The Pousada de Sansao in Bomfim reminded me of the old fashioned motels in Australia. A long straight line of rooms with parking out the front. There was a lot of activity happening because in a few days there was going to be a big rodeo in Guyana and the Pousada was booked out with Brazilians heading to and from the event. The owner told me it was the busiest week of the year and so all the rooms got a big clean. The room was about $30AUD and he said I could park just outside my door in the walkway as it was about to pour rain. I managed to do that and scamper down the road and find some takeaway food and a couple of beers and made it back to the room just as it bucketed down. I was glad to be in a nice dry room.

It was strange to be back in Brazil with its Portuguese, but I liked it because the prices were much cheaper than the Guianas.  

It was only an hour and a half to Boa Vista where I needed to turn right and head north again to get into Venezuela. I had a bit of a sleep in and then a leisurely pack up and realised that I still had about $30AUD of Guianan money. I was going to zip back across the border without doing all the paperwork to spend it but decided I would check the nearby supermarket because often in border towns they accept currency from both countries. And they did. I was badly trying to explain that I wanted to spend all my money on muesli bars and protein bars etc but it somehow got way too complicated and then this young guy appeared. And spoke really good English. Turns out he was the manager and he had taught himself English and hoped to travel one day and was super excited to speak English to me.  We chatted for about half an hour. I had time and he was keen. It was a nice random encounter.

I left there with a couple of weeks supply of jacket pocket snacks and headed for Boa Vista. I planned to stay the night there and give my bike a good wash and biggish service. It had earned it. I found the Trevo Hotel which was just as I entered town and happened to be nextdoor to the Honda agent in town. It was about $35AUD a night and had a place to park the bike. It was also next to a great restaurant where I had a big serve yourself feed for less than $20AUD and then a haircut at the barber next door. And then there was also a little supermarket that sold my favourite Brazilian beer, Antarctica Original. And everything was within a one minute walk of the hotel.

I went to book my bike in for a service but like everywhere else in Brazil it seemed to be difficult because it was a foreign bike with a foreign owner that only spoke English and poor Spanish. I had realised from past experience that I needed a Brazilian identity number but I also now had one. The guy kept stalling me for some reason and asking me to wait. Then suddenly a guy came through the front door and spoke perfect English. He was wearing a red Honda staff shirt and seemed to know all about me and what I wanted. I asked him if he worked there because he seemed a little out of place. He sort of laughed and said ‚ “I guess so”, turns out he was the owner and owns the 6 Honda stores in Northern Brazil. And with the rest of his family they seemed to be involved of lots of different businesses in the state. He had gone to school in the USA and so the great English.

He was very interested in my trip and we chatted for a while as he gave me a tour of the place. He organised for his guys to do all the work that I needed on the bike and then only charged me for parts and no labour. I love these Brazilian bike services. He also gave me a few ideas of things to see and confirmed my pending idea that I should first head south to Manaus instead of going straight north to Venezuela. It was a 1700km round trip but I could do it on a couple of different roads to break the monotony. Manaus was the biggest city on the Amazon River and I was as close to it as I was ever going to be. So why not. There was a big river in Boa Vista and I tried to find a boat that could take me down the river and into the Amazon and on to Manaus. But with no success.

The Honda guy recommend a town called Rorainopolis and a hotel called Hotel Brazil. He also gave me his number and said if I have any problems to give him a call and any bike problems then call into any Honda shop and tell them to call him. Nice support. The ride was nice. Decent road, smaller towns on rivers but nothing special. I found the Hotel Brazil that he had recommended. Nothing flash but fine with safe parking and a bit over halfway to Manaus. I was a bit surprised as he said he stays there when he goes south. Obviously, the other places in town aren’t too flash. I wandered around a bit and found a beer and a nice little street stall with nice meat and a chatty young guy who spoke a bit of Spanish and English.

I was up early next morning and headed south and came across the equator again. Same equator. Different signs. It was really just me there in the middle of the world. Took a couple of obligatory photos and continued on.

The was some nice jungle as I got closer to the Amazon River and some lovely swampy bits as well. And of course what good amazon ride doesn’t have rain. At least I was on a sealed road. I stopped off for fuel and a nice feed and left my bike under cover while the rain rolled past and then made it into Manaus in the afternoon.

I planned to stay at a place called the Local Hostal. Remember the guy I met on the fast bike a few blogs ago, well he was American and he couldn’t turn right at Boa Vista to Venezuela because they don’t like Americans up there, so, to continue his ride home he had to go south and then up the Amazon river and back into Colombia. We’d been keeping in touch and he was in Manaus waiting for a boat and staying at the Local Hostel, so I was hoping to catch him before he left.

Manaus is a big city with over 2 million people. I was doing a great job of following the signs to the CBD but then as I got closer to it, I took a wrong exit and headed off on a major road somewhere else. The joy of having a bike is that you can often do a little dodgy highway cross and get back on the right road. I ended up getting out my phone and using google maps. I made it to the hostel (which had the second smallest pool of my whole trip) and checked in. My mate wasn’t there but his bike was. I checked into a private room for about $60AUD

He turned up later on and we went out for a beer and a meal and continued on our chats from our last catchup. He had organised a boat for the next day but had some running around to do in the morning. I said I’d meet him at the dock and see him off. After breakfast at the hostel, which was good by the way, I had a wander around town and finished up down where he was supposed to be but he wasn’t there. Neither was the boat. After lots of walking and questions I found the boat at a different wharf, but he still wasn’t there. He was also looking for it but I ended up finding it first but had no internet to tell him where to go. I eventually found him just as he found the guy who was looking for him. It was all a bit of a saga and the boat was going to leave without him but in the end it still left a couple of hours later. I managed to buy a pass onto the wharf and got down to see him off.

When I arrived his bike was already on board, but I had a nice tour of the boat with him. It was a great adventure boat and packed full of locals and supplies. He had a cabin, but the hammock area looked better. It was more of a traditional looking amazon boat and no drive on or drive off ramps available. Just wooden planks. I would have like to see the bike loaded. It would be a bit nerve racking. We chatted for a while then said our goodbyes and I wandered back to the hostel. He would be on the boat for 2 or 3 days to reach Colombia and then have to fly his bike to a bigger city as there are no roads in that area. Not even for a motorbike. Apparently, it was a backload on a plane and it’s pretty common and only cost a couple of hundred dollars.

I had a bit more of a look around town and then ended up at the hostel. They care about old people in Manaus and if you are over 60 they have special parking places in great locations.That night I wandered around the corner and found a little restaurant that spilled out onto the street and had a big TV with the soccer (football) on. I had a good feed there and then found an icecream in a supermarket down the road.

Next morning after waking up with this guy hanging on my wall (see 2nd photo above) I made an early trip to a fancy modern laundromat then headed north 850kms back to Boa Vista. I had to take the same road for some of the trip back (and tried to photograph the swampy bits again) but this time I decided to stay in a different halfway town called Presidente Figueiredo. I had noticed that in the hostel in Manaus they offered bus trips to this place to see the Caverna Refugio do Maroaga. I had no idea what it was, but it looked okay in the picture.

I found a room in the Pousada Das Pedras just as it started to rain. I asked if the caves would be open in the rain. She didn’t know. It was about a 6km ride and so I just put on my wet weather gear and rode out for a look. It looked deserted but there were two women there. They said I could go in but only with a guide and because I was the only one I would have to pay the full cost of about $40AUD. You can split the cost with more people. And the guide didn’t speak English. Or Spanish. Oh well. I did it anyway.

And it was great. Pouring rain the whole time. Lovely jungle. It was about a good 20 minute walk down slippery paths and steps to the first cave. She stopped occasionally and pointed at things but we mostly just walked in silence which was nice. My first real amazon jungle walk. And the caves were amazing. Almost fake with their natural beauty. We went inside and looked around with my phone torch.

We left the first cave and wandered for a while through the jungle. The rain was still heavy and many of the tracks had turned into knee deep streams but I just followed my local guide and smiled peacefully to myself.

After a while we came across another cave. Almost as specie as the first one but not as deep. I wandered around and tried to photograph the beauty of it with not much success. It wasn’t just the caves but the lay of the land and the rain and the tall trees and the isolation and the silence. Very spiritual.

We eventually headed back to the start via a different route. I would have been lost without the guide. We came across some guy at the entrance who spoke English and I got a little rundown/translation of what the guide wanted to tell me. She was indigenous to this area and her ancestors had always lived in this area and the caves were very special to them. I could see why. It would have been nice if she spoke English but I still had a great time and would highly recommend it.

It continued raining until I got back to the hotel where I had a nice shower and then found some baked food nextdoor and a beer from the pousada. What a great day.

Next morning, the usual breakfast and pack up and I was off. They are building new high voltage power lines alongside the road and I found it interesting as I passed them at different stages of construction. Lots of people power. The zoom in is a bit blurry but they’re hard to see without it.

I managed to dodge the rain, and a few potholes and checked out some palm plantations and then after a two day 850 kilometre ride I was back at Hotel Trevo. Almost like coming home.

One thing that I needed to do before I headed up the road to the Venezuela border was to get some $US. I had heard of two places in Boa Visita where you could semi legally do this. I managed to find them both. One was a guys front room in a house with a blue door. The other was the back room of a money changers. It wasn’t a special rate or anything but I was just glad to get some dollars because I didn’t have many left and Venezuela is a difficult country to change or access money. I had been getting extra Brazilian reales when I could and searched around and found an ATM which I could use to take some more out and then changed most of what I had for about $600USD which is about one thousand Aussie dollars. Somehow I neglected to take any photos.

Once I had done all my banking I dropped into the Honda shop and bought a couple of litres of oil for my bike as I had already done 1700kms since my service a few days ago and I knew it would be hard to find good oil in Venezuela. And to say goodbye.

And I was off. It was about 215kms of nothing very exciting to the border town of Pacaraima. Except maybe this random selfie with a couple of locals. I have no idea why. I arrived mid arvo and sussed out the border and then found a hotel. It was almost Easter weekend and I was told that it would be closed from tomorrow for a few days, which seemed a bit weird and so I walked back there to check it out. Apparently, the Venezuelan side closes for public holidays? The immigration official suggested that I check out of Brazil tonight and then go back to my hotel (in Brazil) and then tomorrow just ride through the border without stopping and go straight to the Venezuelan side. It seemed simple enough.

I went back and got my passport and then got stamped out of Brazil but the office that I needed to go to, to get my bike signed out, was already closed. But it said it opened at eight. I went back to the hotel, found something to eat and drink and crashed out. Next morning I had the hotel breakfast which was like most of the other Brazilian hotel breakfasts. Nice and plenty of it. Then rode the kilometre to the border and to my delight, it was open. It took an hour or so to clear my bike and then I was off to visit Venezuela and my last country in South America. As long as it was open.

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