Parintins, Brazil 3/8

Parintins is a city of 100,000 that is on an island of the Amazon river.  The river continues to amaze us.  It can have 2, 3, or more major channels that are miles wide with flooded jungle and islands among the 30,40 miles or more of the actual river size.  We passed this city when going up river and anchored here midday so we could attend a special show this afternoon.

This feathered costume was about 20 feet tall

Giant frog was also about 20 ft tall

Girl that came out of frog

This snake was even taller

Snake girl!!

Really big moth man

Tom with the girl that had been inside the giant fish

Every year in June this city hosts a large festival called Boi Bumba, it is a three day event that draws people from around the world.  It is second only to the Carnival in Rio.  The basic story goes back to colonial times and started somewhat like our county or state fairs as it was a contest of who had the best bull.  This has since evolved into a competion between two factions that support either the white bull or the black bull.  It involves telling a basic story with music, singing, and dancing.  There are huge floats, elaborate costumes with tons of feathers and large figures.  We saw only a short one hour version put on by the "red bull" side.  One of the huge figures was a large frog that opened up to reveal a girl is a fancy feathered costume, another was a big fish, again with a girl inside another figure was three huge snakes.  The final figure was a man depicting a huge moth.  Throughout this whole show there are about 30 costumed dancers performing.  It is hard to believe that in the actual June festival they perform like this for three hours each night of the three day event.