Long ago
Centuries before our voyage, Europeans first set eyes on the Amazon’s waters in 1500, when Spanish explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón reached its mouth and named it the Rio Santa María de la Mar Dulce—the “freshwater sea.” A few decades later, Francisco de Orellana became the first to navigate its full length. His 1541–42 journey was brutal, marked by hunger, storms, and battles with Indigenous peoples. In one such clash, he encountered women warriors who fought alongside the men. Struck by the resemblance to the Amazons of Greek legend, he gave the river its enduring name.
Of course, long before Europeans arrived, the riverbanks were already home to thriving cultures—farmers, traders, and fishers who lived in harmony with the rainforest, building societies that archaeology is only now beginning to fully uncover.
Aboard the San Bartolomeo VI
29-30th August. Our boat had its own small claim to history, running the Amazon for the past twenty years. Old tires dangled as bumpers, its hull patched with thick coats of paint. Tim backed on, tucking Bruce into place just under the canopy, out of the sun. Two decks rose above the waterline, crowded with hammocks in a rainbow of woven colours. Beneath them were bags of belongings and sacks of food. Below decks a jumble of cargo that keeps this river highway alive.
The ‘first-class’ hammock lounge with luxurious air-conditioning kept the machines worked overtime. While the next level was a hive of life: families and travellers swaying in hammocks, eating, scrolling, rocking babies to sleep, or simply watching the river roll by. The toilets are cleaned twice daily and doubled as showers—likely fed straight from the river—and at the stern a row of sinks for keeping everyone scrubbed and fresh. Brazilians are fastidious with hygiene, often bathing twice daily, and in this heat it made perfect sense.
A small bar buzzed at the back of the boat, its tables rattling under the blast of distorted music from massive speakers. On the top deck, a band rehearsed under the open sky, giving passengers an impromptu concert as we drifted further down the river.
Rio Negro meets the Amazon
Not far from Manaus, we sailed through the swirling seam of waters where the inky black Rio Negro flows alongside the sandy-brown Amazon. For miles, the two currents resist mingling, a living line etched across the water.
As Manaus shrank into the distance, we passed farmlands that faded, replaced by a flat green wall of rainforest pressing to the water’s edge. Leaning on the rail, I tried to imagine what the river was like back before the explorers arrived, bringing diseases that wiped out 90% of the Amazonian population (estimated to be in the millions) made up of so many different cultures.
Sunset and Storm
By late afternoon the relentless sun kept us hidden in the shade before the sky exploded in streaks of orange, pink, and purple, mirrored perfectly in the water. We pulled out chairs, clinked cold beers, and toasted our ‘Amazon cruise’ before retreating to the camper —our home away from home.
Being at the front of the boat, we had enough airflow to keep things cool, just before dawn the wind picked up. The boat pitched and rolled a little before the full force of an Amazon downpour hit. Raindrops five times their usual size hammered the boat as if a giant pressure washer was scrubbing everything clean.
Life Onboard
We met a young German couple, fresh from Venezuela, where they had been hitchhiking for the past couple of months, but left quickly amid growing political tension. We chatted a while & they kept the kids entertained, he was a magician, blowing our minds very cleaver card tricks.
Mid morning we slung our own hammocks and settled in. With no Wi-Fi, the kids dove into books, and I leafed through a National Geographic Amazon issue our friend Lennox had given us before leaving. It was uncanny—every page seemed to echo where we’d been and where we were headed, from the peaks of Ausangate in Andean Peru, to the Atlantic coast. It spoke of the cycles of the rainforest, the great atmospheric river, and new lidar scans proving how densely populated the Amazon once was before the Spanish arrived.
Mostly though, I just swung in the hammock, torn between reading, napping, writing, or planning ahead—and doing none of it, because the river was too mesmerizing to ignore.
Organized Chaos
Stopping at a few small ports to load and unload while vendors hustled aboard with hot food, fresh fruit, açai bowls, chargers, and extension cords—everything a traveler might need. The moment the engines rumbled, they would quickly make for the shore, before the ramp pulled away. Meanwhile vehicles rolled on & off as passengers with luggage walked without fear between moving vehicles. At the same time heavy boxes of bananas and watermelons were run aboard while crates of beer and soda were offloaded. It was organized chaos, but nobody is yelling or getting upset with one another.
Beyond the ports, the scenery flattened again—river, a narrow band of trees, then sky. A landscape too big to capture in a photo, but impossible not to watch.
Things livened up when we bumped another boat while docking in Santarém. Maybe it was our fault, or maybe the other captain had parked poorly. Either way, those old rubber tires dangling as bumpers earned their keep as we scraped along the side before dropping back with a jolt. By the time we rolled off in the dark, we decided it was simplest to spend the night in the port.
Our Amazon river voyage had come to an end. Next stop: the ruins of an abandoned American town, built deep in the jungle in the 1920s by none other than Henry Ford…
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Perfect harmony…;)