Santarem, Brazil 3/8

We decided to turn in our highlight tour tickets for this city and chose to just take the shuttle bus into the city center.  We had noticed that the wind was blowing fairly hard when we docked this morning and about the time we stepped off the ship the rain was pounding down so hard that you could not use your umbrella.  By the time we had walked about 200 yards to the bus we were completely soaked.  We looked around for about an hour, bought a couple of souvenirs with the last of our Brazilian  money and decided we were wet enough to head back to the ship.  We quickly changed out of our wet clothes and spread them around our room to dry (as of 6 pm they were still not dry). 

Santarem was founded in 1661 by the Portuguese at the confluence of the Amazon and the Rio Tapajos rivers.  It is the only city in the Amazon that is connected by road to the south and east and therefore is an important port.  There was not much to see from a tourist standpoint but it is amazing to see how much the residents depend on boats for housing, transportation, and they even have floating markets on them.  We saw probably about 50 of the small ferry boats docked here and a lot have satellite dishes on top and we even saw several with solar panels. 

There were a lot of these floating gas stations, especially around Manaus

This sign was on the pier is Santarem

Two of these boats were loading passengers, the first thing they do is hang up their beds, it was quite colorful to see all the brightly colored hammocks swaying back and forth on the decks

We sailed about 2 pm and will be on the Amazon all day tomorrow before entering the Atlantic again.  Our next stop is French Guiana at Devils Island.  The old movie that starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman "Papillon" took place there. 

P.S. One of the things that drives Tom crazy are stupid questions or comments by some of the passengers.  One was "I wonder why it rains so much here?".  Tom said "Let me guess, it's the rainy season and we are in the middle of the largest rain forest in the world".  We have others and will save a few for other posts!