The Amazing Amazon

Hi All,

Today we are at sea heading for our next port of Devil’s Island.  We have been on the Amazon for the last three days. The river is simply amazing, and enormous!  At 4000 miles long, it is the second longest river in the world (the Nile wins).  But, it by far contains more water than any other river.  The river’s flow rate of 55 million gallons per second is greater than the next seven largest rivers combined.  The Amazon is responsible for 20% of the Earth’s fresh water flow into the oceans.   The width of the rivers ranges from as little as a mile to 240 miles where it enters the Atlantic ocean.  Pictures can’t really convey the vastness of this river, here are a couple.  The Amazon is brown, not because it is polluted, but due to the silt that runs off into it.  

 

Our first port of call was the city of Macapa.  We stopped here to pick up the Amazon river pilot who guides us through the river.  Most of the passengers made the trip into Macapa; but, to quote Gertrude Stein, “There is no there there.”  There really wasn’t much to see.  The town’s main attraction is the Marker Zero which sits on the equator.  At this spot, one can stand in both the southern and northern hemisphere.  We didn’t make it to Marker Zero, but Helen snapped this picture as we rode by on our bus (pretty exciting, eh).

So after a short stay in Macapa, we set sail for our next port of Alter Do Chao.  About this time the Captain came on the ship's PA system and told us we might run out of fresh water and that we should all conserve.  Huh?  After sailing 18 hours from Macapa, we arrived at Alter Do Chao.  The ship lowered about four tenders into the water to get all the passengers ashore.  They then discovered that the water at the dock was too shallow for the tenders to operate.  So, the Captain then said we would not anchor at Alter Do Chao, but instead we would proceed to Santarem where we could refresh our water supply.  It only took about two hours to get to Santarem, this was our arrival.

Shortly after docking two 4 inch hoses were hooked to the ship and the water crisis was resolved.  The next day many passengers took these boats on a tour which was described as a Piranha fishing trip.  We have been to the Amazon before and we did catch a Piranha, so we didn’t see any need to do this tour.

Presumably no one catch a Piranha this large.

So, we walked from the ship into Santarem’s city center which was a couple miles from the dock.  Along the way, we stopped at this market on the water.   Most of the stores were closed as it was Sunday.  This market was quite busy.

This family is loading their canoe after shopping.

At the market a young boy was using fish on a string to attract the famous Amazon pink dolphins.  The fish floated on the surface and the dolphins would come and snatch it off the string (no hook).  Helen got these dolphin pictures.

Across the street from the waterfront market was another large and active market.  Lots of products being sold.

Shrimp

There are very few roads in the Amazon region.  Most travel is done on boats such as these.

Sometimes a powered boat will pull a group of canoes behind it as you can see in this long range photo.  All these canoes had people in them.

For overnight travel, people hang a hammock for sleeping from hooks on the ship’s ceiling.  On the mid deck of this ship, you can see hammocks hanging down.  Quite a contrast to the Crystal Serenity docked behind.

After a couple hours of walking, we returned to the ship.  At almost every port we visit, a craft market like this one will spring up on the dock.  Bargaining skills are important when shopping here!

At 4pm we set sail for Devil’s Island.  Santarem as we sailed away.

We have been to Devil’s Island twice before, but we are still looking forward to our day there.  Many of the old buildings from the infamous French prison remain, and it is an interesting place to walk around.  After Devil’s Island we have a sea day before a day in Barbados.  Then St Thomas the next day, two more sea days, and then Miami.  Today we pulled out the first suitcase to begin packing.  We have 5 very large bags.  Three will be shipped UPS to Dahlonega, and two will be checked on our flight to Atlanta.  Will post again after St Thomas.  Bye for now.

Jer and Helen

Behind the Scenes Ship Tour

Hi All

Yesterday we had a behind the scenes tour of the ship.  It is very unusual to get a tour like this, so we thought you might be interested in what we saw.

Lots of water

Preparing meat

Vegetable storage

Cold storage

Making bread sticks

Engine control room

Officer’s bar

Officer’s dining room

Crew dining room

Crew bar and disco.  It is probably a bit more lively than the passenger disco!

The print shop

The flower lady

It really smelled good in here!

The ship's tailor

Crew uniforms

Pressing a guest’s shirt

This machine presses and folds all the linen used on the ship.

The bridge

Controls the Captain uses to drive the ship, looks like a video game.

Helen on the bridge.

Jer and Helen

Salvador de Bahia

Hi All,

We are now on our third sea day making our way to our first Amazon port of Macapa, we arrive there at noon tomorrow.

Three days ago we were in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.  This is a large city with a population of 7 million.  The ship docked at the city center.  We walked off the ship and onto this street right next to the dock.

After walking a couple blocks, we came to this unique elevator which took us up from the port area to the city's old town.  It cost 5 cents to ride the elevator.

Views from the top of the elevator.

This cross is next to the elevator.  Our ship is visible through the cross.

City hall

Salvador has some very pretty buildings.

The city is quite colorful.

Lots of art for sale on the streets.  We bought a small painting to remind us of Salvador.

We went into this church.

This amazing porcelain tile is on many walls in the church.

This crypt in the church.

We also visited this church (Salvador has over 300 churches).

People make a wish and tie ribbons to the fence in front of the church.  A whole lot of wishes!

This very friendly guy gave us some ribbons and tied one to Helen’s arm.

We each tied a ribbon to the fence and made wishes for our granddaughters.

After walking a couple hours, we made our way back to the elevator.  The elevator entrance is the building behind these very colorful letters. 

It was a VERY hot day, so before returning to the ship, we stopped for a beer.  It was so hot that even Helen had a beer which doesn’t happen often.

We had a very pretty sail away from Salvador.  

We enjoyed our day in Salvador, lots of fun walking around this pretty city.  We will post again after our day tomorrow in Macapa.  The Captain just gave his morning update and said the forecast for tomorrow is heavy rain, he also said we are now back in the northern hemisphere.  Only 11 days remain in the cruise.

Jer and Helen