A bit of a boat trip.

Those of you who are following the trip in "real time" may have been surprised to see how casually Ann, Mo, Judy and Clive abandoned the vehicles to make their way independently to Manaus. You are right to be surprised, nay even suspicious!

For reasons that will become obvious, the exact details of how "the girls" and Clive returned to the barge (after it had left the loading dock) will have to remain secret for some time. At the moment I can't tell you who helped, and who didn't, or who knew and who didn't. All I can say at this time is that some taxi drivers in Porto Velho are very resourceful and mobile phones are very useful.

At the start of this trip Mo was extremely nervous about travelling even in large boats. As you can see from the photographs, the boat used to help the girls re-join the barge was small and travelling in a large busy river after dark without lights. It was a clandestine operation the SAS (or should that be SBS?) would have been proud of. Alas no photograph of Mick hoisting Mo aboard the barge exists!

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