A boat on the Amazon

In Santarém we organized our boat back to Belém which was going to be our greatest adventure in Brazil so far. It cost 120 Reales (about 50 Euros) and was expected to arrive in Belém 48 hours later.
With Lukas we went on board and hung up our hammocks between hundreds of other peoples' below deck. It was absolutely packed, no space for swining at all, maximum discomfort, but somehow very cool! Special feature: an open shower on deck!
Because it reminded us of our cramped chicken bus ride in Central Malte named our boat the "Chicken Ship". We heard rumours that those boats sink every now and then.
We were supposed to leave at noon but didn't leave before 4 p.m. and had to wait in the heat on the boat till they had finished loading. On deck they started playing noisy music. Brazilians seem to be noise resistant and they never complain about anything! Whenever the boat docked and stood still the air below deck resembled a thick soup.
People spent their time chatting, sleeping or just laying in their hammocks, listening to loud music from their mobile phones, playing cards, drinking beer or even watching movies on their lap-tops. Every morning a group of dutch firefighters exercised on deck. Most people here are a bit fat.
Dutch firemen working out/ The shower
The Amazon is massive: it's several kilometers wide. For 2 days we were surrounded by nothing but brown water and jungle.
There were quite a few tourists; we met 3 other Germans and had a surprisingly good time. (No diarrhea -touch wood!)
The ship glided along the never-ending forest. We slept okay. It was a very peaceful atmosphere when everyone was silent in their hammocks.
When we passed some huts that stood solitary by the riverside far away from all civilization something strange happended: 3 little boats approached our ship. The kids inside howled and moved their arms as if they tried to fly. We took it for waving. Then we saw some packages wrapped up in plastic being dropped down from our boat into the water and the kids paddled to get them. This incident repeated a few times and later on people told us that we had misinterpreted their gestures and they were actually begging for cloths.
The most moving scene was when we entered a branch: the forest was now close, there were simple cottages once in a while. (Some had satellite bowls though or even christmas decoration which seemed very absurd to us. There was a tiny christian church, too.) Then hundreds of canoes appeared. Some managed to hook on to our boat in a dangerous procedure and sold shrimps, corncobs and Açai (popular purple drink made from a special palm fruit). Lots of people were on deck following the spectacle. It was getting dark and children were still canoeing near us. A group of kids that had docked with their little boats wandered around on the ship, watched men being really drunk and danced to the loud music.Canoes approaching our boat
The next day we passed many small islands in the Amazon river. When Belém's skyline, that looked fairly impressive, came into sight excitement arose again.
Straight away Lukas, Malte and I took a taxi to take us from the smelly harbour to the bus terminal. After some trouble with the driver (he wanted 15 Reales each even though he had told us 15 altogether before) we hopped on a night bus to Sao Luis.