Our Belem To Manaus Amazon Riverboat Cruise {Complete Travel Guide!}

SOUTH AMERICA

Planning our South American itinerary took months of preparation.

This included endless digging through other blogs and travel sites looking for the best things to do.

But before we set off, the thing I was by far most excited for, was our Amazon riverboat cruise on one of the local Manaus to Belem ferry boats

Setting The Scene.....

The Amazon in total is almost 7,000km in length and is the largest river in the world.

The Amazon river ferries that travel up and down are mostly frequented by the locals who want to travel from one town or another along the Amazon; such as the Belem to Santarem boat

TOP TIP:

We also roped our bags to a pillar so that people couldn’t steal them (this happens when local children board the boat and throw them overboard into the river and then jump in after them!)

DAY 1...

My first warning signal came when I went to check out the toilets. If you’ve seen the punishment box in Cool Hand Luke, then you’ll know what to picture; each toilet was a tiny 1 by 2 metre steal box with no windows and only intermittently working light and water supply

THE NEXT DAY

I’m sure you all know the feeling of diarrhoea, with nowhere to run to for at least 5 days is a horrible feeling

It was at this moment I remembered the toilet arrangements.

My heart sank, but I had no choice. I dared to visit and at that time of the morning things weren’t too bad and I managed to hold my breath against the smell for most of the experience

Our Australian Saviours

What Do You Do All Day?

It was nice to be able to take it easy and have long lie-in’s, though I think Cazzy held the record for about 15 hours in one 24 hour period!

We never actually made it to Manaus before me and Cazzy got off. The boat was so delayed that at the 2nd to last port we had the chance to get off and catch a 4 hour bus to Manaus. ‍

Cazzy eagerly jumped at this opportunity and off we went leaving the remaining prisoners (oops, passengers) behind

FIND OUT THE ENDING TO OUR UNIQUE... ADVENTURE & IF WE WOULD RECOMMEND IT..