Tabatinga

Finally, I made it to Brazil today, though I did not stay there long and write this entry from Colombia. Leticia, Colombia and Tabatinga, Brazil are basically twin cities straddling the border. No customs or passport control exists at the border itself. If one wants to leave Colombia, simply walk over to the airport and get an exit stamp and then get your entry stamp at the police station in Tabatinga within 24 hours. If you want to head back to Leticia to stay the night, by all means do so...can´t imagine anyone would ask for your passport to see when you were stamped out. And so this is what I did...walked to the airport for my exit and stamp and then hired a woman on a motorbike to run me over to to Tabatinga for my entry stamp. I´d been a little nervous about entry into Brazil as apparently sometimes a yellow fever certificate is required for entry from Colombia and Peru, but they didn´t bother me about it. I´m not sure what I would have done if they had, as the certificate is supposed to be dated 10 days prior it´s use. At any rate, after a few questions answered in my very very bad Portuguese/Spanish mix I got my entry stamp and got back on the back of the little moto to be head off to the port to find when the next boat to Manaus was leaving.

My driver had no clue where the port was, and let me off at the first water we saw. After managing to get a vague direction and distance of the port facility with the larger boats, we were off again. Four more times asking directions and we were there. I´d been told there was a Tuesday boat this week, but it was not to be so...the next boat does not leave until Wednesday, so I´ll hang another day in Leticia, which is not what I wanted but oh well. Apparently, the boats are every Wednesday and Saturday, with some Tuesdays mixed in. They say we´ll be there very early Saturday moring after a trip of some 65 hours. Hopefully, that turns out to be the case, as I think I will get everything out of floating down the river in a hammock that I´m gonna get within the couple days. 25 reals ($13) for a decent hammock and we were back in Leticia in about an hour for a 15,000 Colombian Pesos ($8) taxi fare. Conveniently for these two towns and those moving back and forth between them like me, reals and COP are more or less equal if you get rid of some zeroes on the COP and more or less mutually accepted.

As for first impressions of Brazil...it´s tough to say after an hour on the back of a motorbike, but the people I talked to over there in Spanish and with the few phrases of Portuguese I have mastered seemed friendly enough. Motorbike riders and passengers have to have helmets in both Leticia and Tabatinga (which was a bit of a surprise), and I will mention that the motorbike is by far the most common means of transport here, but the Brazilian side has its motor-taxi drivers wear marked vests as well. The passport control as the police station was certainly more official and professional that what I encountered at the airport in Leticia. Tabatinga is certainly a rougher looking town than Leticia, much more spread out and pedestrian-unfriendly, but I knew coming in that Tabatinga was not much to see. Quite a heavy military presence exists in both towns, which I find to be comforting.