Initially when we arrived in Manaus, Brazil to begin our ministry, we used river boats with a capacity of around 200 passengers mostly in hammocks to go from the city of Manaus downriver to the city of Parintins which is a journey of about 18 hours approximately a (380 KM or 236 miles trip in a straight line – but the Amazon river doesn’t run in straight lines). From there we would get a much smaller boat, around 60 passengers, which would take us overnight to a certain point up the Andira river. (See map of this river area below)
Then, we would “hitch” a ride in one of the canoes with the Satere people using a gasoline engine with a drive shaft and a propeller called “rabeta” in Portuguese which very literally translated means an engine with a tail but can also refer to the canoe using such an engine.
There were difficulties such as knowing how to tie a hammock up in the boats because at the beginning I had no idea, cramped sleeping conditions, cold wind, noise from the boat’s sound system and engine, sometimes people drinking or smoking, hours sitting in a canoe sometimes during the day getting burned by the sun, sometimes at night risking getting speared by branches sticking out over the river.
The conditions were much worse during the dry season, meaning that instead of around 4 hours the journey could take a whole day sitting on a hard wooden bench. The whole journey from the city of Parintins, Brazil to Vila Nova, Brazil which is about 90 nautical miles in a straight line when you fly and maybe about 150 plus miles by river taking about 18 to 24 hours by boat and 30 minutes by plane!
