Finally our pathetic little shipwrecked souls boarded the boat: Edwaudo III on the 31st. The image of us being on a deserted island was further dramaticized by the villagers yelling ¨viene una lancha! viene una lancha!¨ (a boat is coming!) when they saw the approaching boat in order to tip off the ladies and kids who run onto the boats to sell their various food items--fried fish, crackers, cake, fried bananas, etc--to the passengers.
It was 11pm, so we boarded the boat, put up our hammocks in the dark, and went to sleep. Waking up the next day floating down a river in a boat jam-packed with people wrapped up and sleeping side by side in hammocks felt surprisingly normal and peaceful. It was like waking up in a beehive or perhaps as a bat, hanging upside down in a cozy cave nook. It really is amazing how orderly and un-anxious it feels having so many people and so much going on in a relatively small amount of space. On 2.5 floors there were at least 150 people, 16 cows, one giant dolphin-looking fish which someone had sold to the boat via their canoe one day, some turkeys, and an unknown number of chickens, (no llamas unlike our first boat). With the wind from the boat, the temperature was quite comfortable.
Three times a day, the small kitchen would bang loudly on a pipe to alert everyone that the meal was ready. Everyone would grab their bowl or plate from home (or the street market) and run to get in line. Most meals consisted of a healthy portion of rice with some chicken and a boiled banana. The food was usually sold to the boat by people in the villages along the way who would approach the boat in their canoe carved from a tree trunk and stacked full (FULL) of bananas and other staples. The voyage was really pretty incredible--for about the equivalent of $25 you got meals, ¨housing,¨ and transportation for 2.5 days. There are even showers--albiet, just a spicket with likely river water coming from the ceiling just to the side of the toilet--but the cold water felt wonderfully refreshing. One has to be creative to figure out where to hang a towel, socks, soap etc, and how to do things like squat above the seatless toilet, hold a roll of toilet paper, and hold your pants up so that they don´t get wet from the filthy floor.
My days were spent falling asleep reading in the hammock, sleeping in the hammock, and waking up from sleeping in the hammock. I also spent a good number of hours sitting on one of the benches around the perimeter of the boat, staring out at the trees of the Pacaya Reserve--fully pregnant with coconuts and aguaje. The illustrious pink dolphins swam by in packs at times. At night, we played cards and fought off the mutant jungle bugs. I was happily surprised to meet a good number of travelers on the ship with whom to share the experience, from England, France, Spain, and New Zealand.
I wish I had pictures, but alas....no camera anymore :( I felt moderately reminded of my semester at sea--storm and all one night, except of course the accomodations were slightly less comfy on this short trip. All in all, I would DEFINITELY do it again!
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