Monday 25^th March – Manaus, Brazil.

Even though we were back down on deck 3, we both slept well - although Nesta did wake early.

Did the ship’s tour “Highlights of Manaus”. Drove to the outskirts to visit the Amazonian Research Institute - which was a Botanical garden with a few animals. The guide was very enthusiastic and spent a long time explaining the lineage of various trees and gave us details of every exhibit in the museum!

On the way back into town, we saw how the poor housing is being replaced in time for the World Cup. Wooden houses on stilts have been destroyed and replaced with parkland, and the people rehoused a few hundred yards away in brick built three storey flats.

We then visited the Opera house which was very impressive, although the musicians on stage in rehearsal were practising a very discordant piece of music… Perhaps they were after all playing all the right notes, but not necessarily…!

The final part of the trip was a visit to the fish market which again was impressive.

We dined in the Veranda as Vladimir had (jokingly) told us off for eating downstairs last night! He says that he can arrange for us to have steak and chips in his restaurant in future because we are “nice people”!

During the evening, we noticed that the ship was doing over 20 knots rather than its usual 15 or 16. Presumably this was because of the strong current that exists in the Amazon.

                                  Poor housing being replaced in time for the World Cup

                                What it's being replaced by

                                The Opera House in Manaus

                                 Inside the Opera House

                                 Fish in the market - before

                                              and after!

 

Tuesday 26^th March – Parintins, Brazil.

A large town on the banks of the Amazon – and like every other town around here there is no road access to the interior. The locals use the river as their roads and there are houseboats and canoes everywhere.

The ship anchored and we used riverboats to tender as the current was too strong for the ship’s tenders.

We decided we would just walk round and explore the place. It was very hot and humid. Took the tender back to the ship at around lunchtime, which proved to be a wise decision as a sudden squall blew up, resulting in the ship dragging it’s anchor. Tendering had to be suspended while the ship repositioned itself and lowered its anchor again.

The people ashore had to wait in the rain to come back and the trip to see a version of the world-famous (?) festival show “Boi-Bumba” had to be delayed. Still, as the show was being put on especially for the ship, everyone got there.

                                The boat we used as a tender

                                      Statues of native indians

 The festival in Parintins is the only place in the world, Coca-cola allow blue rather than red

                                  The captain, hiding in the tender!