We also managed to make afew friends on board. Funnliy or rather scarily, we met a guy called Dan from, would you believe………..Taunton! Taunton was our main town in the UK when we lived 12 miles away in the small town of Wiveliscombe. How unbelievable is this! We are in the middle of the Amazon and meet a guy who we recognised from our home town.

With our last stop at Urucurituba prior to Manaus our quiet onboard life was about to come to an abrupt end. An over zelous official had inspected the boat and noted our bikes on the lower open deck. Apparently all motor engines are meant to go into the lower hold. He was now giving express orders that unless the bikes were lowered into the cargo hold the boat could not proceed. This was fucking ridiculous. We’d been going for 4 days without a problem and now this guy wanted our two huge bikes somehow lowered into the tiny hold. Let me give you an idea of ‘tiny’, unless we somehow lower the bikes vertically ie. rear wheel first, front wheel last, they will physically not go down. The length of both bikes exceeds the opening of the cargo. The idea of lowering either bike down into the rat infested hold which had to be 4 metres down was making me freak, this is ridiculous. Ridiculous or not this is what we were going to have to do if the ship was to leave dock. And so with that we (Lisa and I plus 5 of the crew) set about rigging up a winch, rope and finding anchor points on the bikes that would bear their entire weight. An hour later and after a few close misses and more than a few scrapes we’d achieved the impossible and both bikes were again tied up and secured in their new home. Getting them out is going to be a whole other story and one we’re not looking forward to.

By Sunset the wind had died and we were treated to anther spectacular light show, as the horizon turned red, orange, pink and finally a deep blue and then black. Set above a canopy of jungle it was just a bit too perfect.

We still had one more treat instore. 15 miles out from Manaus a natural phenenomon occurs that you have to see to believe. The ominus looking Rio Negro meets the Rio Amazonas. The truly amazing part of this ‘coming together’of these two mighty rivers is that they ‘meet’ but don’t blend. The waters simply don’t mix. It was truly a bizarre sight to witness; it struck me that this phenominom could easily be described as ‘biblical’. These two rivers now sharing the same huge watery channel but both clearly distinct from one anther, the Amazon River with its murky emerald hue and the distinctly black water of the Rio Negro moving forcefully forward side by side. All we could was stare and wonder.

By 7pm the large blue nylon ropes of the boat were being thrown ashore as the crew rushed to secure them around the vast steel anchoring points. The ship groaned and painted metal ‘screeched’ as we rubbed shoulders with the ‘Sao Franscisco’ that had birthed not 20 minutes earlier. Large badly worn truck tyres were hurridly thrown inbetwen the two boats to save further damage. Eager to disembark passengers were already throwing their belongings to the dock, clumsily clambering over the waist high metal sliding door and jumping to shore. Funny, not that dissimilar to the thousands of ‘westerners’ that when landed after a flight and prior to the plane even stopping have undone their seat belts, rush to the over-head compartments and frantically make their way forward, in the hope of rushing the doors and escaping the confines of their transportaion, even though none of this will actually get them ‘off’ any faster. Planes or Amazonian river boats…I’ve just never understood the rushed panic to get off? It just seems like a lot of effort to save possibly ‘seconds’.

Well, anyway, it was now dark and the heat of the day that normally about now should be receading was instead, seemingly increasing. We were sodden with perspiration, much as we had been for the last few weeks. With our bikes still down in the hold and the crew already busy with unloading other cargo we were going to be here a while. Neither of us were looking forward to navigating Manaus at night in the vain hope of finding accommodation.

With that in mind and permission granted, we’d hold off on the thought of luxurious cold air and a hotel room and stay onboard for another night.

By 10pm the crew had wound down and Lisa had accepted an invite to ‘pop’ ashore with two of the female crew (the cook and admin lady). Apparently a cold glass of ‘Suco’ was a ritual when docked in Manuas. Lisa and the girls disappeared for about 2 hours. I fell asleep in my Capestorm hammock. Sleep was the only respite I was going to get tonight from the oppressive heat. ‘Oppressive’, is a strong word, but here the heat combined with the unbelievable humidity is debilitating, oppressive describes it perfectly.

Once out and on the dock we began to load the bikes inbetween the usual questions of ‘how far’ how much’ ‘how fast’…..’You Americano’….etc.

Eventually we were ready, bike kit on and all, and with our thanks and goodbyes given to the crew who had looked after us so well, we made our way out from the docks and into the hellish one-way system of Manaus. We’d been ‘touted’ earlier this morning by a tourist information guy who directed us to the Central Hotel Manaus, assuring us that this was one of the very, very few hotels with secure parking. (find Centro Hotel Manuas at GPS: S3 08.186 W60 01.315)

After spending 45 minutes circling the dock area twice we finally manged to track down our ‘would-be’ new home ‘The Centro Hotel Manaus’. It seemed good enough with secure parking outdoors and old but decent rooms. Most importantly it had air-con. The bed was old wood covered in a thin sheet of foam. It felt like a woodend board but we figured after our nights spent in the hammocks it would do our backs good.

We’d heard from Andres Fuse, General Manager of BMW Motoarrad de Brazil, who’d incredibly offered to sponsor us with a set of brand new off-road tyres for both bikes and even ship them to Manaus. We needed to find an internet café in order to find out where they’d been sent. Without a BMW dealer here Andres had suggested he’d find a garage or hotel that would just be willing to hold them for us.

At the moment we’re still hopefull that we can make the journey though the Amazon down to Porto Velho, but to be honest we’re not sure. Ah, ‘bollocks’ lets be really honest it’s also pretty damm scary. We spent the last few weeks trying to research the risks of attempting the route but with little success. Very little seems to be known about it. We heard of two German guys who were going to be attempting the route a few weeks back and had promised to post their experience on the ‘Horizon-unlimted’ web site. Worryingly no one has heard of them for a while. Our new friend Heinner, in Rio had got as far as Manaus on his bike but over dinner had confirmed that after researching he’d discovered the route was impassable. The crazy thing is that all maps show the track down to Porto Velho as a main highway, truth is a little different. The road route was officially closed way back in 1991 due to the cost of upkeep and apparently a number of deaths. Since then the Amazon Jungle has been aggressivley reclaiming the land and devouring what was left of the route. We know that a number of the key bridges have been washed away and that big cats are a real danger in the Southern section of the route. We need to get to the internet in the hope of gleaning any further info that will allow us to make a decision one way or another.

A few hours later…

Shit!!! We just found out the the German guys we were relying on to give us some first hand info, had assessed the risk as too great and in turn didn’t attempt the route. Their post on the Horizons web page detailed their reasons for backing out from the attempt. Just one of the reasons apparently is the danger of the big cats in the South. We’re now in more of a quandary than before. Both of us feel the route is ‘do-able’, but when no-one else is attempting it, it does make you wonder, where adventureous spirt ends and stupid blind pride takes over. We did however find two guys about a year ago who’d attempted the route, however they had very little luggage and rode the route on 250cc Hondas, a little different to our heavey laiden machines. Reading their info online has made us even more wary as line after line warns of difficult passes and large cravesses that now cut the across the route.

Our other news is that Andres has yet to actually send the tyres, he needed our passports number and details first. At least we now know that the tyres should only be another two days to get here.

By mid morning we’d found the main post office, mustered our best Portugues and were being handed a large brown cardboard box sealed securely in white and blue BMW tape. 20 minutes later and we were back in our hotel room salivating over our new rubber. The only slight ‘downer’ is that after checking the tyre sizes we discovered that both rear tyres were for the F650GS (2 X 130/80 – 17). Yeah, we could have put one on the big 1100 but with the added weight we decded taking on the Amazon with a questionmark over something as important as tyres was just asking for trouble. Fantastically we’ve already spoken to Andres Fuse who not only promised to send a rear for the R1100GS but told us to keep the incorrect Metzler as a spare!!

It seems crazy to be on the receiving end of such support and generosity from BMW Brazil and to have absolutely nothing from BMW UK in our own country.

So with a little bartering done our new home, complete with much more secure parking is about 1km up the road…the very salubrious sounding ‘Plaza Hotel’. It isn’t!