The appeal of taking slow boats up the Amazon While still young children we must all have learnt that the Amazon is the biggest river in the world, along with Everest being the highest mountain and that bears shit in the woods. But once you’re on a boat in the middle of it, you soon realise that big is too small a word to do justice to its awesomeness: at times you struggle to even see the other side, that’s…
In Britain we have borrowed mañana, the Spanish word for tomorrow, to describe that relaxed approach to timekeeping that becomes more apparent as you travel south in Europe, a characteristic that some would say only strengthens as you continue in the direction of the tropics. Once you cross the Mediterranean it mutates into the Arabic, “boukra in sha Allah” (tomorrow God willing), that delightful method of politely declining all future commitment by outsourcing the occurence of all events to the…
The nightlife of Manaus, Brazil. Saturday night and it was party time outside the Manguieras bar, cockroaches from near and far had congregated in an erratic, scuttling dance formation around the warm stench of the drain to soak up the vibes and the bounty of decaying matter on offer. Grinning senior citizens strutted carefree to the four-piece band, the singer enthusiastically demonstrating an equally carefree attitude to harmony; the musicians expressing one of those Brazilian styles that demands only a…
