Tuesday, February 27

After sailing at full speed all night, we were still at least an hour late getting to Santarem due to the strong current. I was scheduled on a river boat tour, but when I saw how far I would have to hike in the equatorial noonday sun to get to it, I remembered that I was neither a mad dog nor an Englishman and decided that I didn’t really need to go piranha fishing.

Wednesday, February 28

Today we stopped at a muddy spot along the bank called Boca da Valeria. A number of years ago a cruise ship with time on its propellers anchored here and sent tenders ashore to see what was there. A woman named Valeria lived there with her family and welcomed the passengers to see how she lived in the jungle. So now about 19 families (around 75 people) live there, and about 6 ships a year stop to visit. Lots of other natives come from miles around to let their and their kids’ photos be taken with toucans, iguanas, etc. for a small donation and to sell handcrafts. As you can see here, they swarm out to the ship in their canoes to even try to sell stuff to tourists boarding the tenders to go ashore.

I was most uncertain about getting off the tender at shore (by all reports the dock consists of some bamboo poles and pieces of plywood), and knew that the footing would be rough, so I decided not to go. Those who did said they had a good time, but they went over sweaty and came back rained on. (It’s not called a tropical rain forest for nothing!) Jill and I sat cool and comfortable in the Crow’s Nest watching the weather, the river, and passing boats of an amazing range of sizes.