{"id":1556,"date":"2018-01-22T23:02:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T23:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2018-01-23T14:12:56","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T14:12:56","slug":"piranha-fishing-in-santarem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/piranha-fishing-in-santarem\/","title":{"rendered":"Piranha Fishing in Santarem"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning we arrived at our first proper Amazon port-of-call, Santarem. I say ‘proper’ because yesterday’s stop at Macapa was purely for administration purposes, to clear the ship for entry into Brazil, and to take on board no fewer than two pilots (and one trainee). We’ve also welcomed on board three immigration officials who will remain on board for the duration of our stay (I say ‘welcome’, but that may be stretching things a little).<\/p>\n

Santarem is situated on the Tapajos River, a tributary of the Amazon. As such, this is one of four ‘meeting of the waters’ in the area, where the difference in density, speed, viscosity and temperature of the two rivers creates a distinctive line where the milky tea-coloured Amazon on one side and the darker, less opaque water of the Tapajos run alongside each other for several miles… it’s quite an impressive sight to see.<\/p>\n

We arrived at the cruise quay in more or less good time (although you wouldn’t have thought so if you’d heard one of the passengers, who Tracey named Mr Cynical, chuntering at the speed in which we approached, moaning about how things would be delayed, and so on and so on…). As it turns out, he must have been the prophet of doom…<\/p>\n

Once tied up alongside the quay, everyone who was on the ‘Piranha Fishing on Lake Maica’ tour waited in the show lounge, including us escorts, ready to head downstairs and board one of several river boats waiting to whisk us away. However; we waited, and waited… and then we waited some more. Announcements kept telling us that the ship was still waiting for local officials to turn up and grant us clearance, but they were nowhere to be seen. Then there was some issue with the gangway, which was having to be lifted into place by a local crane, which was also taking a long time. And then we waited some more…<\/p>\n

An hour and a half later, the ship was finally cleared, and the gangway was successfully in place. The Piranha Fishing groups were sent downstairs to the opposite side of the ship one by one, to board the tour boats via a pontoon that had been set up, and we were on our way…<\/p>\n

But not for long…<\/p>\n

Once on the river boat, as well as being asked by me to add their name and cabin number to a list, which is something we have to do on all tours (so that if there is ever an incident of any kind, we are able to identify precisely who was on which bus, or boat), the passengers were also handed a clipboard by the guide, who asked that they put their names, dates of birth and whether they are female or male, onto a list for security purposes.<\/p>\n

You could tell that one or two passengers were getting a little restless about having to fill all these things in. But then, we stopped at a little floating checkpoint charlie, where the second list had to be handed in and processed by officials before we were allowed to continue. In all the years that we’ve been coming here, this was something that we’ve never encountered before… welcome to Brazil…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eventually, we were able to proceed on our way, pausing at the meeting of the waters to view the phenonenum at close quarters, and see a few dolphins, before heading off to Lake Maica.<\/p>\n

Lake Maica is indeed a lake, but we only saw brief glimpses of it as we passed along the myriad waterways that run adjacent to it. We saw homesteads on stilts, lots of river boats, a sloth in a tree and several kingfishers, all to the passengers visible delight… a good tour indeed!<\/p>\n

Some time later, the boat was tied up against the bank, where we briefly saw a large iguana, and everyone was handed a little nylon fishing line pre-loaded with bait, to dangle over the side. Three piranha were caught on our boat (Tracey’s boat only caught two, so we win…); one large black piranha and two smaller, white piranha. The guide held them up for all to see, opening the piranha’s mouth so that we could marvel at its rows of tiny needle-like teeth, before throwing it back into the river.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On our way back, we saw parakeets and other exotic birds in the trees, and a few small one-man fishing boats along the banks of the waterway. By the time we got back to the ship (having had to stop once again at the security station), everyone seemed extremely satisfied with their experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fortunatey, due to the lengthy delay this morning, the captain has extended out stay by an extra hour, putting the all-aboard time back to 6:30pm instead of 5:30pm. This meant that Tracey and I had time, after a quick lunch, to go for a short walk into Santarem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Actually, we didn’t walk all the way into the town centre, we only walked as far as the fish market. It was extremely hot and humid, and we had to keep an eye on the time. We photographed the boats along the riverbank and stood on the side of the raised fishmarket, which was in the process of winding down (they always close around about midday), looking down at the pink dolphins, which dutifully swim around and chase a small fish being dangled on a rope by one of the fishmongers. The pink dolphin is unique to the the Amazon and cannot be seen anywhere else in the world, so one has to make use of any opportunity to see them wherever possible.<\/p>\n

Despite the early delays, then, I think it would be fair to say that everyone seems to have had a good day in Santarem. Everyone we met had broad smiles across their faces… a good start to the Amazon leg of our journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning we arrived at our first proper Amazon port-of-call, Santarem. I say ‘proper’ because yesterday’s stop at Macapa was purely for administration purposes, to clear the ship for entry into Brazil, and to take on board no fewer than two pilots (and one trainee). We’ve also welcomed on board three immigration officials who will remain on board for the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1561,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions\/1561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}