Burying Ghosts and Preparing for the Ghost Road – Humaita, Brazil

Leaving Porto Velho in the morning, we have a very interesting encounter:

Payback! — Now WE photograph YOU! 😉

They weren’t particularly smiley characters though. Not at all amused about our presence, a “my-shit-don’t-stink “look on their faces. Unusual for Googlers no? Probably not aware that in most parts of the world people would give a finger to be doing their job… hmmm.. …hmmmmmmmm…..

—————————————————————————————————–
Dear Google:
We know you can find this letter and would be overwhelmed to get a response from you (use comment box below).

Your (fans) sincerely,
Ken & Ebru from 2fortheroad.co.uk
—————————————————————————————————–

A ferry-hop (5BRL) and 214Km ride North of Porto Velho lies Humaita. If you’re a foreigner and you’ve ended up here, the chances are that you’ve got one of three things in mind:

1. Cross the West-East Transamazonica (BR230) route from Humaita across to Maraba
2. Cross the South-North “Transamazonica” (BR319) aka. “Rodovia Fantasma” route from Humaita to Manaus
3. You’ve just done one of the above and you’re headed from here down to Bolivia or across to Peru

Neither of these are (or for 3. were) an endeavour for the faint of heart, so you’re probably a little crazy. But a little stay in lovely Humaita will almost certainly do you good and make the trip worth the effort.
We’re planning to do option 2.!

From Porto Velho the road here (the first section of the BR319) is all good asphalt, but you’ll definitely be aware that you’re distancing yourself from civilization with every kilometre left behind.

Humaita is a small town on the banks of the river Madeira. It’s got a small centre, a couple of petrol stations and a dock for boats where you can catch ferries up to Manaus or down to Porto Velho or onward to Bolivia, as I’m told. There’s a really nice family atmosphere here. People walk around with a smile, people light up BBQs on the street-side in front of their little homes, kids and youth buzz about on their bicycles and mopeds – there seems to no sense of danger or threat.

We check into a nice place called Pousada Paraiso, just on the North side (50BRL/dbl ensuite). It’s a place where mainly workers from out of town park up their pick-ups and stay over night. It’s got plenty of indoor parking space and the breakfast (included) is excellent.

At night we go down to the river side to have dinner at a little street-BBQ restaurant there, while the girl from the bottle shop next door serves us up ice cold beers. It’s so laid back here it’s horizontal. We chat about the road to Manaus with the owner while he serves up excellent grilled beef skewer completos, and while we sip on our drinks we watch families with their children walk around while others busy themselves with the public gym equipment in the little riverside park. It’s beautiful! One night we’re even served up some Amazonian river croc’ to try.

When we’re not enjoying ourselves, we’re back at the Pousada getting ready for our Rodovia Fantasma adventure. The bike packing needs an overhaul to accommodate the extra weight and volume. The ratchet strap is slung over the saddle and around the panniers to transfer the additional weight of the water attached beneath them with net-bungies directly on to the chassis and take strain of the rack and the pannier straps. We have to figure out how we’re going to support the extra 25 litres of fuel, the 8 litres of water and the ultra-light 4-day food supply we’ve bought (we settled for instant noodles and a number of sugar-rich panela bars – something fudge-like).

Several hours are spent packing and re-packing until it all seems stable. Then we have to try it out! We fill up the water bottles and spare fuel tanks and off we go. First, we ride around carefully on some sandy tracks within the town. Everything seems to be ok. I’ve deliberately hit some bumps and deeper sand patches and nothing has fallen off or broken. The engine sounds like it’s coping and there even seems to be enough space to accommodate us, so I’m optimistic!

As the next stage of testing, we saddle up with the full load and head out the 20Km dirt track to the beginning of the unmaintained part of the BR319, the junction between Manaus, Humaita and Labrea. It’s a maintained track so it’s mostly even but it’s got plenty of dips and bumps and ridges of deep sand which we can attack to test out how this will handle in “real life”…

The bike is heavy, that’s for sure. With the additional fuel and water we’re definitely exceeding the top payload limit of 155Kg. The ride will be challenging, but the bike seems to be ok with the weight and the luggage seems to be stable, so if we’re careful we might actually make it. In fact, I am even optimistic!

We stop for a small while at the beginning of the Rodovia Fantasma. There’s a wide asphalt strip, jungle on either side, with an ancient highway sign-board overhead, barely showing the outline of what was once written there: “Manaus 640Km”. We wait for a moment in silence and look at the road disappearing on the horizon. For a second I’m almost convinced I see a small white mini-bus there on the horizon, but then it’s gone. Must ave been my imagination.

One thing we’re very happy to find out during the test drive though. On the return to Humaita, as I manouvre diagonally across a sand ridge in the road, I lose control of the bike and drop it. No injuries, it was a careful, controlled drop, but I couldn’t support the bike upright. Ebru’s a bit shocked but the gets over it quickly. The problem we discover is that we cannot pick the loaded bike up again, it’s too top-heavy. The process of unloading, raising the bike and re-loading it up again takes us over half an hour. Not good. We’ll have to hope we won’t have to do this on the BR319!

As a final touch I take care of something I should have done a long, long time ago. Before we started this bike trip, in fact, but there was no way I could have known then. I loosen the bolts on the bash-plate and fit several pieces of hard rubber between it and the steel chassis, where the two surfaces would meet. I tighten them up again, jamming the rubbers securely in-between and start up the engine…. No gnashing; no loud whirring; no worrying grinding noises. The engine sounds smooth and silent, just like new – just like the guy’s back at Puerto Maldonado. That ghost is dead and buried! Finally. What a nightmare…

We’re set! The only thing I have noticed is that the bike seems to be burning more oil these days. I’m not sure 100% – but there’s nothing to be done about that now – just carry spare oil.

(If you’re unsure what I’m referring to here please check out these posts for the history of our troubles…)
Getting Ready to Go
Crown Jewel of Bolivia: Sucre