Category: Amazon, Caribbean and Azores

Today, we arrived at Parintins, or to be more precise; we dropped anchor in the river, alongside Parintins. Because the place doesn’t have a quayside big enough to take cruise ships (or it might be because the river is too shallow there), folks had to be taken across to the town in tender boats. Parintins isn’t a very big place,...

Today, I was escorting a tour, entitled ‘Manaus – Capital of Amazonas’. It was a city tour that I’ve done before, and was slightly disappointed not to have been given the all-day ‘Amazonian Experience’ to Lake January, but hey… you win some, you lose some. Actually, with the torrential rain we awoke to this morning, there was a small part...

This morning was spent sailing towards Manaus, the Capital city of Amazonus, where we will be spending the next two days. Unfortunately, the rain was so heavy and persistent that you could barely see the riverbank on either side. A knock-on effect of this, of course, is that everybody stays inside. I spent the morning happily working in my cabin,...

Today, we arrived at Boca Do Valeria. Described as an opportunity to experience a remote and primitive Indian village, it’s a stop that consistently divides people. A cruise ship of 800 passengers descending upon a small village of approximately 75 inhabitants sounds like a recipe for controversy. While it may also raise the hackles of those who are concerned about...

Today we arrived in Santarem, in the Para Region of the Amazon, and I was on tour again. After breakfast, I was down on the quayside for just gone 9am, along with about 7 other tour escorts drafted in to take care of the enornously popular excursion that is billled, quite simply, as ‘Piranha Fishing on Lake Maica’. Mine was...