Fletcher

5 - The river continues We continue our voyage down the Amazon to the Atlantic. Today was just like yesterday except for subtle differences - the scenery has changed, with a few distant hills, and the river is much wider, maybe five miles across. The weather veers from dry and wet and back again yet it’s always hot and humid. At about midday we spotted another cruise ship, the Hanseatic Inspiration, about which more tomorrow, and at 2pm we dropped anchor and ran zodiac trips. Two hours on a zodiac are probably enough for anyone, especially as whatever there is to see is always on the other side of the zodiac, meaning your spine and flanks get a work-out. There were tons of birds to see so if you were not into birding you should have stayed on the ship. Yesterday we had Malcolm who knew every feathered friend we saw. Today, it was someone else and she had an app called Merlin so she took a quick snap, somehow sent it to Merlin and got an instant answer back - that was a black-breasted vulture even though it was in fact a yellow-breasted woodwit. She was on safer territory when we invaded a family’s watery backyard and made smalltalk. We were happy, they seemed happy, everyone was happy, we went back to the ship. For those of you interested in food, we had dinner tonight at La Terrazza and it was delicious. That was a first for us!

4 - Amazon Immersive I thought you might like to know that we have 148 passengers on board the aging river scull Silver Wind. This makes the ship seem quite empty, a bit like a private yacht when you can sit for an hour outside the panorama lounge and not see a soul. But it always makes you wonder - why did we choose this cruise when the majority didn’t? What do they know that which what we don’t? Are we stupid or a member of an elite? Today was all about the river. That’s the Amazon for the benefit of those just joining this blog. We have previously cruised the Nile, the Mekong, the Irrawaddy, the Danube. We know a river when we see one. And the Amazon looks like a river. It drifted past beautifully this morning, sometimes quite wide, sometimes narrower, always the same landscape, flat yet utterly vast, limitless, the colour of mud, a few little communities, all of them grazing cattle, sometimes a ferry to link them, sometimes a container barge the length of a train. At 10am it was blue sky and clarity. At 1030am it was tumultuous rain and mist. At 11am it reverted. We dropped anchor mid-stream near a little village. Some of us went ashore to walk around and say hello to the locals. We decided to stay on board as it didn’t look that promising. And we were told it was muddy underfoot which wouldn’t do my Ferragamo loafers any good. We did however venture out on a zodiac cruise in the late afternoon. The first thing to strike you is the speed of the current in the river. It hurtles along, carrying fallen logs and matted weeds the size of tennis courts. But getting on to the zodiac was a breeze and within minutes we were in this narrow channel which cuts the village in half. There were a dozen of us in the zodiac and there might have been a dozen zodiacs in the channel at the same time. I’ve seen the M25 less busy than this. This would not be a quiet, rewarding nature cruise. We all made a lot of noise. The surprising thing was this did not seem to deter the resident bird population because they made a lot of noise right back. We were fortunate to have on board our zodiac Silversea’s ornithologist extraordinaire, Malcolm Turner. His knowledge and enthusiasm is infectious. People shout at him - “What’s that little red thing over there?” And he will say, “That’s a red-crested swallowtailed godpipit.” And then a second later someone will point out another blameless bird and Malcolm will christen it, “Ah, this is a blue-throated tree-pecker.” He’d get all excited by the purple-nosed, ringtailed vulture, not to to mention the incredibly rare Amazon rusted breasted thrush. I counted six species he discovered or invented in the space of an hour. I must confess to finding this zodiac tour more than a little frustrating and a major test of my neck muscles. It was fun and also painful. After two hours of a zodiac log-jam in this narrow channel I was ready to return to the ship. But our zodiac driver spent 15 minutes showing us a piranha fish caught locally and we also tracked a couple of pink dolphins as the sun went down. The golden light on the river was surpassingly beautiful. Tomorrow looks like a repeat performance.

3 - The stuff we learn The latest Royal Caribbean innovation is to restrict passengers to just one glass of wine at lunch and at dinner. I think that’s a positive step towards healthiness and well-being. The good ship Silver Wind has been alongside in Manaus for four days. We are getting to know this town like we know every wart, mole and varicose vein that erupts on our body. This morning we did a city tour and it’s amazing how much knowledge can be crammed into our heads on a four-hour tour. For instance, can you name another city in the whole wide world apart from Manaus with more than two million inhabitants that cannot be reached by road? It does seem a little isolated. We went to the opera house which is closed on Mondays but was opened for us. On stage were many young people wearing medical whites and it seemed like some sort of ceremony was in progress. We learned why the building had a dome; why many women in the audience during la belle epoque sent their evening gowns to Paris for laundering; how the design of the roof is what you see if you stand underneath the Eiffel Tower; and why the road outside was paved with rubber. We stopped at the city museum and learned about the rubber trade and about Brazil nuts as well as tapioca. We went into the mansion of a German rubber baron and learned how he and his wife lived there alone while their 50 staff lived next door. We went to the main market, designed by Gustav Eiffel but built in Glasgow and shipped to Manaus. We saw more bananas than we have ever seen before, in many varieties, and we saw huge fillets of fish, whole piranhas, and mysterious cuts of meat and offal that would send a vegetarian into an ICU. All this was pretty intense and exhausting I can tell you. And after lunch on the ship I even went back into town to take a few more snaps, including one of a festering, once majestic building down by the harbour. At 4pm the Wind finally slipped its anchor and headed east for Africa. We passed the so-called Meeting of the Waters, where the Amazon is born, shrugged it off, and got ready for dinner. Oh yes, I nearly forgot to say, that thing about wine was all made up.

2 - America Sul Last night Manaus came alive. The opera house was performing Carmina Burana, a work which is known for one section and the rest everyone skips. Many passengers already aboard the Wind attended the performance and a couple staying at our hotel also attended. They reported that the orchestra was sometimes a little Orff. The square outside, named for St Sebastian, was heaving with people with perhaps half a dozen cafes and bars all offering different music, none of which was of the Orff variety and I didn’t hear the devine Astrud G either. Noise levels were nevertheless high. It was really exciting to be there. And also at 6.30am the next morning when I did a photo safari, concentrating on the many century-old mansions which have fallen into disrepair. They were spectacularly grungy and put me in mind of Havana and also Knightsbridge - you know, all those mansions owned and abandoned by Russian oligarchs. Yesterday was our seventh landfall in South America. We have invaded it from all four points of the compass. We have seen a fair bit of it but not, as yet, the thing I most want to see which are the reduciones of Paraguay, not because I am religious but because I adore ruinas and because Paraguay is one of those wacky, off-grid countries no one ever seems to visit. Including me. I find South America a rather perplexing place, insular, other worldly, almost a separate planet unconnected to my own. South America has only the slenderest connection to the rest of the world, a deeply forested, impenetrable place called the Darien Peninsula. There is more: as an Englishman, I feel no real connection to this massive continent. England lacks the enduring historic, cultural, emotional and economic ties to South America which we have with North America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. We only managed to colonise a small portion of land - Guyana - since the Spanish and the Portuguese got there first and got all the gold and silver, damn their blood. We hardly ever get news from South America yet life goes on, lurching from crisis to crisis, just like us. When I land here and see these seething cities and these vast wildernesses I might be as well be on Mars. I am a total stranger in these parts. I find it interesting that so few people in the hospitality and tourism sector bother to speak even basic English. On the other hand, why would we bother learning Portuguese? Apparently about ten countries have it as their national language, including Guinea-Bissau, where we are going, and Sao Tome & Principe, where I have already been. But Brasil is by far the most important. This cruise on the Silver Wind promises to show us the Amazon. It is called an expedition cruise. I hope it does what it says on the tin yet I think a trip we did to a jungle lodge in Ecuadorian Amazonas will be far more memorable, authentic and immersive. It’s true that wildlife was rather lacking, apart from a few birds, a comatose caiman and an anaconda which was a sort of house pet. But the scenery was glorious, a symphony of green which we traversed every day in dug-out canoes along channels no wider than a Venetian canal. That was Amazon Prime you might say. I’m not sure this Wind trip will equal that. I think the river from Manaus will be too wide, I think there will many container ships and maybe one or two touristy villages. We’ll see. I’ve written these notes today because I don’t have much to report. We had a breakfast at the hotel, we basically lazed around, walked around the block, and then made our way to the ship and checked ourselves in. Turmoil might be the way to describe it. Tomorrow morning we have a city tour booked as we don’t fancy the pink dolphin thing which looks a bit like a circus. And the dolphins look a bit pruney which is what happens when you soak in the tub for too long.

1 - Welcome Aboard! Let me start my latest cruise blog with a familiar rhyme: “It was in Manaus that Johann Strauss composed Die Fledermaus.“ OK, it might have been Vienna but there is an opera house in Manaus, quite a famous one. Not perhaps as famous as the one in Vienna but I bet it was much harder to build because all the materials had to be schlepped over from Europe. And instead of a dainty slice of sachertorte mit Einspänner to eat in the interval, here in Amazonas you get an anaconda nugget on a stick. I won’t bore you with the gory details about how we got here. If you know the BBC show Race Across the World you’ll get the picture. Suffice to say, Manaus is not the easiest port of embarkation I’ve ever been to, not least because we changed planes in São Paulo which is 2000 miles in the wrong direction. That’s like flying from New York to Los Angeles via Mexico City. I blame the Brazilians entirely because they refuse to make Manaus a proper port of entry. It took us 26 hours door to door which did not include Blacklane. Anyway, we got here . . . and now we are installed in a premium view room at a pleasant boutique hotel right opposite the Opera House. We get on the ship tomorrow, Sunday, and then have an extra day in Manaus. We’re happy where we are, simply acclimatising which meant a modest walk down to the port and back again. Manaus doesn’t seem touristy and clearly has character by the ton load plus high levels of scruffiness. It was hot, it was steamy, it was exhausting. As you know, Manaus is one thousand miles upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is from here that we are beginning our cruise along the coast of West Africa. Yes, West Africa. Isn’t that weird? I’ll tell you more about the whys and wherefores as we commence sailing. Be warned though, this is going to be a long haul, thirty-five days on an aging sloop called Silver Wind. After we cross the Atlantic at its narrowest point - still a five-day sail - we hit Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia and Senegal. Then we do a swing through Cabo Verde, say hello to Morocco and then run headlong to Lisbon and Civilisation, having dodged everything from pink dolphins to thundering cargo ships avoiding Suez, saltwater hippos to civil unrest. Maybe the odd spear dipped in curare casually thrown from the riverbank. I expect it’s going to be fairly challenging in parts because West Africa is always challenging, like India with added squalor, threat and despair. A riot of colour and smells and sometimes just a riot. Some of you with sensitive or nervous dispositions might be better off travelling with me, vicariously. So hop on board this blog for I shall soon - to coin a phrase - be Gone With the Wind.

I'm boarding The Wind in two days . . . taking my own food. Oh and Mrs Fletcher.

Some months back I rang Blacklane's UK number as given to me by Silversea. I just wanted a quote, a sort of dry-run. She asked which town I was in. She seemed very officious. I told her the name of our local town. She said that was not in her system. So I said I am in the United Kingdom, She said they did not have that town listed. I asked here where she was. She said Singapore.

We're on that Wind trip, also the previous one from Manaus, so we won't be using the Dakar hotel. As far as I know, your only Blacklane transfers will be from your home to LHR and back again. Two people makes four trips which is the rather inconvenient way Blacklane do things. We opted out of that, mainly because we live 120 miles from LHR and the surcharge was absurd, £600 each way.

Taking another soon - Guinea-Bissau! Read all about it from this coming Friday, maybe Sat.

I'm shocked but not surprised that Silversea would serve that sort of ultra-processed slaughterhouse slurry which is banned in the UK and Europe. I expect their chickens to have the same dubious 'provenance.'

I heartily approve of the relaxations in the dress code. But what about the butlers? Won't they look even more ridiculous in their tail coats when passengers are in flip-flops?

Silversea's expedition vessels Cloud and Wind are really old by today's standards and do not comply with current or imminent environmental rules. Lines line Seabourn, Ponant, Hapag-Lloyd, Scenic, Swan Hellenic have far better options for polar expeditions these days.

More care and research needs to be done for a safari than almost every other type of vacation. You can be lucky or you can make some very expensive mistakes.

I have an upcoming 37-day cruise and have booked the Long Stay carpark at Heathrow Terminal 5 for £370. I live 120 miles from the airport. Before Silversea sent me the link to Blacklane I did a dry-run with Blacklane to see what they might charge me as a regular non-Silversea booking. For two people it was £350 each way. So £700 or thereabouts in total. Silversea have now sent me the link to Blacklane and I was first surprised to find we had to book as two separate people. Not per car. This was a bit laborious. They wanted to charge us £160 per person each way, so a total of £640, meaning that Silversea’s contribution to our fare was about £60 or £30 each way or £15 per person. Not a good deal. With Silversea’s £150 refund my car park bill has reduced to £220. That’s a good deal. And I don’t have to stress that the driver won’t show up.

@drron29 if your shots of Fuji are cloudy there's a nice woman in the UK called Kate who is a dab hand at Photoshopping.