I write you from the drizzly, steamy city of Belem do Para. It smells like sweat socks here, but I love it anyway, because it signifies (drum roll........................): the End of the Amazon! Woo Hooo! Yes that is right, after 40 days and 40 nights (okay, that is a lie, I have simply lost count) I have finally managed to float, limp and bumble my way down the earth's biggest river. Triumph! It is more of a trophy accomplishment than anything else, because in the end it consisted of little more than spending obscene amounts of hours in hammocks, staring at monotonous scenery, thinking about food. But all the same, allow me to pretend it was an amazing adventure, and dazzle you with tales of my jungle prowess.....

I began this journey with Dex and David at Yurimaguas, the Peruvian headwaters of the Amazon. It has been weeks or sleeping in hammocks on riverboats, charming showcases of *alternative hygiene*....Hundreds of passengers crowd together on the slippery decks, and string their hammocks up in rainbow tangles. For days we live side by side, and come to resemble emaciated, sallow eyed prisoners of war, all lumped on top of each other in barracks. It is hot beyond words. If even one person has gas, we all suffer. Add this to the snoring, the cigarettes, and the usual facets of foulness, and what you have is one seething pit of humanity, floating down a river.

Laziness, atrophy, and sloppiness reign. Hours spent in flat lined contemplation. We are stuck in this little corral, so no one ever venture to explore far beyond the radius of their hammock. (Well, obviously Dex climbs on the roof, jumps off the boat, gets in trouble at every port, and creates a general nuisance level that serves to bond the other passengers together. But he is an exception.)

The days are punctuated only by reluctant soirees to the bathroom. There are more than three hundred passengers, but only one toilet. This means that one one has to wait an excruciatingly long time in a shuffling line in order to enjoy the privilege of having their shit and piss co-mingle with everyone else's in the nasty communal stew brewing in the tiny, sweltering bathroom. So gross! I opted for dehydration rather that have to endure that. Of course, men are more anatomically fortunate in this regard, and often forgo the formalities and simply piss off the side of the boat. This is understandable, but I do wish that some of them would take a moment to realize that they ought to piss off the BACK of the boat, because when one pisses off the front, the wind just blows it right back through the window and showers us with it. So lovely!!

In the night the boat navigates without any lights. Occasionally someone will pull out a flashlight, and then the boat will swerve back on course. It seems a little funny that they wouldn't just spring for a light. Their generator could certainly support it. I know this because, for twenty four hours a day we are treated to deafening music, blasted from a speaker conveniently situated directly over my hammock. When we aren't listening to Selena's Greatest Hits album, we are treated to disembodied soundtracks to movies we would never voluntarily sit through. They are projected on a small TV screen far away through the dense thicket of hammocks. We have heard an assortment of Jean Claude Van Damm movies, as well as White Chicks, and Seed of Chucky. I cannot convey how eerie it is to be in this maggotty pile of semi-corpses, listening to the highly amplified sound of machine guns, explosions, and petty girls screaming. It is so weird that there is no option but laughter. And laugh we do!

The main joy comes from eating. We are low level grazing all day. Peanuts, salty crackers, any number of semi-edible local fruits. Whenever we pull into a new port, food vendors flood the passenger deck, picking their way through the hammocks to bring us mysterious, stomach turning entrees wrapped in banana leaves. Sometimes in life one eats until full. I find that on the boats I just eat until my consciousness creeps back, and I can no longer deny the grossness of what I am putting in my mouth. Here in the jungle, most typical dishes seem to involve fermentation. I approached it with an open mind until I could no longer deny the obvious.....all this food is rotten!

Dex and David embraced the grime. Whereas I did all in my power to cling to the last vestige of basic hygiene, the two boys were locked in this bit of male competitiveness to see who could up the ante and maintain a higher threshold of nastiness. As far as I am concerned, they both win the gold medal. It would be tricky to tell who is grosser. David got to an early lead with his announcement that he had a fungus problem, and his apologies for smelling like three-day-old pussy. Dex caught up swiftly though. After he got the parrot his clothing became adorned with paisleys of bird shit. Then when the bird died, Dex pulled ahead in grossness, with his insistence on keeping the decomposing parrot with us (in a gift-wrapped box, no less).
When David sung the virtues of going barefoot, Dex did not shy away from the challenge. So the two abandoned their flip-flops for good, and for weeks ventured through the harbor slime (which consists mainly of rotten fruit, feces and fish bones). Lucky me, I get to sleep in a hammock between them, with these gorgeous feet in my face. They smell like that juice that seeps out of trash bags that you neglect to take out to the curb.

I tried to bathe everyday, but the only water available comes from the polluted river. It flows brown from the tap. One must suspend belief for a moment, and pretend that it really makes you cleaner. After a month of bathing in river water, I am not sure I can call my hair blond anymore. David, an earth loving hippy, looks at me condescendingly as I fight the ravaging forces of dirtiness. He is going through that phase where he believes (to paraphrase in a really disparaging way) that embracing grime is the surest path to godliness. He looks sorry for me if I eat white sugar or (gasp!) wheat flour ("worshipping the white goddess" he called it) . He is proud of wearing the same shirt for over a year. Instead of applying ointment to the bulbous patch of fungus on his knee, he named it. And damn him, his posture is so good! Even though he is covered in ringworm and heat rash, he still - through the powers of the subconscious - succeeds in making me feel like an unenlightened troglodyte. Grr!

By this point it is all a blur, and I have rambled on much to long. To sum it up, Dex and David did some calculations and figured out that they couldn't continue on to Belem. They turned north to hitchhike to Venezuela. Iwill miss their antics and their distinct odors.

And as all travelers know, it is nearly impossible to travel alone. On the very next boat I met a sparkling handful of new friends. This boat was much cleaner and ineffably Brazilian. We drank cocktails and played Chess and tossed our heads back in laughter as we reinvented ourselves in the Amazonian sunset. AH, and samba music. Five days of this, and we are in Belen. I can smell the Atlantic! This chapter of the journey is nearly complete.

On this last boat I became friends with a bubbly Galecian named Olga.(call her Spanish and she will correct you in an instant! She is as proud as a Basque!) She is a sailor, floating around the world. She jumped over to Venezuela from the Canary Islands, and now she wants to find her way to Mozambique. I love her. Tomorrow we set out hitchhiking together to Recife. I am so pleased to be traveling with such a powerful woman. (and, joy of joy, she bathes!!) She is looking for a sailboat that will take her to South Africa. It is tempting to me. I am wondering if I can fake my qualifications and get on a boat as well. Wouldn't that be crazy, to sail to Africa? Ah, we shall see!
For now, I leave you, once again, to go eat chocolate.

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