The Boi Bumba Festival in Parintins takes place in late June and is second only to Carnival in Rio de Janiero in attendance.

Parintins - Boi Bumba

Monday, February 15th

We are now returning to the same ports we visited on the cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Manaus.  Today we attended the Boi Bumba show that is performed for cruise passengers.  The actual festival in late June is a competition between two teams, the blue team (Caprichoso) and the red team (Garantido) and everyone in Parintins wears either blue or red to show their support.  This is why the Coca-Cola signs in town are in both blue and red.  The blue team performed the show we saw.  The costumes are very colorful and the dancers energetic (that’s why many of our pictures are blurry).  Boi Bumba (Festival Folclorico) tells the story of an ox and a farmer who kills it because his pregnant wife has a craving for beef tongue.  St. John the Baptist brings the ox back to life.  The two teams try to retell the story in the most dramatic way.  We wouldn’t have discerned the story by watching the performance.