IHANA.COM big trip - diary - September 2002

Macapa turned out to be a great party place and we didn't manage to get the ferry the next day with the archeaologists due to the excesses of the night before. We'd been chilling by the river with a few Skols wondering where to go next when a pick up with two oldish blokes and three young dorises turned up. One of the blokes spoke English and we'd soon got ourselves in the back of the truck and were on our way to the disco. Things looked promising when we saw the queue, a line of at least 50 wicked dorises and no guys. We went in and proceeded to steal the dorises from the old guys.

A visit to Marco Zero, the monument that marks the line of the equator, turned into a mad autograph signing session when a couple of schoolgirls spotted us and gave chase, the rest of the 30 odd class soon following. They wanted us to write a little message for them in english, all of them eagerly holding up their exercise books for us to sign!

Political party turns to...

...beer party

Amazonian dorises...

...taste good

As its directly on the equator, Macapa is very hot and the huge expanse of the Amazon flowing beside makes it humid too. The river is tidal this close to the sea and when the water is high sizeable waves wash against the promenade where, in the cool of the evening, big political rallies are held in anticipation of the elections in a couple of weeks. Fortunately the rallies mainly consist of live bands and wicked samba dorises, good uses of party funds as it were.

Birds on the wires

New equator marker made the same day we were there

The next ferry to Belem was due on Monday but we arrived at the dock just as it was leaving so we had to wait until Wednesday for the next one, never mind.