by Mark Rice
I gathered my notes and took Jennifer to the restaurant where we met up with Margaret. Jennifer had chatted to one of the Intermediate Class as she’d left the room and they were just as bemused about their classmate’s absence as the rest of us. It appears the three who turned up this morning had missed the previous day’s class. They’d also missed my poisoned test, I thought to myself.
After coffee, Margaret and I printed off our Aer Lingus boarding cards for the flight home and checked for any emails or messages.
As she’d already mentioned, Margaret opted to skip the choir and so I joined the lads, Arthur and Geoff, for the rehearsal. She headed to a sun lounger beside the pool closest to our cabin.
David , the Musical Director, outlined the master plan for the remaining days which included a few male-only and female-only sessions to work on the complex harmonies. This would be in addition to the normal noon classes.
For me, today was a day of great progress as I discovered I could sing a higher note than ever before! I was amazed to discover this ability so late in life. I put it down to the breathing exercises we now do at the start of each class.
We ran through all three current songs and then started our first work on Tony's baby, America by Simon and Garfunkel. With only ten minutes left of rehearsal time he sang it first and then, very remarkably, as most singers were unfamiliar with the song, we did two almost perfect run-throughs. I think the instructors, Tony, in particular, were much impressed.
I met up with Margaret and we lunched on soup and a small trifle, chatting away with a couple from Sweden before splitting up again. Erik and Elas have met other passengers who have said that there appears to be a lot of seriously ill passengers on board.
“Do you know what the cause is?” probed Margaret.
“Nobody knows for certain,” answered Elas “Some people suggest a mystery bug in the food, others think dirty water and yet more suspect the Zeka virus but whatever the cause the medical centre has been overrun with patients.”
Just then the captain’s voice came over the PA system. “Good afternoon passengers, this is Captain Cox speaking. Can I ask if any passengers who were medical doctors or clinicians in the past, could they make themselves known to the officers of the ship? This is a precautionary measure and will assist us if and when any need for such skills arise. Since we are now in an area of high humidity we will be increasing our anti-bacterial measures across the ship and I would ask you to cooperate fully with the crew whose job it is to enforce these measures. Thank you and do enjoy your afternoon on board the SS Azara.”
I noticed, as we left the restaurant, waiters were forcing all passengers to present hands for anti-bacterial spraying.
That afternoon I visited the gym and ran another 5 kilometres and was dripping with sweat by the end. Each run I’ve undertaken was a challenge and each kilometre required a different mental argument to be won before I could complete it. The hardest kilometre was always the first because I knew there were four more to come. I searched the screen to pick on some positive motivational statistic. Can I complete the first kilometre in under five minutes thirty seconds? Can I build a song in my head based on the rhythmic beat of my runners on the cross trainer? For most of my run, driving heavy rain threw itself against the gym's windows and I imagined running through such a downpour in the nearby jungles and forests.
The gym work out completed, I then sought out Margaret, my queen of the sun loungers, who had sat in and then walked through the same downfall of warm rain, and enjoyed it. We took a swim in the pool and found the water a tad cooler than the air around the pool, but pleasant none the less. The heat is still such that all the fallen water has evaporated and the decks are dry to walk on within minutes.
By early evening the river had widened out and the land along the riverside appeared denser. There are definitely small buildings close to the shore and signs of man-made passages into the forests but no roads are visible. The river is also full of broken trees, branches and grass, all the debris flowing towards us. Pleasingly there are no signs of litter such as plastic bottles, packaging or household waste.
The captain gave us an update at 17:00. “We have covered five-hundred miles and the currents have been strong against us. We will not dock in Manaus until 10:00 tomorrow morning when we will turn into the river Negro.”
We visited our cabin and changed for the formal black-tie dinner tonight. By my reckoning, we only have three more formal evenings to come.
The photography team had set up again in the atrium tonight for full length portraits so we stopped and the photographer clicked away taking pictures of both of us.
Roger was still poorly with a cold, so we are seven again at dinner this evening.
“Can anyone figure out what’s happening with the increasing numbers of sick passengers onboard?” I asked. It was as if I’d suddenly granted people permission to talk about something that was worrying them, but they all felt they couldn’t mention. A plethora of voices spoke all at once and then silence.
Jill expressed the first audible comments. “I don’t know how all of you feel but I’m scared of whatever it is, that is knocking people over. I’m still recovering from my operation last year and my immune system is low. It wouldn’t take much to finish me off.”
Frank responded giving her a gentle protective hug. “You’re not to talk like that love, you’ll be fine.” He spoke calmly and with authority. “I met with one of the ship’s officers this afternoon and he confided in me, with what they think is happening. I would ask that you all keep what I’m about to tell you to yourselves, for now.”
My ears pricked up. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know what was coming but forewarned is forearmed so I listened intently.
Frank had all our attention and he laid it out, in a low whispered voice, once the waiters had retreated from our table. “In the last twenty-four hours, there have been multiple fatalities amongst the passengers but none amongst the crew. Twelve passengers have died and almost thirty more are in a serious condition. The medical centre has been overrun and the request by the captain this afternoon for retired doctors was prompted by a shortage of trained medical staff on board.”
He paused while his words sank in. Nobody said a word and so he continued.
“No one has yet identified what has made these people ill but they all have the same symptoms; severe intestinal pain, vomiting and dehydration. They then develop a roaring temperature and death follows if the temperature cannot be brought down.”
Margaret gasped and reached for my hand.
“It’s thought the bug is food related,” Frank added. “Doctors have taken biopsies and samples have been transferred ashore to a laboratory in Manaus but it will be several days before they know for sure what they are dealing with. That’s what’s known to date, of course, I’ll keep you all posted but remember mum’s the word for now.”
It was a chastened group that departed early from the restaurant that night. We split-up in the lift area and only then did we find out from Frank that Jill has been in pain from her hip most of the days of the cruise and that the painkillers hadn't worked. At last, we knew why she has been so silent and we assumed moody during the dinners.
We arrived with ten minutes to spare before Ben Mathews final show and what a show it turned out to be. He sang beautifully and then towards the end completed a number with his surprise guests the 4 Voices.
We sat next to Brian and Anita to watch the show and Brian rudely continued to read his Kindle and ignored us for ten minutes before the show started. He was talkative enough afterwards complaining about Octavian Cruise artists who are paid handsomely to perform and then seek to top up the wages by selling CDs.
True to form, with the show over, Ben was outside signing and selling his CD's. We hurried past and visited the ship’s pub, where a quiz based on TV comedy clips was in session.
Unfortunately not a seat could be had so we moved on to chat with Bill and Joan for a short while
. Bill confirmed he'd visited a bar in St Vincent and had downed a yard of ale. I’d heard the story from another passenger and suspected it was true. He was on form and was regaling us with a very non-PC type of humour.
We retreated to the Crow’s Nest where Lorcan Bond Trio were playing to a good-sized audience.
Lorcan played a song for the choir members in the audience and he seemed sad that he was no longer choirmaster. It's certainly different now and I do hanker for his light touch and gentle humour that was a feature of his reign. I liked his song choice and his mashing of songs. We stayed as long as we could, but Margaret was beginning to yawn and it way past her bedtime so we headed for bed.
Day 35
Monday 6th February.
Arrive at Manaus, in the Amazon, Brazil.
We slept in this morning. Margaret said she felt as if she’d had no sleep and therefore no dreams.
In recent days, since we started taking the anti-malaria tablets with our evening meals, she’d had epic dreams, every night.
Walking along the open deck and past the pools, my gaze fell on the colour of the water. We had turned off the Amazon River and were now in the Negro River. The brown water is gone and we are now cruising through dark, black waters, apparently filled with flesh-eating piranha fish.
It was a sunny day with a smattering of clouds and a strong wind in our faces so it’s actually very pleasant on board. Passengers are spotted here and there examining flying bugs resting on pillars and windows. Even though we are now close to the city of Manaus with three million inhabitants and can see the harbour, even our docking wharf, few insects appear to have made it onboard.
We docked at 11:00, a full hour behind schedule due to strong currents against us and the captain’s unwillingness to increase speed for fear of sending large waves rippling out and causing damage to other boats.
We ate breakfast and sat next to a couple whose husband commenced emitting lung rattling coughs during his breakfast.
He told us he was on his second course of antibiotics. He'd joined the ship with the illness and thirty-four days’ later, he still sounded terrible.
His wife informed us he wasn't contagious but then she would say that, wouldn't she?
We got two games in on the tennis court and then one table tennis match before retreating to our cabin for a shower and a complete change of clothes.
Our visit to the Amazon is a dangerous one for people used to living in the Western world where many viruses and diseases have been totally irradicated over the years. Consulting with our travel agent we had looked up the immunisations needed before departure and so we were inoculated against Yellow Fever, Hepatitis A, Tetanus and Diptheria, several weeks before sailing. Malaria protection was a series of tablets to be taken before, during and after visiting the danger zone.
Now we just had to take sensible precautions with clothing and footwear when going ashore. Margaret opted for, leggings, a T-shirt, long socks and running shoes. Her body was covered by sunscreen and then 95% strength DEET from top to bottom. She had a body that attracted many pests. I should know as I’m one of them.
I too wore runners, long socks, Bermudan shorts and a T-shirt. I used the same combination of lotion and DEET. We both wore floppy hats and sunglasses. Frankly, I didn’t care how ridiculous I looked. I was not going to fall ill in the Amazon and that’s for sure.
Descending the gangplank, I noticed the line of ambulances pulled up next to our ship, beside the second gangplank normally used to disembark crew. A steady stream of passengers on stretchers descended the plank, carried by medics wearing face masks and gloves. Alongside the ambulances were three taxis into which, it appeared, partners of the sick or dying were being seated while their luggage was being removed from the ship and placed in the boot of the taxis. Everybody going ashore that morning could not fail to see the large number of medical vehicles and personnel arrayed on the quayside and it provoked a great deal of conversation amongst the passengers. We strode along the wooden dock, in silence, just two folks in a long line of slow-moving humanity.
A free shuttle bus service took us to the terminal building from where we then set off on foot.
We found Manaus to be a typically modern city with lots of stall holders and shops selling goods, mainly local goods. Unlike other ports we’d visited prices were not displayed in local currency and US dollars, just local currency, Brazilian Real. Even in C&A, a well-known shop in Britain, the staff told us they didn't accept US dollars. In fact, we didn't find any shop that accepted US Dollars so we visited a local Santander bank branch to try and convert US Dollars into Brazilian Reals.
They had difficulty locating an English speaker and when she appeared, she told us that the bank only carried out foreign exchange transactions for business customers. She directed us to a Bureau-De-Change some streets away. Two bedraggled American men latched onto us in the bank and at that point all four of us set out to find the Bureau. The younger American’s card would only release 100 Reals daily out of the ATM, even though he insisted he had a US $200 daily limit.
The older man was pretty wound up. “Everybody in this godforsaken place has lied to me since I flew in. We’re stuck here for the next eight days and nobody speaks a word of English,” he complained. He had a point. Portuguese is the mother tongue in Brazil and here, deep in the Amazon basin and on the edge of the rainforests there are probably few English speaking tourists that make it this far, into the wilderness. Certainly, the city shops and vendors are focused on local shoppers, not tourists.
The Bureau-De-Change proved elusive to find and everyone began to get irritable with each other and the fruitless search. Finally, Margaret lost her patience with the edgy pair and thrust our Manaus map into their hands before striding off.
"Give my regards to your Queen," the older man gamely hollered at her retreating back.
"I appreciate the sentiment, but we’re Irish, not English," I shouted over my shoulder, trying to catch up with her. We climbed away from the tight city streets and swiftly came upon the Amazon Theatre (Amazonas in Portuguese), an opera house located at the very top of a hill that overlooked the city and just off a large grassy well kept square. Built in 1896 of materials entirely imported from Europe it now stood in its original state, except for the addition of electricity and the modern air-con system that were installed some ten years ago
Our visit to the auditorium coincided with an Octavian Cruise excursion group, so we sat and enjoyed the words from their guide before they moved on. Ben Mathews, the opera singer who performed on the SS Azara, had been at the opera house earlier today with a group from the ship and he sang a few verses to demonstrate the acoustics of the building and I believe the old building resonated with his rich voice bringing tears to many eyes.
We explored the building managing to gain access to the first and second-floor balconies. It was a stunningly beautiful building hovering on the brink of disrepair. We stopped for a snack in the opera house's restaurant and sat at a table outside. From this high vantage point the city lay stretched out before us and in the distance, the SS Azara shone in the sun.
We traversed the square before finding a Bureau-De-Change and exchanged US $40, which was the maximum the bureau clerk was allowed to convert. We visited a shopping centre and walked back in the heat of the afternoon sun to the harbour terminal. A short shuttle ride through the dock and we were back on board.
The ambulances so prominently displayed on the dockside earlier had gone and in their place sat a police car and a police transit van. I couldn’t see any police officers so maybe they were on board the ship. I reboarded with reluctance as a part of me, the flight element of the fight or flight response impulse kicked in. I controlled the fear, controlled my breathing and rationalised the situation with an argument that suited my cause. All is not lost. Nothing is certain.
The dress code for dinner that evening was casual. The only topic of the day was not Manaus but the death of fifteen passengers overnight and the
removal to hospital in Manaus of nineteen others. The sheer volume of ambulances on the quayside had been impossible to miss. Nothing had been reported through official channels to passengers but stories had transferred through word of mouth.
My thoughts were in a spin. I tried to switch the conversation to the Amazon Opera Theatre but Rose and Roger kept bringing it back to the deaths.
Roger, being an ex-policeman had chatted to the officers of the ship and their current thinking was still that some sort of food poisoning was responsible. No one at the table had yet connected the deaths with any common factor, such as the bridge class, as the victims took ill at various times throughout the afternoon and in different locations around the ship.
The majority of the dead, it seemed, were only found when they failed to appear for dinner last night and stewards visited their cabins. It cast a pall on the dinner and for that, I felt quite guilty.
This evening, we all received a slice of cake baked to honour the Queen. The icing had three layers of colour, red, white and blue. Today marked the 65th Anniversary of the Queen's coronation and our captain, Peter Cox, on behalf of Octavian Cruises felt they had a special relationship with the Queen as she named the SS Azara in April 1995.
We attended an Argentinean three-person dance troupe at the theatre tonight. They were a percussion and singing ensemble who had just appeared on the America's Got Talent TV show.
The group split down into a pianist who sang and played a few Argentinean numbers and the two tall male tap dancers/ percussionists who performed very complex dance steps, twirled ropes with metal balls on them, in intricate patterns and played drums and boxes. At times the jerks and feet positions held looked very unnatural and incredibly awkward. The show resembled the Irish Riverdance show but it lacked a central theme to stitch it all together.
"They would be a good fifteen-minute variety performance slot but a full forty-five minutes, no," said Margaret. We applauded them off the stage and exited the theatre.
