All
of the times, days of the week and prices mentioned below are likely to
rapidly become out of date or otherwise change at short notice. To
reconfirm the information, you're best off asking a hotel in Leticia.
By Boat to Brazil - Manaus & Beyond
There's slow boats from
Tabatinga in Brazil (Tabatinga is next to Leticia - the two merge
together) to Manaus. The boat is far from luxurious,and often very
cramped, so try to "reserve" / bagsie your prime hammock spot as soon
as possible. This is a very interesting, scenic and adventurous way to
travel into Brazil - but do bring a book as you'll almost certainly
become very bored at stages. Meals are included, but bring plenty of
your own bottled water.
These slow boats depart the Porto Fluvial in Tabatinga on Wednesday
and Saturday at approximately 2pm. The journey lasts four nights,
costing approximately 170 Brazilian Reals per person if you string up
your own hammock, or about 1000 Brazilian Reals for two people sharing
a cabin room. You can do the same journey in reverse, but it takes
longer (about 6 days) as you're travelling upstream in this case ,and
it is a little more expensive.
To book this boat to Manaus, go and find the boat at the port a day or two in advance and sort it out locally.
There's also a high speed boat from Tabatinga to Manaus - Lancha Rapida Puma normally leaves on Friday morning, and takes 30 hours to reach Manaus, at a cost of 430 Brazilian Reals.
There's no roads connecting Manaus with the rest of Brazil. To
travel onwards from Manaus, take a further boat downriver to either
Santarem or Belem (which is on the coast) - from both you can start
catching buses to various travel destinations in Brazil. Alternatively
Manaus has an international airport - there's flights to various
destinations.
If all this sounds a nightmare, remember that there's flights from Tabatinga to Manaus with the Brazilian airlines Trip and Rico.
By Boat to Iquitos, Peru
To
Iquitos, the price is about $80, the journey takes 10 hours, the high
speed boats leave very early almost every day and are operated by Transur
and Transportes Golfinho.
Once in Iquitos, you can catch a flight to Lima (try Lan Peru,
amongst other airlines), otherwise you'll have to continue by river to
Pucallpa, and it will take about 7 days to reach there. Peru's road
network begins in Pucallpa.
