Manaus – Tabatinga: 7 days by boat on the Amazon

Sharing is caring!

Even though we have spent almost 2 weeks in and around Manaus, that was not enough from the Amazon region. We wanted to see more. We heard that passenger boats are going up to the Colombian-Peruvian-Brazilian border every few days.

Which boat to take to Tabatinga?

The boats highly differ in price and travel time as well. You can choose one according to your budget and preferences. Note that the journey upstream takes longer time than from Tabatinga to Manaus.

The slow boats (freight ships)

The slow (and therefore cheap) boats cost from 350 Reals per person, all-inclusive. Daily 3 warm meals and the stunning (but after a while boring) view of the river for 6-7 days sounds pretty interesting. If you pay more (700-1000 Reals), you can get a cabin for two. We decided on the cabins which had also a private bathroom. The rest of the cabin was basically a bed. Far from any luxury.

The name of our boat was Itapuranga III. We would recommend take any boat that goes next, unless you don’t mind waiting up to 10  to 12 days for the same one.

* Read about our budget on the whole Brazilian trip  *

The fast boats

Another option is to take a fast boat. As its name suggests, it is fast, even in less than 2 days, you can arrive at Tabatinga. Considering the price, it costs 500-600 Reals.

(Prices are from our visit in 2015)

Our choice: the slow boat

The ship was smaller than we imagined, the hammocks were only on one deck, 80 of them a the top, and 10 cabins which were mostly occupied by the crew. On the back of the deck, there are the public toilets and showers, the kitchen and the canteen for crew and cabin guests. The lower deck was full of goods, and the hammock passengers got their food there.

Is the boat ride boring?

I don’t need to point out that the view won’t change rapidly on the way. In the beginning, you will be excited to observe the wide river, the animals, but after a day or two, it will be less and less special. But boring? Not really. Unless you lock yourself into the cabin.

Let us show you the perks of the boat journey 🙂

Tabatinga-Manaus: the way on the Amazon

The meeting of the waters

After leaving Manaus, before exploring the boat, we could observe the meeting of the waters, this time, from close by. It looked much better from the plane. I took a few pictures anyway, but I felt sorry for people who pay almost as much to see it as we paid for the whole week on the boat.

The only foreigners

We still didn’t speak Portuguese (what a surprise!) but few people were very curious about us. Besides the usual questions of who we are, they were curious mostly why do we travel so far and why do you come to Brazil if you do not speak Portuguese? Not even Spanish? With a mixture of English and our dictionary, we could communicate. A bit. And as we were the only foreigners on the boat, that made us unique and quite popular with its good and bad sides.

The other passengers

During the first two days, the boat was really packed. Later fewer and fewer people stayed, and only a couple of new passengers boarded, usually just until the next port. In the end, there were about 25 people aboard when we arrived at Tabatinga.

Full-board (a.k.a food)

The meals were big and delicious, often some kind of fish which the crew just purchased in the ports where we stopped by. As we stayed in the cabins, we ate in a separate canteen with the crew and the few other ‘high paying’ passengers. Others could pick up their meals on the lower deck using their own bowls and eat with their own cutlery.

It is a ferry

Our ship transported mostly cement, beer and diapers and toilet paper to the ports where the ordered amount was unpacked, and then we sailed further. One of our favorite activity was to observe unloading. Also, fresh fruits were sold in smaller amounts to anyone who wanted some oranges or apples. Our favorite guy was the one who packed about 40 crates of beer into his little boat. It took 30 minutes and we were observing curiously if the boat will sink or be unbalanced and lose all the valuable load.

A relaxing way to enjoy the rainforest

The locals, who most likely took this way already few (or hundreds of) times in their life, they were resting or sleeping in their hammocks. It is the 21st century, so many of the younger passengers were playing on their phone or watching movies, etc. The boat had electricity and sockets as well, they were usually full around the hammocks, though.

You can also talk, which – in our case was limited, as I already mentioned earlier, and mostly happened during the meals or when we were on the top deck. The people were friendly with us, most of them traveled from Manaus with a lot of newly bought items to their town, village or house. Very few people got aboard on the way, and they usually went only to the next stop. Also, often people bought packages to friends as well, so they just dropped them off in the harbors and they still stayed on the boat.

The onboard buffet and parties

I have read earlier that big parties happen on the boats (seriously?!), but our boat was rather quiet. Actually, I can’t imagine that a real party would go on the ferries, ever. Unless a bunch of foreigners makes it happen. In general, not so many things happened during that one week. The small buffet (or bar?) was mostly deserted. The same few folks hung out there. Only one night was a louder ‘party’ going on with about ten participants.

The buffet was on the top deck and usually, we just went there to observe the river, the houses and settlements around. The water level was still very high, we have seen many flooded concrete buildings, and there were many other wooden ones where people still could live as they were high enough above the water level.

Observing wildlife and nature

We have seen mostly birds flying and pink dolphins swimming in the river. We enjoyed it much more than our earlier encounter with them. Once we even spotted an ara. And a lot of unknown blossoming trees. Local people were often fishing around. So it was the view and life everyone expects during a week-long boat ride.

Every day we had a huge pouring rain (actually another day a complete storm as well during the night and morning). It was unexpected to wake up to that weather. The boat was covered with plastic to stop water from pouring onto lower decks.

The Peruvian flags and arrival to Tabatinga

Sometimes we were much before, other times much behind the timetable. We always stayed as long as unloading lasted. In Benjamin Constant, the Peruvian flags were already visible on the other bank. Finally, we arrived 4-5 hours earlier to Tabatinga than expected. Wow, we were just a few kilometers away from Colombia, and only the river separated us from Peru! Read more about our adventures in Tabatinga and the border crossing to Columbia.

But something else also happened during our long boat ride. Check it out!

Sharing is caring!