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Published: June 13th 2017
Geo: -8.05428, -34.8813
Saturday 04/02/12 Parintins, Amazonia, Brazil 32c Hot and overcast
I'm having real problems uploading photos to the blog, after 30 minutes it just crashed with nothing uploaded that'd be annoying at home here it's frustrating beyond belief. The maritime internet service is slow and expensive, £200 for 1000 mins and I'm already down to 745 min so uploading photos will probably have to wait until I get home, sorry.
This is another tender port which we were told would probably be different to any other we'd experienced as the route from the ship to the quay wouldn't be direct as the river is extremely fast flowing at this time of year and the floating debris and flotsam is amazing, it's not branches, leaves, and grasses but enormous tree trunks some 4-5m long and 30-75cm in diameter and they're shooting past at speed all the time.
The journey went by without any mishap but as well as having to judge the speed of oncoming flotsam they had to avoid the numerous small river craft, and local double decker passenger boats all of whom gave no quarter.
There wasn't much in the village we looked around the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Cameo
Phone Home
Public phone enclosures!which was simplistic but beautiful in its own way. The bottom of the pillars in the church were covered in what we took to be marble but as we turned into the nave we discovered two workmen painting, closer inspection revealed that the panels weren't marble at all but the effect was painted on it was so realistic.
Sunday 05/02/12 Santarem, Amazonia, Brazil 32c Overcast with showers.
We'd pre booked another meeting of the waters river tour here the mighty and muddy brown waters of the Amazon meet the blue waters of the Tapious we were lucky enough to see the Pink Dolphins playing and actually jumping out of the water, after a while they came alongside the boat for a short time. The main attraction of this tour was that the bulk of the time was spent cruising around the back waters where we were lucky enough to see Parrots, Toucans, Eagles, as well as numerous other colourful birds we couldn't recognise, there were monkeys and we were so lucky to see two Sloths hanging in the trees. We passed numerous little settlements as well as single stilt houses with pigs and all the normal sort of animals
you'd associate with a small holding, all of the people we saw along the estuaries waved to us which as pleasant but seemed somewhat incongruous when compared to my lifelong perception of the Amazon: I'm not so daft as to think that it would be as it was 40-50 years ago but my childhood thoughts and teachings still obviously run deep. It was a fantastic trip and we'd have loved to extend our time here for another week even though it would be totally impractical, not impossible but certainly impractical.
Monday 06/02/12 At sea 29c overcast with a large sea swell, winds force 6
Not much to comment on here so I'll take the opportunity to tell you about another of our fellow passengers Marie-Ann she's a Dutch widow whose husband was British and they lived in Sussex although she's now moved back to Holland. She's one of five children four of which have been struck down with cancer, two of her sisters died from breast cancer and she too has been affected but is in remission, her brother who's 57 has cancer of the oesophagus and despite all the treatment available now has less than a year to live.
The family has been tested to see if there's a genetic link but have been told that that's not the case there's no genetic link, which just seems inconceivable.
The family have an established bed manufacturing business which has (I think) left them financially secure to the extent that Marie-Ann cruises throughout the year and there's not many places she hasn't been to, some 3-4 times, she's a walking mind of information on most of the ports we're visiting, whilst she's not bragging she just tries to be helpful to others. Unfortunately some have taken it the wrong way and are slowly distancing themselves from her which is a real shame as she only want to be helpful.
Tuesday 07/02/12 At sea 28c overcast with a large sea swell, winds force 6
Because of the fast head on current and strong winds we've now been informed we'll be arriving approx. 2hrs late at Forteleze tomorrow.
Wednesday 08/02/12 Forteleza, Brtazil 33c Hot and sunny
We finally arrived some 3 hrs later than scheduled which isn't a problem because this is another of the questionable ports, by that I mean when we researched it before booking some 18 months ago we were concerned to discover that this
Piranha
Red Bellied Piranha place is a known hive of criminality with very little to recommend it. (Along with Georgetown, Guyana, & Salvador, Brazil)
Originally there were 3 tours available but as a result of the late arrival two had been cancelled, it wasn't a problem for us as we'd decide to take the port shuttle bus into the city and take a look at the central market & Cathedral.
Architecturally there's some stunning old world buildings which unfortunately have lapsed into a state of disrepair but a lot of them are currently being restored to their former grandeur, so I've no doubt it'll all look fantastic later on, however they've got to address the high crime rate if they really serious about making this a regular cruise ship destination.
Having visited the market, Cathedral, and Ferreira square we ventured around some of the backstreets as we usually do but there was an underlying current of tension so we slowly made our way back to the shuttle thankful for the air con.
There's a fantastic night market here from 17:00-00:00 it's right on the beach with over 600 stalls selling just about everything but we're warned it's rife with mugging, pickpockets, and rip off
merchants, shame. Anyway we're due to depart at 19:00 so it's not really an option.
20:00 we've still not departed as there's some problems with the bunkering operation (refuelling the ship). We eventually got away around 23:15 which had we known this was going to go on for so long we would have organised some taxis for us and our table friends to take us to the market for a couple of hours, but as with all things when there are delays of unknown duration they won't let us leave the ship; which is possibly for the best as we later discovered that one of the ships tour guides was mugged at knife point back in Manaus and two passengers had jewellery snatched from them in Manaus & Parintins despite being told time and time again not to wear jewellery, expensive watches or have expensive cameras on show.
Thursday 09/02/12 At sea 28c bright and overcast.
Unbelievable 4 weeks gone already that's nearly a third of the holiday over, but on the positive side we've still got two thirds left!!
Friday 10/02/12 Recife & Olinda 33c bright and overcast.
Today we're off on the first of our arranged coach tours which takes
in the two towns, once again we're berthed at a passenger terminal which is situated in a commercial dock, and once again the guide has told us that the infrastructure is going to be upgraded soon to cope with increasing passenger traffic.
We visited the local church, theatre, and beaches as well as watching local children dancing in the street, from higher up at the viewpoints we were treated to beautiful panoramic views of the two towns. We also visited the Casa da Culture Pernamburco which was the local prison but has now been turned over to a craft and souvenir shopping centre with all the cells becoming individual shops they're obviously small inside but very bijou. Apparently they used to hold 10 people to a cell with NO facilities, if you needed the toilet you rang the bell which would sound all over the prison meaning the inmates got very little sleep, and I can only imagine that they would just hope the jailers would respond fairly rapidly, but somehow I think their idea of rapidly and inmates would be miles apart.
As we travelled around you couldn't help but notice the street decorations all over the place,
all the bridges across the river were decked with giant size carnival figures because next week is the start of carnival week, yeah, and everything is gearing up for this massive yearly event. I've mixed feelings about carnival week on one hand I'd love to be there and soak up the atmosphere, and on the other hand there's the enormous crowds, criminality, and the inability to do anything other than go with the flow; overall though given the choice it's a got to do so it's a no brainer.
After returning to the ship to freshen up and have bite to eat we set out again taking the shuttle bus into the centre to do our own thing. We took in the local parks, Governors palace, Palace du Justice, as well as the local street vendors selling everything from sellotape, batteries and paintings to tropical fish in plastic bags full of water (like we used to get for prize's at the fair back at home years ago) Whilst the area was busy and a little intimidating providing you were street savvy and alert it wasn't too bad.
We only had 3 hrs available to us in order
to catch the last bus back to the ship but as we were already some way out, after consulting the basic map we got from the tourist office we decided to walk back to the ship that way we could take in more sights and maximise our time here. We managed to visit or photograph all the sights we wanted as we made our way back but the heat and humidity was starting to get to us, by now I was beginning to look like an icepole or popsicle, just soaked through with running water from head to foot!
Our last sight was a monument I'd previously fairly seen close to the ships berth and as it was indicated on the map we planned our route back to take it in, however we couldn't find it and despite asking locals nobody could give us directions to it. Our last chance was a policeman so having eventually found one we showed him on the map where we wanted to go, he looked at the map, looked at the street, (according to the map we were at the junction where the monument was supposed to be) and looked back at the map again
Casa da Culture
The converted prison landings then gesticulated that he could see it on the map but not with his eyes so after a lot of laughs we gave up and were on our way again, from here we could see the ships upper decks above the surrounding buildings so we hadn't far to go.
On route we visited Fort Brum which we'd previously seen but didn't think we'd get the opportunity to go to, and it's not on any tourist agenda. The guard couldn't be bothered to charge us the couple of Realis entrance fee and just waved us through, inside there's a small military museum and chapel along with a room depicting the history of the fort (unfortunately all in Portuguese) along with photos and memorabilia. Having climbed up to the ramparts for photos we eventually made our way back to the ship; by which time we were just a bundle of wet clothes walking.
18:00 the captains just announced that due to the escalation of civil unrest in Salvador (our next dubious port of call) the visit has been cancelled, and with no other possible ports available at short notice we'd spend the day at sea. When we originally researched the holiday we knew this
Casa da Culture
The lower converted cells was a very dangerous port of call and you really need to be on your guard here as murder, muggings, and rape were rife here.
To give you an idea of the current position on the security alert as relayed to us by both the American and British Government. The police and fire department have been on strike since the end of January, the homicide rate has deteriorated with 78 deaths reported last week against
only 34 the previous week! Some 2500 federal troops have been deployed to Salvador, 150 marines to the port sand 400 air force personnel to the main airport. So I guess sightseeing's out then.
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Sue Purnell
non-member comment
Hi Paul,Linda Sounds like you are having a fabulous time. Really enjoying reading your blog, it's great to read your adventures after a hard day's work and wish we were with you. Hope the good times continue. Sue and Bob xx