Tag: Vince Cullen

Just like my ‘self’, the Amazon River changes moment by moment. It is in a constant state of flow, changing it’s shape and direction. And just like my ‘self’, the river is impermanent; one day neither of us will exist in any shape or form.

When I was a young shipping clerk for Liner Shipping Agencies in Leadenhall Street in the City of London, I looked after ships coming from South America, including the Amazon Basin with transhipments to/from Belem, Manaus and even as far as Iquitos. I can vaguely recall a story about one of our Blue Star Line shipping containers being found somewhere in the jungle and no-one knew how it got there. When I was about 21 or thereabouts, I had an interview for the job of Head Office Representative in the Belem office. It was the type of company where it mattered which university you had attended. I never finished A-level studies let alone higher education. I didn’t get the job but I always remember that Belem has an Opera House. Maybe, I will come back one day and go to the opera.

Now we are underway, it is worth all of the hassle to just lay in my hammock watching the jungle go by. The boat from Iquitos to Santa Rosa/Tabatinga was fun but, to put it kindly, a rust bucket. This vessel from Tabatinga to Manaus is like a luxury liner in comparison! There is even onboard WiFi if you are prepared to pay for it.

The boat makes a stop somewhere after midnight but I am too tired to look. I wake up before 6 am. Some people are packing up to go. This part of the Amazon borders with Colombia. My new friend, Marina is French but speaks excellent Spanish and a smattering of Portugese, asks one of the crew what time we will get to Santa Rosa. He replies 12 o’clock. Both Marina and I were hoping to formally exist Peru in Santa Rosa and enter Brazil in Tabatinga in time to catch a boat to Manaus. My Yellow Fever vaccination is valid from today to I am allowed to enter Brazil. 

As the boat makes one of it’s many stops, nudging against the muddy riverside, a gangplank is dropped to eliminate the gap… and Bruce Springsteen can be heard from the bridge singing “…can’t start a fire without a spark”. This song always meant so much to me as a long-term nightshift worker, in fact, since the dawn of the smartphone it has been my ringtone.

I appreciate my good fortune. I don’t have much and I try not to suffer for what I don’t have. Someone once gave me a book called ‘Enjoy Every Sandwich” and that seems to be as good a purpose for life than any.

I explained to Luis my intention to take a slow boat to Santa Rosa (on the border with Colombia (Leticia) and Brazil (Tabatinga). He said he would send me the sailing schedule by WhatsApp, and he might even have a hammock that I would be welcome to take away. Luis also recommended the Amazon Bristo as a good place to eat… “down 8 blocks to the river then one and a half blocks to the left”.

When I was drinking alcoholically, maybe around my 21st birthday, I didn’t aspire or expect to live beyond the age of thirty. Although, I did stop drinking when I was 39 years old, I am still amazed that I doubled my own life expectancy to 60 and beyond. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Without using more superlatives it is a wonderful experience and the Peruvian authorities seem to have done a good job in managing numbers and directing visitors around the site. BUT the individual points of interest are not signposted, so unless you know what you are doing it is likely that you will walk past something you wanted to see, even by a few metres, and you are not allowed to backtrack. I had mistakenly walked past the Temple of the Condor and tried to walk back, only to be told ‘no’. A very kind Spanish speaking man tried to help by telling the attendant that I had come nearly 10,000 km to see this sight, I just wanted to backtrack 50 paces but still the answer was ‘no’!

Having taken about 150 trains across Europe and Turkey in the spring from the Atlantic Ocean (Tralee, Ireland) to Lapland (Narvik, Norway) to the Mediterranean (Algeciras, Spain) to the Armenian/Iranian borders in Turkey (Kars/Kapikoy), so I was really looking forward to this special train journey.