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The Brazilian Amazon
April, 2008
From here I remember enjoying a nice lunch and then resorting to the usual activity when the boat is moving - sleeping in the hammock. It was very hot during the day, and extremely humid. For the most part, this made miserable conditions, but when the boat was going the breeze was wonderful. We had been told we were foolish for hanging our hammocks near the front of the boat because we would get wet first during a rain. I still feel that the unhindered breeze we enjoyed more than made up for a few drops of water here and there. Well, today was no different. We were soon all fast asleep in a food coma, enjoying the cool breeze and the gentle rocking of the hammock as the boat chugged away. At some point it did rain and the blue rain tarps were dropped, robbing us of our breeze and creating a bit of a sweat box. I must have been tired that day because I don't remember waking until I was almost tossed out of my hammock by a crashing jolt. I woke up wondering what happened, but soon forgot when I realized we were actually at the next village. That nap was too short...
We had arrived at the village Aiaura. It was a small place, full of friendly people and we saw 72 patients this afternoon.
The Castello Guides IV, snugly docked at Aiaura.
Our clinic.
Odo, Tariq and Milton borrowing some chairs.
Have I mentioned that Brazilians love to give the "thumbs up"? I still wonder what it really means...
A line forms quickly...
Bob Esponga!
Max
Ben
How many ER docs does it take to look in an ear...
Trouble brewing...
Tasty treat
Unknown catepillar
bunny ears remain universal, and funny.
More bunny ears...
Castello Guides IV before the storm...
This kid tought me some portuguese.
I found some flowers.
Cute as a button...
And we started a townwide trash pickup.
So as we went to leave, we found out the boat had actually rammed the shore rather hardly earlier (remember my rude awakening?!?) and we were strongly stuck. After emptying the boat, trying to push it off the shore, using the speedboats to tug it and breaking a few pieces of lumber we were finally able to use multiple pieces of strong wood jammed in the mud, the strength of 15 men and a couple speed boats to slowly get our boat back afloat. It easily took over an hour and the collective minds and manpower of the entire village, but we were off from our last clinic at one of the small villages. How quickly time passes... We would be spending our last two clinic days in the town of Anama working a makeshift clinic in their small 20 or so bed hospital. This place had the lowest need for a group of physicians, but I may have mentioned earlier that it was part of the agreement that allowed us to visit this part of Brazil, and they were nice enough to provide some gas for our boats.
All images and text are property of Jason Folt unless otherwise noted. If you would like to use an image, please contact me and ask first.
© 2006 Last Updated: 2/11/07