Day 14

Pretty cold hammock snooze last night. Woke up properly, after a few other false alarms, before the orange glow sunrise pushed pink and blue through the rest of the sky, at last ending the cold spell. An hour later it was too hot. Saw a pack of wild dogs chasing and starting to savage a smaller, rotund little hound. We're were all too bleary and asleep to really do anything and it was lucky for the little one that a more alert guy smacked the others off with his shoe, I thought he was gone.

The Argentines have left us, getting a couple of spaces in a big truck. I'm still backing us three to get one soon though(just before 9.30 as I write). The worst thing is the feeling we're holding Renaud back. If he was on his own he would probably be in Maraba by now.

Its the evening now, plans have changed a bit. My optimism proved misplaced and at midday we caught a bus to Maraba, where we can get the train. It cost all of our money, R$100. However the distance is over 500 miles and its much cheaper than the options we were looking at in Santarem. So we've sort of failed and succeeded at the same time.

We've been on the coach for seven and a half hours. Only another sixteen and a half to go. We're all enjoying the experience though. Again the kindness of strangers has been demonstrated. A woman with a tiny little cafe has just given us two plates of food to share between three for four reals. The food is the usual beans, rice and salad, but with cow tongue and liver (we think). She is also topping us up with some water for the rest of the trip. Its too bumpy to write on the coach so I'll have to keep this short (Edit, at this point my handwriting descends from a general scrawl into barely formed madness falling all over the page). Saw Joaquim, our Argentine friend - the girl is called Emilia, in a little town out of the window and shouted to him earlier. It was good to see him and also means we might be winning the race to Sao Luis, though we've doubtless spent much more than the others.

Saw anb interesting piece of Brazilian news today. It was live from a bank robbery/hostage situation. Apparently all the news here is as live as possible but it was strange for me and Rob to watch loads of civilians milling around trying to get a better look, cameras and tv helicopted swirling around the tower and only two police cars to deal with the situation, with one policeman doing the classic 'nothing to see here' routine, when there was clearly quite a lot to see. Had to leave before it was resolved unfortunately, wonder what happened.

Funny coincidence happened today. Yesterday Rob had a small girl wih a loud, flashing toy in front of him for five hours. Today we get a five times as long journey with the same girl in the same place with the same toy. This time though we were joined by another four kids to liven things up a bit.

Its now half ten-ish, about fourteen hours to go. Just been told that the train from Maraba to Sao Luis only goes once a week, on Thursday or Friday. Or is sometimes goes twice, I'm not sure. When me and Rob came on this trip we figured that having no plan, no ties, was the best way to meet people and that has been proven true so far. However, knowing a bit more about different customs and nuances would have helped us a lot. But these things don't reall matter. We're hurling through the forest, smashing our way down this well-worn path and enjoying it, we'll get to Sao Luis sometime.