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!

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.

Manaus, Brazil 3/6 and 3/7

Manaus is a city of nearly 2 million that is about 1000 miles up the Amazon river from the Atlantic Ocean.  It is an industrial city with a large petroleum refinery and factories making several brands of motorcycles (even Harley Davidson) and electronics.  Manaus was the center of rubber export beginning in the late 1800's and that boom lasted for about 25 years until the British planted rubber trees in Malayasia and ended the Brazilian monopoly on the rubber trade.  The Europeans that were the exporters were called "Rubber Barons" and they built beautiful mansions and other buildings including a magnificent opera house.  There is also a unique wrought iron market building that was designed by Gustav Eiffel.  Most all the materials for these buildings were brought here from Europe. The city is actually located on the Rio Negro river which is a major tributary of the Amazon.  The only road that leads out of the area goes north to Venezuela so most travel here is by river or plane.  The traffic within the city is horrendous, there are thousands of buses, taxis, private cars and motorcycles crowding the narrow streets, our first tour was scheduled for three hours and it became a five hour tour after we spent about 1.5 hours sitting in traffic.  There are literally hundreds of water taxis, ferries and small narrow motorized boats they call canoes.  The ferries are referred to as "water buses", they are two or three decks and have destinations all up and down the rivers.  They mostly travel at night and the passengers bring there own hammocks that they hang from hooks in the ceilings of the decks.

Ferries at one of the many docks

Our first day here we took a tour that included a small zoo that is part of the local army base, an Indian museum and the Opera House.  About an hour into the tour the sunny weather turned to very heavy thunderstorm.  As it had been quite nice when we left the ship hardly anyone in our tour group had rain gear, us included.  One bolt of lightning hit very close to the museum we were touring, it sure made everyone jump.  The rain was really coming down and many of the streets were quickly flooded, the locals take this heavy rain in stride as it is after all, the rainy season! When we were ready to leave the opera house it was really pouring so the tour guide got a couple of the employees to bring a huge market type umbrella from an outdoor table and walk five people at a time to our bus, we still got very wet.  We were told that the river level can rise as much as 50 feet or more during the season. 

Jaguar in the military zoo

Teatro Amazonas (opera house)

Inside the opera house

Rubber barons mansion from bus during rain

Our second day we took one of the ferries about 45 minutes down river to a lake where we boarded small motorized canoe type boat for a trip into the flooded jungle.  Our boat driver was very young but really handled the boat very well, winding among the narrow passages between the trees and bushes.  These areas are really hard to describe, quite exotic with strange looking trees and many different sounds, birds, howler monkeys, insects, etc.  It was a great experience.

Type of boat that took our tours down river

Motorized canoes that took us into the flooded rainforest

Huge tree over 100 feet high

Floating village, green building is a store

3/5 Boca da Valeria

We had a nice dinner last night with social hostess, Nicola and dancer, Laura.  Jim and Judy from Honolulu also joined us.  We are now back in the southern hemisphere having crossed the equator again.  Bacoa Da Valeria (mouth of Valeria river) has a small fishing village of 75 people at the junction with the Amazon.  When a cruise ship arrives people from surrounding villages also come to this spot.

House on stilts surrounded by flood waters

Tom went ashore and Noel stayed on the ship.  There were dozens of small boats offering rides up the Valeria River  for $5 per person.  Getting off the tender was like running a gauntlet with children trying to grab your hands and  lead you.  Finally one little boy got Toms wrist with both his hands and would not let go.  He became Toms guide but her never said a word.  There were hundreds of children.

Boy with sloth next to tender

Tom handing candy to the kids

Some parents have their kids dressed up like Indians and charge for a picture.  Others have various native animals and again charge for a picture.  There were sloths, rats the size of a medium dog, caymans, iguanas and many different birds.  These people are not Indians, but "Caboclo" which means mixed race. 

One interesting thing is that the Amazon has two types of fresh water dolphins, one of which is a pink color and we saw these in this area. 

3/4 Alter Do Chao, Brazil

This morning we could not believe the amount of debris that was coming down the river.  There were huge trees, floating pieces of sod as large as tennis courts and all kinds of other stuff.  One passenger told us he saw a dead cow floating by.  This is the rainy season and there is a lot of flooding, we have seen houses built on stilts completely surrounded by water and we saw some where only the roof was out of the water. 

This beetle was on the deck this morning, it was about 6 inches long

The village we visited is on a tributary, the Rio Tapajos, it is amazing that a cruise ship can go up a tributary of the Amazon.  We passed one town, Santarem, that has a population of 300,000.  It is at the mouth of the Rio Tapajos where it joins the amazon and we will visit there in five days. 

The clear water of the Rio Tapajos meeting the Amazon

The area where we were to dock was quite flooded with trees sticking out of the water and there was a sandbar so we could not get the tender up to the dock when fully loaded. The solution was to tie an empty tender to the dock and then the loaded tender tied off to it and we unloaded by walking through the other tender onto the dock. 

The two tenders at the dock

Thatched roof pavilions that are under water

At sea 3/3 Amazon River 3/4

It was a nice day at sea with the wind and swell coming from the south.  Since we were headed mostly WNW there were some bouncy side to side conditions, but nothing serious.  As usual we kept busy with lectures, games, trivia (we won), and we watched a movie in the suite.  There was the usual King Neptune Ceremony on the pool deck when we crossed the equator.  We enjoyed another Indian cuisine dinner arranged by our Aussie friends Graham and Jane.

Our trivia team

There has been a problem for about the last ten days with getting the satellite newspapers received and printed.  We have also been unable to get the news channels on the tv as they have had no signal for the last few days.  All contact with the outside world is via the internet or telephone.  For those of you old enough to remember the tv show "Laugh In", the comedian Arte Johnson has been on board the last two segments.  Most people do not recognize him. 

Noel with Arte Johnson

The ship officially entered the Amazon River during the night.  The river is about 200 miles wide at this point.  We awakened this morning to water the color of coffee with a lot of milk in it.  There have been trees and debris floating by as this is the rainy season and  a lot of junk gets washed into the river.  Two river pilots will be picked up this afternoon at Macapa.  This is just a technical stop and no one goes ashore.  We have been asked to conserve water since the ships desalinization equipment will not work while we are on the river.

We never realized how large the Amazon rain forest is.  Parts of it are in countries other than Brazil and the whole forest is larger than the continental US.  There are 3000 rivers throughout the forest.  Our technical stop was a couple of hours to be certified to continue.

Macapa where we anchored for about two hours while waiting for clearance to continue

Fortaleza, Brazil, 3/1

We were docked overnight in Fortaleza but left about 2:30 in the afternoon.  We will be entering the estuary of the Amazon during the night and have to time our sailing to the high tide as there are sandbars to avoid.

Today we took the shuttle bus into the center of the city and looked around the central market for a couple of hours.  The market was immense, having five levels connected with ramps and stairways and it even spills out onto the surrounding streets.  This area of Brazil specializes in cotton lace and other cotton products, leather and cashews. 

Fortaleza is the fifth largest city in Brazil and seems to have tremendous growth with new high rise condos and apartments everywhere.  You still see plenty of poverty but it is evident the economy here is growing.  The area was settled by the Dutch, but the Portuguese later took control and the African influence is gone. 

Tom is very sad to leave the Brazilian coastal areas, home to the string bikini, or as they call them here "dental floss" bikinis.



View of Fortaleza from ship



Cathedral in center of city

Large beach area with wide walkway



Inside the five level market