Amazon Cruise

2010

Typical farm along the Rio Tapajos near Santarem. This will all be under water by July.

Entering the Amazon/Santarem

Monday, February 8th

We entered the Amazon River sometime Sunday night. This time of year, the Amazon is about 120 miles wide in this part of the river. Once we were past the mouth of the river it was generally 4 to 6 miles wide. At one point, it was raining on one side of the ship and partly cloudy on the other - all within the width of the river. We crossed the equator around 7:00 am, although the crossing ceremony didn’t take place until early afternoon. Passengers who are crossing the equator for the first time are supposedly hazed, but the few volunteers were mainly slimed with jello. We played trivia this morning with a new team, and a couple from Britain knew almost everything about the subject--Broadway and West End musicals. Jay and I only knew about 2 answers to the 20 questions. We redeemed ourselves in the afternoon session when we played with the retired teachers from Texas. We won first place by correctly answering 15 of 20 general knowledge questions. Trivia is a nice diversion from eating, reading and napping, plus we meet some interesting people.

Tuesday, February 9th

The forecast for today was for temperatures in the 90s and humidity in the 90s, but it turned out to be a very pleasant day with temperatures in the low 80s under overcast skies. We spent the morning on the ship and went on our shore excursion around 2:00. We’re at the port of Santarem, which is located on the Rio Tapajos. We boarded a small boat that went down this river to Lake Maica. The confluence of the Amazon and the Rio Tapajos is near Santarem. The water in the Amazon is cooler (it starts in the Andes mountains of Peru) and the tributary water is warmer, so the water doesn’t mix for several miles. The Amazon is coffee colored because of all the sediment in the water, while the Tapajos is called a “black” river because of tannins leached from the vegetation in the rain forest. The meeting of the waters is an unusual sight with the different colors running side by side. When we reached the lake, the crew stopped the boat and we all put out a line in hopes of catching piranhas. Two women did so and the crew cleaned and fried them so we could all have a taste. It’s a very pleasant tasting fish. There are about 20 species of piranhas in the Amazon, and most of them eat only aquatic vegetation. Santarem is a town of about 265,000 people who are mainly employed in commerce and government work, although tourism is growing. Cruise ships can only navigate the Amazon during the rainy season, which is about January to June. The depth of the Amazon varies by around 40 feet between the end of the dry season and the end of the rainy season. We saw some cattle boats today that move the livestock to higher ground when the water rises. The farmers who live along the river and its tributaries subsist on a diet of fish and manioc (a plant they process like flour). They generally live longer than the people in the cities. The Amazon is named after the warrior tribe of women who cut off their right breasts so they could better use a bow, arrow and javelin. It is the longest river in the world, although the Nile is less than 100 miles shorter.

This is the rainy season in the Amazon basin, so not surprisingly it has rained at times during the last two days. It has not been as hot as we expected.

The mouth of the Amazon

Port of Santarem

Confluence of Amazon and Rio Tapajos

Santarem - river cruise

River cruise - fishing for piranhas

River cruise - fried piranhas

River cruise - piranhas’ jaw

River cruise - cattle boat

River cruise - floating gas station