Advertisement
Published: March 16th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Saturday – Mar. 15/14, Boca da Valeria
Our stop today is at Boca da Valeria a sleepy little village along the banks of the Amazon. We arrived off the town at 8:00 am this morning and dropped anchor in the channel. The first officer, along with the chief engineer and the ship’s carpenter went ashore to inspect the tender landing area to ensure that it was safe for passengers to go ashore. The river is running much higher than on previous visits and the landing dock had taken a beating so the ship’s crew did some repairs and when they returned they report that the zone was adequate for our purposes and tendering began almost immediately. Those hardy individuals who went ashore first did it in fairly heavy rain. We decided to wait to see if the rain would clear up before attempting a shore excursion.
While we were waiting we spotted a number of the famous pink Amazon dolphins swimming across the stern on one of the ship’s tenders.
They stayed around the ship quite a while, likely as we were anchored and not making a great deal of noise. The tenders were active and their activities likely scared smaller fish up to the surface and the dolphins took advantage of the fresh feast. They don’t stay on the surface very long so it was nearly impossible to get a clear photo of them.
Also while we were out on the balcony watching the dolphins the supervisor of the cabin stewards came by with a member of the crew to “fog” the room with antiseptic. The crew is still doing battle against the GIS bug. Later in the day one sign that they might actually be gaining an upper hand is that floral arrangements, which were removed from our cabins at the height of the outbreak, have now returned.
As Brooke had hurt her foot the day previous I went ashore alone to see what there was to see in the little village. As soon as we landed little children surrounded us, tried to take your hand and act as your guide; I declined the offers and set off on my own.
The village is a mix of basic huts on stilts with sawn planks for walls and tin roofs. There were spaces for windows which had no glass in them but there were tarps to keep out the daylight and shutters to keep out the driving rains. Electricity had been brought into the village and every shelter was hooked up to it. In addition every hut had a TV satellite dish pointing straight up as the satellites are almost directly overhead in this region of the world. This village location also has the school and the church.
There were a number of individuals, mainly children, dressed in native costumes holding onto their pets; monkeys, turtles, macaws and baby three toed sloths. The children along with their pets posed for photos for $1.00 American. There was also one adult male dressed up as the village elder who obviously didn’t want to get his feet wet as he had rubber boots on. The villagers had also set up some pavilions to sell some carvings and locally made pots.
Other than the display of native costumes on a few children and adults the majority of
the inhabitants were dressed in standard t-shirts and shorts, flip-flops or went bare foot.
The crew took a number of gifts ashore for the children, namely pencils and note pads for their schoolwork. This is something that is done whenever a cruise ship stops in the area. As soon as they started to distribute items they were mobbed.
The locals are entrepreneurs and were offering boat rides for $5.00 a head. I took a ride on one that took us up one of the tributaries that lead into the interior of the mainland. As soon as that was over I returned to the ship for lunch.
Found out from our friends on board that during this “code red” status to fight the GIS books returned to the Library had to be sanitized and then have been placed in quarantine and won’t be released until around the 24
th of March. Reading material is starting to get scarce.
As soon as the tenders were safely stored and the anchor was retrieved the Captain set sail precisely at 3:30 for Manaus. Earlier the two river pilots who came aboard on Thursday
morning went ashore and were replaced with a pilot experienced with the river up to the Manaus area.
Note in today’s “On Location” re:
Water conservation in the Amazon The Engineering Dept. reminded the passengers that is was not possible for the ship’s systems to “make” drinking water while we are sailing in the Amazon River due to the sediment and water quality. Usually the ship pulls in seawater and flash distills it to make drinking water. The ship’s crew asked passengers to help conserve water by taking shorter showers and not allowing the water faucets to run excessively. They also reminded us that the water used to clean the decks off in the early morning comes from “grey water”. This is the undrinkable, recycled water obtained as a byproduct from various ship operations.
Tonight’s entertainer is Samantha Jay, a musician who is accomplished on four instruments: the piano, the sax, the oboe and violin.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 14; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0299s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Charlotte
non-member comment
Looks like you've been having fun!
Catching up after my own adventures. Looks like you guys have been having a good time (GIS aside!)