Amazon Cruise 5

Thursday, November 22  --  Manaus, Brazil

Thanksgiving Day

We docked around 10:00 a.m. at a floating dock right downtown. It seemed to take a while to sidle in, then we realized that the Crystal Symphony is occupying the other end of the dock space. We do have a great view of the city from our balcony.

After breakfast in the formal dining room where we met a couple of fun guys from the DC area, we sort of just lounged around until it was time for Margaret to head down for her 12:30 p.m. tour out to a rubber plantation. I headed up to the open part of Lido deck planning to soak up some vitamin D.

Plan B turned up in a hurry. When you travel to a rainforest, you expect to see forest and you expect to see _?_. Yes, rain. This storm was a real frog floater if I ever saw one! It was complete with lightning just a few blocks away and thunder that rattled your teeth! However, within about 10 minutes or less it was over. When I headed back downstairs to our cabin, I saw where the crew were very busily trying to fix and clean up after a major roof leak in a different section of the Lido restaurant just when other crew were putting up decorations for Thanksgiving dinner. There were buckets all over that area and one of the higher-ups was chewing someone out over the phone.

Also about this time Margaret turned up. It seems the storm was headed straight toward the rubber plantation, so the tour was canceled. She was just as happy since a) she'll get a full refund, b) she had already learned about rubber production on a previous tour, and c) she had her afternoon back to go to the passenger terminal hoping for free wifi. I've had no trouble logging on through the ship's internet access to get email etc., but she's had no luck getting through some weird firewall to her email account.

We will be here for most of tomorrow anyway. She has a morning tour, and maybe we will check out the shops in the passenger terminal in the afternoon if she sees anything worth looking at today. So far on this trip the only tangible things I've bought are a few postcards and a new toothbrush. I keep telling people that I've put more trip souvenirs into yard sales than most people ever see in their whole lives.

Thanksgiving dinner was excellent. Margaret and I both had the delicious ham entree mostly because the turkey entree looked like it was fancied up to a fare-thee-well by one or more of the celebrity chefs that set the menus on board. Stew and Sandy have given up on the "Anytime Dining" thing and come back to us, so we had fine conversation to go with the holiday meal.

Friday, November 23  --  Manaus, Brazil

More rain today, but not the violent thunderstorm of yesterday. This is the first of my many cruises that I can remember rain while in a port...not even Manaus in 2007.

I spent a leisurely morning mostly in our cabin, while Margaret went off on tour to a botanic garden and zoo. She caught up with me in the Lido where I was having lunch and filled me in on her tour. She liked the guide but thought some others on the tour found him too garrulous. She got photos of lots of greenery and some animals including several jaguars.

Near time to leave we went out to our balcony (which our cabin stewards had kindly dried off after the morning rains), but we just sat there. There were several official types standing around on the dock, and several more on the flying bridge, but nothing was happening. Then a tour bus came down the ramp to the dock, and we figured the ship was waiting for a delayed tour. The bus door opened, but only the driver got out and stood around talking to one of our guys. Eventually the Captain got on the PA and explained. Evidently it was some sort red tape snafu with some paperwork between the ship and the Brazil Tours company that someone didn't fill out right. We finally pushed off about half an hour late. That was too late to see the non-merging of waters between the Rio Solimoes (aka Amazon River) and the Rio Negro. Fortunately I have a nice shot of it from 2007 to show you when I get some photos edited in here.

Saturday, November 24  --  Parintins, Brazil

Margaret and I went ashore to see the Boi Bomba show. It is a sampler of acts  from a local annual festival that has fabulous set pieces, stunning costumes, and totally amazing high energy dance numbers. More later.

To get ashore we rode on double-decker local river boats instead of the ship's tenders. They were colorful, and best of all, their deck height above the water is almost the same as ours. This allowed use of a simple gangway and eliminated the dreaded "tender high jump" from the ship's tender to the bottom step of the big gangway when you return.

When we got ashore it was to one of these floating docks that can cope with the annual flooding. This is the end of the dry season, so the way up to land is very long and very steep. Happily, I was assisted up the dock by a couple of teenaged boy scouts in their scout uniform of khaki pants, a crisp white shirt and a colorful neckerchief. There were several other scouts around, and some were girls. I gathered that helping old ladies from cruise ships is one of their good deed activities. Coming back after the show, another scout helped me back down the long slope. Down on the dock, one scout was holding a donation box and another held a sign in English about donating to help scouting. I just about cleaned out my wallet for them.

Boi Bomba. Wow! 12 years ago it was held outside in mid-afternoon when even mad dogs and Englishmen sought shade. Now it is performed in an air conditioned convention center conveniently a block from the top of the dock ramp. The shore excursion folks on board had reserved seats for Margaret and me front and center and for other passengers with disabilities of various sorts.

The minute we were seated we were presented with a drink called caipirinha. Personally, I'd call it caipiranha as it was at least 75% rum-flavored moonshine with a shot of lemonade added. Whew! And some passengers were going back for seconds! It was a good thing that I didn't have to stand up until the show was over an hour later.

There were groups of young men and women in intricate costumes doing dances that involved enormous amounts of stamping and twirling at a frantic speed. Every so often a set piece would come out heralding a change of dancers, and often featuring one "star" dancer in an even more elaborate costume. Think Mardi Gras times 10.

One set piece was a huge cayman, another was a jaguar, another was a river boat. 3 of the stars were young women, 2 sporting big headdresses of feathers and a minimal amount of other clothing while the other twirled around in a huge hoop- skirted dress that would have done Scarlett O'Hara proud. The other two stars were men, one dressed as a shaman and the other with a bull costume.

All the stars interacted with the audience well. All of them, but especially the bull, interacted with the young girl sitting near me. She has Down's syndrome, and her family really makes sure she can participate in everything she can handle. In the local story that Boi Bomba is based on, the bull and the girl in hoops fall in love, so it was really cute that he also approached the young passenger several times so she could pet him.

I headed back to the ship while Margaret went postcard shopping among the vendors outside the convention center. I think one of us must have hit a time warp or been abducted by aliens because somehow she got back to our cabin before me.