hammock half asleep and half awake for ages, soaking up the morning
chatter and swaying hammocks around me, watching the jungle slide
by. When I finally got up to walk around, I was delighted to see my
vision of an armada partly realized. In front of us I counted 9
boats trailing off into the horizon, and another 8 or so behind. It
was like a convoy crossing the Atlantic in an old war movie, keeping
sharp lookout for u-boats. And knowing that our floating hammock
city of sleepy people was part of a larger confederation just
deepened the warm feeling that'd been diffusing through my body since
I woke up.
I took a shower in river water pumped up to a tank in the top of the
boat, and then walked to the front to dry off in the breeze and watch
the country slide by. Junior was holding court. Junior lives in Sao
Paolo, a huge city, and the way to picture him in relation to other
people we met is: he's the guy from the big city who loves traveling
around his country and seeing the sites. He was basically a big,
outspoken New Yorker (or Statin Islander) taking a boatride down the
Mississippi with a bunch of locals (and a miscellaneous foreigner).
I think when I was dry I just went back in my hammock, and spent a
little time copying music onto one of the other DJs' mp3 player.
We rolled into town in the early evening, and Junior and I went off
on our own to get something to eat. We walked into town, passed the
cemetary, and up to the stadium where a huge number of absolutely
ridiculous floats and large puppets were standing by. There were
trees three stories tall, giant skulls, miscellaneous vegetation,
enormous elf-like figures and giant lizards. I had no idea what any
of this was for, and figured a parade maybe but didn't give it much
thought. The streets were full of people but everyone was just
milling around in anticipation, and even though there were some
tremendous crowds watching something on a stage by the stadium it was
too chill to be much fun. After dinner we went home early and went
to sleep.
