We arrived in Santarem at 9am this morning.
The city is located on the confluence of the Tapajos and Amazon Rivers.
The Amazon being coloured and the Tapojos almost crystalline, our first trip was to start where the waters meet, a clear delineation showing on the surface for a good way down stream.
This riverboat trip started at 09.45, it was already 30c so being undercover motoring down stream was a bonus. It really is warm and sticky.
As we reached waters meet, so the wildlife activity started, with loads of bird life, particularly cormorants and egrets fishing, and it wasn’t long before our first views of blue dolphin.
They look quite small compared to the normal dolphin we are used to seeing around the world, and were not following the boat, but, I think fishing.
I thought I saw the pink dolphins once or twice but they are rare and what I saw just about broke the surface, so I didn’t really count them as sightings. And certainly didn’t have time to alert fellow travellers.
The cruise took us into Lake Maica, a branch of the Amazon, where we spotted, iguana and sloth.
Birdlife was plentiful, and it was at this point I really wished I had upgraded my lens for the Nikon.
My “just in case camera“, the Fuji 8000 reminded me that I have a problem with it. Whilst it has a very good long distance lens, and picked out the birds well, once I controlled the shake,
I’m afraid when looking back at the photographs, they gave the impression of being just like a washed out watercolour.
No good at all destined for the bin!
The Sloth were very difficult to see, the first looked like a branch not in the right place, and until it moved it’s head I wasn’t certain I quite believed we had a sighting.
The second was just like a bunch of old dead leaves, and on close up looked like a bit of flood debris.
I took photo’s, but I’ll need a closure look at each to really convince me of what we‘d seen.
A fellow passenger, on our return, asked me if they were two or three toed sloth. All I can say is, it’s a good job she was an older lady!
We piranha fished off the side of the boat with handlines, the hooks were probably size two and were embedded in a chunk of fish. I had a few good knocks but no hook ups, I think I would have fished it different.
There were 3 fish caught off the front of the boat, all by a crew member....I didn’t get to see his rig!
An hour later we were on our way back to the ship with a running commentary of the Santarem sea front and markets.
I think it was a worthwhile trip, we’ve certainly got a lot more to look forward to.
We stayed on board for the rest of the afternoon, not fancying a two mile stroll in a clammy 33c, to the town centre.
I did learn a bit of history.
Apparently Henry Ford built two American cities called Fordlandia and Belterra in the middle of the jungle. Spending $80million doing so, in the late 1920’s and for the creation of huge rubber plantations, so that he didn’t have to rely on Mr Goodyear for his tyres.
The yellow fever and malaria put paid to that, as did the local insect life to the rubber trees.
Mr Ford didn’t think of checking the depth of the water before jumping in feet first....oops!
I started to falling asleep into my cold draught Bittenburger pilsner, so back to write this in the air conditioned cabin and now perhaps I’ll try to catch up with some of the missed sleep.
The coughing in getting better, and Pauline (I’m being nice here) is flat on her back purring like a cat with sinus trouble!
We weigh anchor at 18.00, it’s now 16.30. and sail to Boca da Valeria overnight. Arriving at 09.00.
I have no idea what to expect on this six and a half hour stopover as there are no excursions.
We shall see!
Talk later
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