How Did I Get Here?

Big River, or how to get to FOSS4G/SOTM LATAM in Belem the slow way. There’s a backstory here, the short version is that 36 years ago - on an extended journey from Costa Rica down to Rio de Janeiro - I tried and failed to get a boat trip down the Amazon from Manaus to Belem and the fine hammock I had bought on the way in Venezuela never got used. In the end I saw very little of the river. Time passed and the regrets faded until they announced that FOSS4G 2024 would be held in Belem.

The announcement got me thinking, obviously this was a chance to try again with at least part of the Amazon. And then, because I’m fairly light on work commitments at the moment, I started thinking that the journey could begin further up river than Manaus. Maybe even in Peru?

So back in April or May I sounded out Johnattan Rupire from the Peruvian OSM community to check whether it was a crazy idea to go to Belem from Iquitos by boat. It is a bit crazy, but it turned out that he was thinking of doing exactly the same trip. And with that, plus quite a bit of internet research on just how many boats we would need to get to make it happen, I got on a plane to Lima in early November.