PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 (below) | PART 4 | PART 5

Settle in.

For the next three days, a boat would be my home. All of us passengers (maybe 75-100 people?) had put up our hammocks, carefully placed our things on the wooden pallets that kept our bags from getting wet in a rainstorm, and began to say hello to each other. The riverboat didn’t have windows—just open railings with blue tarps that could be rolled down in the event of a good rain. I was ready to leave, and I’d even posted on Instagram a sunny shot of the port, our departure imminent.

Finally, hours late, the motors rumbled to life. We backed out carefully and deliberately into the darkness of the river. The tall buildings of Belém lit up the night sky like candles. Excited, we got up from hammocks and went to the sides of the boat to watch our departure. The passengers of the neighboring boat waved goodbye. We were now headed up the river into the heart of the Amazon.

Oh, but I was mistaken. We had cast off, but to our collective dismay our captain was merely repositioning us around the other boat to take on more boxes. Our boat roped up and we looked at each other and grumbled. It was a false start. How much loading could there be?

But, a drama began to unfold on the loading deck beneath our elevated perch at the railing. The neighboring boat was loading a lonely looking pickup, parked on the dock’s edge behind a dump truck. How was this going to happen? There was merely a pair of forklifts and a set of old steel ramps. The various rivers that make up the Amazon change water level dramatically depending on the rains, requiring a careful placement of ramps down to the boat deck.

Now an audience, we watched from above. This was better than Netflix. Clearly one forklift driver was less skilled than the other, that much was obvious. Dockhands swarmed around the two forklifts—one on the dock and the other on the lower level of the boat, as they worked to place the ramps into a place acceptable to the foreman. It was a steep decline, difficult to do in the darkness of night.

The little pickup finally backed slowly down the ramps. One wrong touch of the gas pedal meant the truck would tumble into the water. The boat was already severely crowded, pallets of potable water and fresh goods barely providing any room for the truck, but somehow space had appeared. Dockhands swirled around the truck.

All of the sudden—and I mean literally out of nowhere—the ten or so dockhands milling around the pickup put arms on the vehicle and began to roll and bounce the truck in a perfectly choreographed, rolling dance. It was a thing of perfect unison and of pure beauty. In seconds, the bouncing truck slid into place at the far side of the crowded boat deck.

The pickup dance was striking, but I was in for an encore. The boat captain reversed a few feet, the forklifts adjusted the ramps, and a smoother decline was now set. Then I saw it: the brake lights of the enormous dump truck on the dock blinked on. They illuminated white, signaling reverse. The dump truck, with a new forklift tied down to its bed, was coming too.

But where would it go? There was hardly room. One mistake and not only would the dump truck tumble into the water, the tied down Hyundai forklift would also topple, and likely someone would get hurt: pinned, knocked over, maimed, or killed.

The foreman looked over the ramps, then a second time, then finally gave the nod of approval. The dockhands stood watching and pacing. The barge captain shined the spotlight onto the scene as the dump truck moved to the edge, inches from the ramp. The scene was set, and we watched anxiously. The foreman twirled his finger in the air: showtime.

The dump truck backed up, rear wheels now on the ramps. So far all was clear. Everyone watched from their position, holding their breath as the truck continued backward. The ramps were holding. Now the entirety of the dump truck along with its Hyundai load precariously balanced above the water.

Disaster! The boat was drifting backwards and away from the dock! The ramps could slip and everything would be ruined! The dockhands again responded as if one, every man waving and calling to the barge captain in unison: come back!

The captain gunned the powerful engines and moved the boat back into position; crisis averted. The dump truck descended until it landed firmly onto the boat.

I was smiling, pleased to see such a happy ending to the nighttime drama. “Success” I said, looking towards my companions. I clapped my hands. A few of my new traveling companions acknowledged me, but only one gave a smile. Perhaps they were still recovering from the tension of what we had just witnessed.

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Finally, nearly three and a half hours late, our boat departed into the night. The diesel engines thrust our steel vessel forward, away from the great city of Belém. It is not a small city. Dozens of narrow, 15-20 story buildings formed a kind of lit-up concrete mesa.

Behind the city were great, voluminous clouds, reflecting back the city lights. Lightning struck over and over again, thick ropes of vivid electric light rippling behind the enormous human nest. Our vessel passed a river bend and slowly the bright cloud of Belém and its halo of lightning faded into black.

Behind and all around me was now darkness. The forest and the river and anything around was invisible. We were the ferry floating above the River Styx, headed into Hades.

I lay in the hammock trying to sleep. A wind would rise and I would shiver, then the wind would disappear and the heat would immediately return. In the darkness my mind played out a million nightmares, all of them ending with our boat submerged, smothered in the unknowable river depths. Piranhas and crocodiles and electric eels awaited my sleeping self.

I rested, I slept, I woke up over and over again in the darkness of night. Until finally, I awoke and it was morning.

Spread out all in front of me was the beauty of the Amazon.

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 (next) | PART 5