I leaned against the boat鈥檚 damp railing and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the stench of fish, diesel fumes and rusty metal. Night had fallen and the Amazonian landscape, once neatly divided into fiery orange-magenta above the horizon and dull, milky brown below it, had blurred into inky blackness.
It was only the first of my three-night journey up the Amazon River, and I was already bored.
Suddenly, the boat鈥檚 spotlight came on. The captain moved it from side to side, scouring the river for logs that could jam the propeller. Occasionally the beams revealed the bats that feasted on the moths and beetles that escorted our boat as it lumbered upstream.
I was so riveted that you鈥檇 think there were pterodactyls swooping around, and not bats. It was as if the boredom had made my senses so desperate for any kind of stimulation that even the mundane felt magnificent.
There was plenty of boredom on this boat, a cargo-passenger vessel entirely free of creature comforts, which would take me from the Colombian city of Leticia to Peru鈥檚 Iquitos. The boat had a main deck for cargo 鈥 everything from bananas and chickens to motorbikes and even cattle 鈥 and two open-concept upper decks, where our 鈥渂eds鈥 were nothing more than hammocks we had to bring ourselves. Passengers slept side by side with strangers.
For thousands of communities that dot the Amazon, these slow boats are a lifeline of goods and personal transportation. They also attract the occasional backpacker like me, keen for a taste of local travel.
We set off on a sticky August afternoon, the boat inching forward at snail鈥檚 pace. I assumed it would move faster once we reached a broader stretch of water, but no, this was cruising speed.
The scenery barely seemed to change. At one point, I observed a rooster trotting up the riverbank 鈥 it was outpacing our boat. I restlessly went from my hammock to the front deck to the rear, to the bottom and back upstairs. I鈥檇 often find myself in a place where I was just minutes earlier, for no reason. Prior to the trip, I had resolved not to rely on music, podcasts or books, and to instead sink into the experience. It was proving challenging.
Annoyingly, the only time the boat seemed to move hastily was when we passed picturesque hamlets where stilted wooden houses and parakeet-laden trees towered over small children playing in the water.
I took to people-watching on the boat, which was full of folks from all walks of rural Amazonian life. There were grizzled working men who played dominoes and guzzled beers, teenage soccer players travelling to a tournament, and children whose carefree revelry reminded me of the overnight train trips I took in India during my childhood.
One of the many villages that the writer鈥檚 slow boat visited en route.聽
Rahul KalvapalleI put my pre-intermediate Spanish to use. I learned that one man transported aquarium fish for a living; another was on vacation from mandatory military service. I tried to eavesdrop on the teenagers, only to discover they were speaking an Indigenous Amazonian language.
By the third day, the boat was packed to the point where moving about meant nudging hammocks 鈥 and their occupants 鈥 out of the way. I grew to look forward to people brushing past my hammock, leaving me with the parting gift of a gentle rocking rhythm.
I spent the afternoons staring blankly out at the water, frequently slipping into a meditative state with no intent or effort (maybe because there was no intent or effort).
I was often snapped out of my daze by the appearance of the river鈥檚 iconic dolphins. Some pastel pink and others grey, they鈥檇 fish near the boat before diving and re-emerging minutes later in the distance. The sightings were captivating but fleeting 鈥 had I had my head buried in a phone or book, I would have missed most of them.
I also found myself hypnotized by the sight of butterflies congregating by the riverbank. Bright scarlet, deep purple and neon-highlighter yellow, they swooshed around like confetti caught up in a mini-tornado.
Why did the butterflies swirl around in one place? Why were some of the dolphins pink and others grey? With no Google to answer all, I rediscovered the luxury of simply wondering.
We reached Iquitos at 4 a.m. on the fourth day. A fellow traveller聽advised me that the port area was sketchy and that I鈥檇 be wise to stay on the boat till daybreak. So after another hour on my hammock, I set out. It was pouring rain. I hailed a motorbike taxi to my Airbnb and made a beeline for the shower to wash the stench of the boat off my body.
That night, I lay in bed with my iPhone. I restlessly moved from WhatsApp to Instagram to email, and back again, often finding myself in an app where I had just been minutes before.
I began to feel the mindless app-surfing eroding the pleasant boredom that had built up over my languorous boat ride. So I put my phone away. I imagined I was back on my hammock, waiting for someone to brush past and rock me into sleepy stupor.
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