Jay’s Internet Log

Late last night, we disembarked our Manaus pilots and continued on our river passage under the guidance of Amazon pilots.  Around lunchtime today, we will slow down and drop anchor near the port of Parintins, and start our tender service.  In the evening, we will heave up the anchor and continueon our river passage to Santarem.

Happy New Year!  Last night, Heather and I stayed up to welcome 2012 in the bar on the top deck.  There was a band playing and streamers flying everywhere.  This morning, the kitchen staff had an impressive buffet laid out in the dining room, and they allowed me to take some photos of it before everyone dug in.  The ship arrived at Parintins around 11:00AM and Heather and I took a tender into “town”.  Mom and Dad stayed on board as Dad is still not feeling 100%, but hopefully he’ll feel better soon.  It only took 4 minutes to get to the pier, and I caught the whole trip on video, which will subsequently be sped up to last only about 15 to 20 seconds eventually.  We were not signed up for any excursion today, but we saw many tricycle drivers waiting to take us for a ride.  These tricycles were basically large wheelbarrows with a small roof and bicycle attached to the back.  A local man rode the bike and we sat up front.  He spoke zero English, so my high school and college training in Spanish proved useful.  Parintins reminded me of Resident Evil 5.  Since it’s both Sunday and New Year’s Day, most everything was closed down, and the locals were just hanging out close to their homes, singing and conversing with one another.  I mention Resident Evil 5 because I felt that at any moment, the empty, run-down streets could slowly fill with zombies.  Another characteristic of Parintins is that almost everyone rides either a bike or motorcycle.  We saw children riding motorcycles, sometimes 3 on one, with their arms stretched out, holding other kids who were on bikes, pulling them along.  Nobody wears helmets.  Our tricycle first took us to a cathedral, which was empty except for a single child, and had one of the nicest nativity scenes I’ve ever seen inside it.  We then were taken to their Boi Bamba festival stadium.  Not being on a real tour, we didn’t learn what this was, but we know that there are two teams; a red one and a blue one.  The spectators take sides and half the seats are blue and the other half red.  We were then taken down some back streets and back to the pier area, where we shopped for a bit before heading back to the ship.  Once on board, we had some cheeseburgers and took a nap.  As one would expect, there are many bugs here on the Amazon River, and somehow a cricket got inside our room.  We found it right before dinner, but decided to let him stay as a pet of sorts.  For dinner I had duckling and turkey pot pie.  We are now waiting for a production show and that will probably be it for the night.  If anything exciting happens, I will write about it tomorrow!