The Move and Arrival

I'm sitting in our new house in Manaus, as I write this Brin and Ella are organizing the kitchen.  The girls arrived Monday and we've been unpacking, organizing, meeting our neighbors and making general repairs around the house.  We truly felt God's provision and protection on our trip.  There were a few unexpected surprises along the way, but I suppose I would have been more surprised if things went totally as planned.  

I was able to take a few pictures, so I'll try and let them tell the story...

As the Ana Maria (seen in the last post) took our stuff to Santarem, Allison, Dillon and I traveled in my truck via the TransAmazon Highway.  We arrived on Sunday, one day before the boat and were able to see some friends and meet the boat at the dock Monday morning.  I learned that I would need to hire a small boat (seen above) to take our stuff to the larger boat bound for Manaus. 

We were able to put my truck on the same boat (for no small price).  While in port, I really didn't breathe easy until my truck was on the boat, they waited until the last minute to load it. 

My truck parked amongst travelers on the first of three levels. 

One of the perks of having paid so much to take our stuff to Manaus was that we were allowed access to the air conditioned room.  The trip took about 56 hours, by day two we were pretty tired of sitting in our hammocks.

Occasionally, when it wasn't too hot, we would spend time on the upper deck of the boat.  It was no luxury ship, but with the AC it was definitely comfortable.

We arrived in Manaus just after mid-night the morning of my birthday, Jan. 13th.  We spent the rest of the night on the boat, in the morning we found a truck to take our stuff to the house where we unloaded it for the 5th time since leaving the house on the previous Friday.  In the photo above, Dillon and Allison paint the Cleny's room in preparation for the girls' arrive a few days later. 

Because of the layout of the house (you can see some photos here), all the furniture of two bedrooms and the school room had to be hoisted to the upper level.  This was done by the use of a pulley and lots of heavy lifting.  Most of our furniture is made out of heavy Amazon hardwood.  In the photo above, Allison and Dillon modify a bookshelf to fit in the closet of the girls' room.

Monday morning I picked the girls up at the airport and brought them home to see our new house.

Here Ava is commenting on the size of our tiny yard (about 8'X8').

Mia enjoying the spiral stairs which continue up 3 stories to the roof where we hang laundry.

Cleny and Ella exploring the master bedroom.

Brin and Mia enjoy the view from the roof, most of the windows only have views of the neighbor's walls or roof.

The Move

As I write this, all of our things are on a slow boat traveling upriver towards Manaus.  I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Santarem with 2 friends, Alison and Dillon.  We are taking my truck to meet the boat, transfer our stuff to another boat, and travel along with our stuff and truck to Manaus.  If all goes as planned we'll be arriving on the 13th, my birthday. So far things have been going well.  Here are some pictures for those that are wondering...

We will miss the huge wardrobe that we had been using to hold our home school material (not to mention the spacious school room).  The wardrobe wasn't ours, and after moving our much smaller wardrobe, I'm so glad we didn't have to move the behemoth.

Packing up the kitchen.

Our furniture waiting to be loaded into the truck

We loaded the truck Friday afternoon, Saturday morning we traveled 45 minutes to Vitoria to meet the boat.

Unloading the truck at the port in Vitoria.

Our stuff should be safe in the bowels of the Ana Maria, the next boat from Santarem to Manaus will not be so secure (it will probably be a Line Boat, full of people in addition to cargo).