2022 Trans Amazonian Motorcycle Adventure: Day 33

It is nice to wake up in a nice hotel again. Although there is something to be said about experiencing and living in close contact with a country’s real self … basic food, real people, dusty, unkempt, alive, and true ... it is also nice to resurface to a nice cafe com laite and a croissant.

After breakfast, we went to explore the old city of Belem.

Visited the botanical gardens with its tall central tower and great views of the city and the port. Saw how Açaí is processed from seed to smooth pudding, had ice cold coconuts (my new vice), and explored the old streets and alleys by the shore.

Seeing how big and developed Belem is after what we went through crossing the Amazon basin makes you wonder why a city like this grew exactly here.

One possible explanation is that economic development is always easier in a nice natural quiet harbor like this one ... close to the ocean ... at the confluence of mighty rivers that run for thousand of miles ... at the Eastern most part of South America and closest point to Europe ... for when the Portuguese were trying to figure out what to do with all this newfound land.

At the Presepio Fort Museum, stories of the tribes that inhabited this area, their cannibalism, their forced conversion to Christianity, their enslavement, and, ultimately, their complete annihilation makes you think about why these terrible things keep happening over the ages.

It must be a natural part of the universe's evolution diktat. But, I still wonder that if all this ugliness is all built into the flow of things, what is the point? Where are we going? What happens in 1,000 years or in 10,000 years?

We then walked into the Plaza do Relogio with its colorful houses, plazas, and boats, and visited the fish market, full of weird looking sea and river things. Lots of signs of the old Portuguese colonial days.

Then we got a message that our boat was leaving today not tomorrow and we only had a couple of hours to go back to the hotel, pack, and make it to port with our motorcycles.

The loading of the boat was a unique experience in itself. Very organic and chaotic ... with wood planks as ramps, ropes, and lots of people yelling and pulling and pushing and shoving and tossing all kinds of things to get everything that needed to be loaded loaded into every nook and cranny of that boat.

It was sight to see that only brought a smile to my face. Like a dance, or futbol, or jazz ... all the participants just feel all the other participants to create amazing beauty out of nothing.

The loading of the truck was dodgy for a moment ... had to remove the roof rack and lower the tire pressure for the truck to get in ... only one inch to spare.

The boat had 4 decks ... one below the water line filled with fruits, vegetables, and miscellaneous supplies and boxes ... one at dock level for motorcycles and about 10 cars ... and 2 decks above for the 500+ passengers and their hammocks ... and in the back of the top deck, a bar with incredibly loud music in typical Brazilian fashion.

All this was loaded in about 4 hours in the relentless heat and humidity of a typical afternoon in Belem.

This whole thing brought back a lot of memories of when Alexandra and I were trying to get on our boat in Baku to cross the Caspian Sea on our Trans-Asia adventure. Organized chaos with no schedules or timetables.

As we finally departed, we watched the city disappear as we headed into the depths of the rivers for our journey north ... and settled to enjoy a beautiful amazonian sunset.

We should arrive in Macapa in 24-36 hours.