Friday – Saturday – Santana
The delights of Alter De Chao (pronounced, we think, chow) were always going to be a hard act to follow. Because of the change to local laws imposed upon us by the Brazilian Authorities (something about having to be in Santana between two daytime high tides), we’d already lost Almeirim, and were destined to arrive in Santana at 2:30 on Friday, for an overnight stop, leaving at approximately 2:30 on Saturday. Many said that an overnighter in Alter de Chao would have been much more fun; we could have had beach parties, barbeques…. oh yes…. so much more fun.
The best thing we discovered in Santana was free wi-fi, right on the dockside, and right by the ship. Finding wi-fi is easy; always watch where the crew go…. someone discovered an unsecured network right by the ship, and bingo, before you knew it, there were several dozen folks, all dotted around the area tapping away on laptops. We sat there into the early evening, until the bugs started to become intolerable. I’m not just talking little gnats and mozzies – I’m talking huge flappy, moth-type things bashing into your head and crawling down your neck – not very pleasant at all!
Friday night was Burns Night, so one Scottishh passenger had been roped-in to ‘Address the Haggis’ and talk all Burnsie, after which, there was a sort of Barn-dance type thing on deck, where passengers were invited to partake in some traditional scottish dancing. For those who didn’t take part, and only watched, the spectacle was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Utter chaos would perhaps sum it up in two words – but huge fun nonetheless!
On Saturday, we decided that we would take a walk into Santana. Last year, we, and another couple, commandeered a taxi to take us into Macapa, where we were able to visit The Marco Zero monument, signifying where the line of the equator passes through the city, and a small fort there. Other than that, there was very little to see or do in Macapa; made all the more underwhelming by bouts of extremely wet weather.
Some passengers had signed up for the Macapa Transfer bus; about £30, each to take them into the city… others, like us, simply went for a walk into Santana.
Once you’re past the port buildings and industrial area, you’re in Santana – an approximately 15 minute walk.
What’s to be said about Santana? Well; if Brazil had piles – this is where they’d be. Santana has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. As someone else said; it gives a bad name to s***holes. It’s dirty, smelly (open sewers) and has piles of litter absolutely everywhere you look. It’s difficult to see how anyone could take pride in saying that they live there, yet the locals seemed friendly enough – many of them speaking to us as we passed, wishing us a good day, and asking where we were from, but honestly….. this is a Saturday morning in downtown Santana; shoddy doesn’t even touch it. There were a few little bars, a couple of barbers, a supermarket, where we bought some water from, and a reasonably impressiive church, that blasted out a recording of Big Ben every half hour. The main street was wide, and the traffic quite busy; huge puddles lay everywhere, and we walked up the street and back again, and then decided enough was enough. Santana sinks disappointment to new depths, I’m afraid to say.
When we got back to the ship, we decided to make use of the wi-fi again until lunchtime – only to discover that the wi-fi was no longer working, and no-one could now log-on. How to pee-off a visiting cruise liner huh?
One of the best things that you can do with Santana is leave it – and that’s what we did at approximately 2:30pm. That was our final Amazon port – we’re now heading back out to the open sea, back into the Northerm Hemisphere, towards Iles Du Salut, in French Guiana – Papillon’s Devils Island!! Woo Hoooo!
