Bristow Photos

[Dave Ed]

TIGO in Brazil 7


Accomodation.

Accommodation was in the Amapa Hotel, not likely to ever get into the World’s leading hotels directory.




I suppose I would class it as a back packer’s hostel but things did improve up to a 1 star rating with the arrival of hot water although most of us were scared to use it due to early instances of minor electrocution!
It was run by a woman, Conceicao and her two reluctant teenage daughters Sarah and Matah.




On a good day, if Sarah and Matah got up before 6am (pretty unlikely for a teenager anywhere in the world) breakfast would consist of little more than stale bread and water and some fruit if you were really lucky On most days it was help yourself to anything you could find in the kitchen or hope the small kitchen at the airfield terminal was going to be open.

I don't have any pictures of inside the room, just the view from the door.



It was pretty basic but with en-suite - cold water though during the cool rainy season!!!
The mattresses were a bit infested with bugs and a mosquito net was a real necessity. The aircon was pretty noisy but at least I had one! When it rained, the room leaked badly and careful positioning of the bed was necessary to keep dry through the night.
Did I sleep well in Amapa??? No, not at all!
Unless I had drunk lots of beer - so sometimes

The Bristow team stayed at the Amapa hotel along with Aeroleo Pilot’s and dispatchers. The Aeroleo engineers stayed at another hotel in town but it couldn’t have been much worse than ours.

Bugs and animals

An excerpt from my small diary:

23rd
Bitten by a dog! (me)
S61 Co-pilot in hospital (Bites!)
Ricardo in clinic - bitten.

All during the same afternoon.

We didn’t really get to see an abundance of Amazonian wild life but one or two interesting animals as you can see from the pictures. And millions of mosquitoes and ants that were a real pain as could be the town dogs!

You couldn't go out in the evening without covering yourself in 100% DEET. The mossies were BIG and quite capable of biting through clothing and sleeping under mosquito nets was a necessity.

As you have seen previously, there were plenty of water buffalo wallowing in the swampy wetlands and lots of vultures hanging around at the abattoir. And the most common bird - Egrets - white Stork looking things.

Occasionally when we were sitting at Edmilson’s, a hunter would pass by on a bike enquiring if we would be interested in buying his latest catch. Some jungle tree deer squirrely thing. Just because we didn’t buy it, it didn’t mean we didn’t get to eat it. There were some evenings, at Sorayas’, when the barbecue was filled with similar looking skinned things with lots of bones! Cooked rare of course….I don’t think they even lit the charcoal some nights L





It was also a hunter who turned up at the hotel with a Leopard cub one evening….





……and for a few days this little Armadillo made an appearance at the office. He disappeared after that……..probably another barbecue treat




It's hard to imagine everyone in these pictures is now ten years older including the Leopard and Armadillo!


Next time…… Guy cooks at curry at Sorayas.