VIVA BRAZIL
- 26 Jan 08, 05:01 PM
Posted from:Tabatinga
We left the buzzing city of Iquitos at 06.00am this morning having said goodbye to Steve, Willow and Angel the night before. Bruce, Pete and I are joined by the new fixer Marco for a day-long boat ride across the border into Brazil to start film three
Marco is an unusual mix of fish scientist and ex-Brazilian army sergeant and everything is organised to military standards as he bounds about with enthusiasm.
We arrive at the busy dockside with a huge pile of equipment cases and it鈥檚 loaded onboard a high-speed, 30-seat passenger speedboat. The police are present and instead of being there to help watch over our kit they use sniffer dogs to check it for drugs.
After four hours we stop at a small police post and the boat is swamped by armed police wearing sunglasses, who check through some of the cases. Once they鈥檙e happy it鈥檚 back on the boat and another three hrs till we reach the border.
On the border we stop in a small riverside encampment to have our passports stamped. After three months of travelling we have now officially left Peru and are in Brazil! There is no difference in the river, just the same green trees and occasional group of houses either side. The boat is incredibly smooth and even has a roof and leather reclining seats so when it starts to rain there is none of the usual behaviour having to curl up under plastic sheeting.
This is not at all what we are used to or will have from hereon in so we all make the most of it. We now have just 20 minutes on the boat until we reach the small town of Tabatinga to meet up with the new production team who are flying in from the UK.
By the way, a big HI from the Amazon to my nephew LUKE NORMAN who I know is following this adventure with interest on the website!
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