Journey´s End

Monumental do Marco Zero, Macapá, Brazil - the large monument is a sundial - on the equinox, the shadow created by the rising sun falls on the line of the equator.

We arrived on our boat from Santarém in Macapá at dawn this morning with heavy hearts. Macapá marks the end of two journeys for us and as much as we are loath to admit it, our nine months of travelling is coming to an end. As of today, there are four days left until we return to the west, and leave our adventures behind us. From Macapá, all that is left to make our way to the airport, so to speak. having spent all that time getting here, we couldn´t just pass through...

I mentioned that it is the end of two journeys. Confused? You clearly haven´t been paying enough attention! Firstly, Macapá is situated on the equator, as you can see from the picture at right. Being a bit of a map-geek at the best of times (Timaru boys know an old joke about that, but I´m not going to recount it here), the equator was pretty high on my list of destinations in this continent. It marks the end of our journey north through this continent - in Argentina, we reached as far south as 55°S, before travelling overland all the way up here to the equator. But you´d think it´d be easy to find the equator, right? Just walk north, or south, until you cross a line on the ground. Well, we had a few problems finding it, and it wasn´t until we employed the help of four local twelve year olds that we got anywhere. I was a little apprehensive to see what we would discover there, but when we arrived, we were pleased to find a sufficiently large monument marking the spot, and more importantly, the line on the ground that you see in all the best cartoons. What else could we do, but take a photo standing on top of it? Interestingly, there was also a football stadium (it is Brazil, I guess), with the equator being the halfway line - adds a new dimension to north-south matches I guess...

Trev surveys the mouth of the mighty Amazon.

Secondly, Macapá also marks the end of our trip across the continent and down the Amazon as well. We started on the pacific coast in Lima, travelling by train, bus and boat, all the way to Atlantic coast. Macapá is situated on the north side of the mouth of the Amazon, which long ago stopped looking like a river at all - you can barely see a few trees poking over the horizon on the other side - the container ships sailing back and forth also add to the impression of being on the ocean. Having traveled for 4000 km along its length, and watched it widen, deepen and grow, we now understand that this is indeed the mightiest river of them all. It is a fitting end to our journey to see that here in Macapá the river, having grown so big, has finally become indistinguishable from the sea - the water is fresh (not salty at all), and a dirty river brown, but it has waves and rises and falls with the tides: the mother of all estuaries awaiting us at the end of our journey.

Our trip down the last section of the river wasn´t without adventure either. We had the choice of two or three boats in Santarém, and chose one that we thought looked simple, small, and very local. Very local it was indeed - we were the only gringos onboard, and the crew were quite excited to have us - always a nice feeling. However, we also thought that we knew how to do this, and chose what we thought was the best spot on the boat. Nope - little did we know that we had parked our hammocks directly above the engine exhaust, which made for a rather loud night´s sleep (or not!). Then, to add to the interest level, there was the small matter of a swell on the river - the easterly river breeze creates quite decent sized waves at times, up to a metre or more in places. Its not too bad to walk around in - the boat doesn´t bump too much, but ohhh. When you´re in a hammock, and its 1am, and everyone starts swinging wildly (resonance!!!), its not so much fun... There weren´t many people that slept well that night!

And so, now its time to head to the airport, so to speak - the airport being that in Rio, of course. But knowing the way that we work, as you do by now, its not going to be straight forward. Keep reading.....