoon heat dries things up. I check the chains, the suspension, the list of bolt locations that see stress, and of course tires/brakes.

Some locals passing by the Hotel.

After all that, it is time to clean up and turn in. Oh wait, the hotel owner wants us to move our bikes so that he can back his SUV up against them for security. He mentions that if given the chance or temptation then the locals will steal what they can get away with. Great, now try to sleep.

Ah ya, What the hell is it, and we are glad it is dead.

Yay, a good heavy rain wakes us in the morning and by the look of the sky it is not going to stop soon. We eat our breakfast and suit up for what will now be a muddy ride to Oiapoque. The pavement ends just outside of town and the red dirt road takes over for the next 115km. 

We are pleasantly surprised that the road is still firm but the surface has been packed with a Sheepsfoot Packer. This is great except every dimple is full of red clay soup which makes a mess but is not overly slippery. The drizzling rain continues all day and by the time we reach Oiapoque we are just a little bit dirty, so when we arrive in town we are covered with red clay dirt. 

Sheepfoot packer.

Pavement to Dirt interface.

This dirty and only half way through the dirt section.

The Ferry terminal is not very well marked and we drive around a bit looking for it, we even ended up going to Victoria thinking it was over there, but that was just a mistake and waste of fuel.

Ferry Terminal loading area.

Time to Float the Amazon.

So as expected the little cabin was hot as hell without the a/c running which made for a restless and sticky night with only the gentle rocking of the boat to help us sleep. We wake to a bunch of action onboard as the crew preps for the 24hr journey across the Amazon River to Macapa. 

First we have to rearrange the parking of the boats so that our large boat is against the dock again. Of course this is done with the South America factor in full swing. They have all the space one could ask for out on the river, but instead they try to turn all three boats at once 180°, as close to the pier as possible. This also means very close to other boats. With much yelling, and I am sure cursing, they manage to swing all three boats around and only scraped one neighboring boat. Then they started stocking the kitchen, loading beverages, general cargo, and at some point last night two cars got loaded onto the lower level by our bikes. Huh? Some of the pedestrian traffic is also loading even though the boat does not leave for at least 4 more hours. Then we realize that they are doing this to secure hammock space. We are amazed at all the cargo that keeps getting carted to the end of the pier (in what roughly resembles a flatbed rickshaw) and then carried into one of the three boats by men with large shoulders.

The horn blasts and within a couple of minutes we are pushing off. Much to our surprise the two smaller boats had pulled away without us noticing. They bobbed in the river waiting for us to get out of the way so  they could once again dock and load. Yay, we are officially floating the Amazon. Ship life is foreign to us as we have never been on a 24r ferry or a cruise ship. This is a relatively larger boat I suppose, some of the others at the dock were much smaller, we don’t have much in regards to entertainment except for the passing scenery as we navigate between mangroves and islands. There are small villages, and random jungle huts scattered along the route. 

Ocassionally the engines slow to an idle as a smaller boat pulls up along side and we receive or lose a passenger, float-by loading shall we say. The entertainment really picks up when a boat load of cargo ties off to us and the “pitch and catch” starts, the most interesting is the boat loads of Acai berries. These get stacked in separate lots on the vehicle deck, separated by lathe panels. We take Acai as a antioxidant supplement back in Canada but never thought we would see the raw product being loaded as we float along the river. It is an organized and efficient bucket brigade process and quickly the little boat is cut loose and the engines return to full power.

Step 1. Tie boats together.

Step 2. Transfer Cargo.

Step 3. Secure cargo in segregated area.

This goes on for most of the day and after finishing our leftovers and bagged lunches we decide to call it a night. It gets dark here at 6pm so there is not much to see except the occasional hut with a light on or maybe a small string of Christmas lights. Power is scarce and usually supplied by solar panels or a diesel generator.

Our little room is like trying to sleep inside a fridge, the a/c is piped directly from the engine room and there is no way to close the vent as the baffles are either missing or to loose to stay in the closed position. So compared to last night where we were sleeping in our silk liners, for sanitary reasons as the mattresses are not clean, and sweating to the point of dehydration to sleeping under our riding gear to try and stay warm. All in all, two night of very little restful sleep. Good thing breakfast is at 6am because there is not much chance of sleeping in and with the sun up we can take in more sights along the river, when the banks are within view. This is after all a very wide river, even at the narrow parts.

Before we know it we are pulling into the Port of Macapa, offloading the bikes and riding off into town to find a hotel. It is 2:30pm and we decide it is not worth trying to push it today. Instead we find a nice hotel, get out of our now stinky riding gear and take a quick walk around town. Macapa is on the equator, just like Quito Equador, except they do not promote it as a touristy thing here. There is a small “park” dedicated to the Equator but that is about it. We tuck in early as we are exhausted from the heat and the last couple of restless nights.

Supper on a street corner in Macapa. It tastes good despite the look on my face.:)

Breakfast is early which is fine because we want to make some miles before it gets overly hot. Full on Brazilian breakfast was a welcome sight after the coffee and bread we were served onboard the boat. We wrestle our riding gear into submission and get outside quickly to avoid creating the PigPen cloud of filth around us, you know the little guy from Charlie Brown who always has a cloud of dust following him, that is us with the added bonus of “au du hockey equipment bag” aroma. We really gotta find a laundry mat.

Time to catch a boat.

Belem, here we come. This is where the adventure starts for this part of the journey. We are to catch a ferry/boat in Belem that takes us to Macapa, 24 hours across the Amazon and Para Rivers. But first we have to find it, Belem turns out to be much larger than anticipated and that means lots of traffic. Light to light driving is not fun in 35C weather, wearing full riding gear. We try to make like the locals and split lanes but at times our bikes don’t fit and we just cause a traffic jam for the local bikes. A couple of those and a bump or two from a car and we decide to sweat it out in the lane instead of risk an accident. The GPS shows a pretty good route to the docks and after a bit of swearing, I mean sweating, we pull off into a parking lot along the waterfront to get our bearings. We are quickly approached by a friendly gentleman trying to sell us passage on a boat.

I tell him we are looking for the Almirante do Mar/Macapa, and he points to the office across the boulevard. The office sign is Macapazon Tours. So after a quick discussion I go with the guy and negotiate passage for us and the bikes. I don’t like to take the first offer before shopping around but this place is a zoo and it is very hot. 

What negotiations look like and feel like.

The numbers are negotiated and the deal is done, then the lady in the office writes an address or two on the ticket and says “Navio Embarko” and points at the addresses. We had written a few notes back and forth and it was decided that we would load the bikes at 3pm this afternoon, then we would stay onboard over night and the boat would leave at 10:30am the next day. This was sounding ok, to us as we did not have to rent a hotel room and we would stay close to the bikes. So game on, lets try to find the boat amoungst one of the largest port cities in Brasil. Oh, and now it is raining to boot.

The white boat is the one we need.

And we are onboard.

We did cheat a bit with some GPS co-ordinates that we downloaded last night at the truckstop. Thankfully we did that because the address on the ticket was useless due to lack of road signs plus the fact that this place is a zoo and now it is raining, but good thing it is still 35°C. We bump along through traffic and past the Mercado, which is nice to see but the fish market was a bit ripe. Then we start making a bee line to the coordinates. The first dock is pretty close, we just need to be on the other side of the building, so back out into the street and around the block and up to the second dock. Success, we see the boat, but it is on the other side of a similar sized boat that is being overhauled. I get off the bike and walk over to see if I can find the Captain or a crew member. I find a few guys welding on the project boat and by the time I get back to the bike, about 50ft, there is a weathered looking dude in shorts and flip-flops there to greet me. I say, Embarko Almirante, and he turns and yells something unrecognizable and then walks towards the boats motioning for us to follow. I push my bike along behind him and as you would guess he pull a plank from somewhere and lays it from the dock into the project boat and points “that way”. Fairly universal language what needs to happen. The plank is about 12 inches wide but only about 1” thick, I bounced on it quickly and it seemed very strong for its dimensions. When in Rome. I grabbed by bike and wheeled it across the plank into the project boat where the welder stopped to check out the action of this big bike rolling through his boat and off the other side into the Almirante. Then repeat the process with Brenda’s bike and we are “embarked”. Well wasn’t that easy.

After that the Chief Steward gave us our cabin key and we got settled into the little cabin. This of course is supposed to be air conditioned and with a private bath, all this would be in order if the ship’s engines are running, not so much with the engines off tied to the dock. So, the room was very hot but the water in the bathroom did work so it was not a total loss.

Not very glamorous accomodations.

Due to the location of the dock, we were not in the nicest area of town. This is not like a cruise ship that anchors on a big pier and there are vendors and such waiting for the flood of passengers to come off the boat. We are anchored in a shipyard, where the most exciting thing is watching people fix boats and such. There is a friendly porter fella that we later learn is named Martins, he escorts us through the streets in the area to a local eatery where we can get some food. He makes a big fuss with the owner and chef who is sitting outside the restaurant in a plastic chair, with no shirt on. Mr. Chef did put on a shirt before going into the kitchen which we considered a very good thing, even better would have been a reasonably clean shirt. 

We wait and watch as our food is being prepared and within a few minutes we are presented with a breakfast sized plate of chicken and another with rice, spaghetti, and fried beans. Everything was very tasty and the chef’s son came along when we were finished and said “Thank You”, he learned to speak English in school.  Martins re-emerged from the conversation he was having with some other locals and escorted back to the boat, or at least where the boat was. This made us a little nervous, then we laughed that you could not have planned this any better. We leave all our stuff on the boat, go for supper, and the boat disappears. After a few minutes wait, we see the boat chugging back to the pier. They tie off on the outside of two other boats, making it nearly impossible for us to load the bikes if we had not done it earlier. We decide to stay on the boat for the rest of the night, just in case it decides to go for another trip somewhere with our stuff.

Storm brewing over the city.

A Thousand Shade of Green...part 2

After riding out of the twisty mountains we are hit with a Patagonia force wind blowing us around on the coastal highway BR101 as we arrive into the largest city we have encountered this trip. 

Florianopolis, and I don’t mean just a large name the city is a sprawling maze of freeways that pretty much covers the entire Santa Catalina Island. This maze allows quick access to the over 50 beaches around the island, so picking one should be pretty easy, and thanks to booking.com we find a nice place on the beach. The weather was not as cooperative and that crazy wind we were riding in also brought clouds and cool ocean air. That plus it was almost 6pm by the time we got to the hotel and by that time the beach is over for the day. Sorry boys, no Brazilian bum pictures, just use google and you get the idea.

The reason the beach was not occupied by g-strings.

Our humble abode for the night.

Due to a somewhat aggressive schedule we are up early, eating another fabulous breakfast and hitting the road before 9am. We are on our way to Blumeneau which is known for its German influence complete with Oktoberfest. There are people dressed in character of traditional German heritage that walk around and entertain the kids. This area is also part of the clothing manufacturing center and as we approach the city there are numerous huge malls with bus loads of people at each one. We asked at the hotel and it is factory direct pricing and no taxes so it is very popular for people to make a holiday destination of it, plus it is just before Christmas so lots of presents to be bought.

Sights along the way.

We arrived early enough in the day to do a bit of walking and snooping, but we retire back to the airconditioned room after a nice supper. Geez it is hot here, even in the evenings it does not cool down much from the daytime high.

The next few days are just commuting days so there is not much to tell, we are aiming for Belem in the North East of Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazom River. There we will catch a boat of some sort to Macapa on the other side of the river. But until then we pass through some very lush sub tropical landscape. We are treated by fresh fruit along the roadside, very nice and inexpensive hotels, and of course great food everywhere. The Brazilians must take their food very seriously because there is no skimping on the breakfasts or any meal for that matter.

While in Ponto Grossa, our desk clerk spoke English, which he learned from watching TV, Music videos, and some studying in school. We have met many people who said they learned by watching TV, when we watch TV down here it is hard to even pick out where the sentences stop/start. I can’t imagine learning Portuguese via TV shows.

From Ponto Grossa we end up in Lins, and once again a self taught desk clerk greets us and later helps us print some forged insurance cards for French Guyana. Very helpful although I don’t think he would have helped if he had really understood what we were doing. FYI the insurance for French Guyana is very expensive and who knows if it is actually any good. It would cost us 118 Euros each for the five days we would be in the country, thus the creative solution. Today I installed a keyless entry system on my bike. The ignition wires are known to break off and today was the day. We had just passed through a toll booth when my bike died and would not start again. Somehow I immediately knew it was the ignition and reaching down below the key I wiggled some wires and the bike would start, then promptly stop. Okay, going to have to fix this properly which means pushing the bike about 100meters to some shade off the edge of the highway. There I could install a basic toggle switch in place of the key, lucky for us the bike has a two wire ignition.

The highlight of the day was a fresh pineapple stand along the road. A whole pineapple cut and ready to eat out of a dirty dish in a shack under some bamboo will run you about $2CAD. The pineapple was bigger than Brenda’s head so we ended up with some leftover pieces to pack and eat later. Itumbariara, was literally just an eat and sleep spot. We asked the desk clerk to order us a pizza and we ate that in the hotel cafe as we had no interest in getting back on the bike to find a restaurant. There was a wedding in town that night as most of the other quests were very nicely dressed, girls all fancied up and the men all wearing suits. I guess the Brazilians take weddings serous because we heard some people coming in at 4am while others were still arriving when we were eating breakfast at 6:30.

A nice spot to have a snack, this was at a truckstop along the way.

I know how crazy is that, us eating breakfast at 6:30am when we are on holidays. Not very good planning on our part. However due to the weather an early start is warranted plus it is raining and that usually slows us down a bit. We see our first shanty town along the highway today, not very big but it drives home the message of how much income disparity there is in this country. Another first today is that we pass through the aluminum pot manufacturing town, at least it seems that way based on all the vendors selling shiny new cookware. It was raining most of the day which was a good test for our waterproof riding gear, we both upgraded this year which allows us to not be troubled with packing and putting on rain gear. The new duds hold up great and we are both dry by the time we reach Uruacu –My kind of town, it is “Sunday at the bar for locals” as all the other businesses are shutdown for the day and a majority of the locals just hang out in the streetside bars drinking beer and watching soccer, sorry Futball.

How is your aim? Maybe the worst bathroom in Brasil.

It was raining inside almost as much as outside. The poles were needed to hold up the roof.