Peter's Travel Blog

Today, we’ve been cruising the Amazon River, heading downstream, back towards Macapa Pilot Station and the open sea. To get to Icouraci, for Belem, our final Brazilian port-of-call, we have to sail out from the mouth of the river, into the Atlantic, then head South, to the Southern leg of the river, South of the great island that is larger...

Today, we arrived at Alter Do Chao. It was another tender port, that didn’t, initially at first, seem to be inspiring anyone to queue for a tender ticket. When we passed the ticket handout point soon after finishing our breakfast, we were offered number 4s, which were about to leave any minute. They had the tickets because they’d been returned…...

This morning, we dropped anchor near the small town of Parintins, and tender operations began right away to get passengers ashore as quickly and efficiently as possible. Early tenders were for independent passengers; from 1pm onwards, however, tender boats were used exclusively for those on excursions, of which there were two today. The one involving the greatest number of passengers...

Today was our second day in Manaus, and Tracey and myself were down for escorting on one of our favourite excursions… the one that we’ve been building up brownie points for by doing lots of tours not necessarily on our wish list… The Amazonian Experience. Our full-day tour began by leaving the quayside in one of three large river boats....

Today, at just before noon, we arrived at our furthest point upriver; the capital city of the Amazonas region on the River Negra, Manaus. It took us a while for the ship to get settled in to the quayside, and receive clearance from the local authorities, though; once again, we had to wait for a crane to assist in manouvering...