Skateboarding
Ride along with Barney Page, Clint Walker, Mason Silva and Korahn Gayle as they hit the streets of Manaus before a 29-hour boat ride to Santarém.
The sun sets along the Amazon River as Barney Page, Mason Silva, Korahn Gayle, Clint Walker, filmmaker Marcos De Souza and myself kick back in our freshly hung hammocks watching Manaus fade into the horizon. We are about an hour into our journey by boat when we realize we've got another 28 hours until we reach the next city.
There are two ways to float the Amazon: upstream, going east to west which adds a significant amount of time to the journey; or the "faster" route, west to east.
We chose the latter and assembled ourselves to start our journey in the heart of the Amazon, Manaus. As the capital and biggest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, Manaus is a sprawling juxtaposition of jungle and city. With a population of two million people, it proved to be the perfect starting point for our trip with plenty of street spots on offer.
Dodging massive storms, we managed to shred some amazing terrain in Manaus before embarking on ride one-of-two down the Amazon River.
What does one pack for a 36-hour boat ride, you might wonder?
Most importantly, a hammock. The boats that float down the Amazon are essentially big, open, flat boats with hundreds of hooks for people to string up their hammocks to rest and sleep. It's a strictly BYOH (Bring Your Own Hammock) ordeal, so the boys splurged on the finest hammocks we could find before climbing aboard.
Boarding the boat in itself can be a bit intense — hundreds of people fight for limited space and comfort for their long journey from one city to the next. Yet, as the sun fades, stories are told, laughs are had and, eventually, through a series of sleeps, naps, meals and strolls around the boat — a city slowly emerges in the distance through the jungle.
Join us back here next week to catch the second leg of our Amazonian adventure, and the ripping that ensued off the boat on a four-day layover in Santarém. Until then!
#CruisingTheAmazon
