ILHEUS, BRAZIL

What a delightful place and informative tour we took! The city was founded in 1534 and is now a tourist destination of about 222,000. It has five rivers and a series of bays and lagoons, and has many beautiful beaches. In the 1700s the Jesuits began cultivating cacao plants and by the next century cacao was Brazil’s second most important export, next to sugar cane.

This “black gold” created a new society, the ‘Cacao Colonels’ who didn’t have much education but had lots of money. Since Colonel was a military term denoting power, they called themselves Colonels. They often killed each other for power and cacao plantations. Even today the impoverished children of these formerly wealthy citizens call themselves the ‘child of Colonel X’ or the ‘nephew of Colonel Y‘, etc.

Ilheus gets 222 days of rain a year, mostly overnight which results in 90% humidity. Cacao trees need this to produce pods. They have blossoms and pods on the same tree, in various stages of development year round, but most of the harvesting is done between March-April and October-November. The cocoa farms or plantations are not set up in neat rows like coffee or tea plantations are, but grow haphazardly in the jungle. Banana trees are always near by, because they provide shade for new seedlings until they are strong enough to get it from the natural jungle trees. The pods are harvested by hand and collected in baskets carried by mules.

For 50 years German families owned and operated the cacao plantations, but left them to the Brazilians in about 1900-1910. Production continued until the mid 1980’s when a fungus called “witch’s broom” infested the trees and because of a severe drought, quickly spread destroying entire plantations. This lasted for ten years causing people to lose their fortunes and for the town to lose income and fall into a recession. They are slowly recovering from this devastating loss, which is evident in the dilapidated condition of the formerly beautiful mansions and the empty cacao processing factories.

For the past 40 years they have been “cloning” or grafting healthy cacao shoots onto larger trees in an effort to restore the plantations, as well as studying the DNA structure of the fungus to try to control it. It still appears on some healthy trees, which are immediately cut down and burned to prevent further spread.

None of the cocoa pod is wasted -- the outside husks are used for natural fertilizer, the slippery white coating around the bean is used to make a drink mixed with sugar and water, and the cocoa beans themselves are dried and then processed to produce cocoa butter, chocolate and cocoa powder.

Ilheus is the hometown of Jorge Amado, the best known and most popular writer in Brazil whose novels depict the lives of poor urban and rural black and mulatto communities of Bahia. Many of the local restaurants, bars and hotels are named after his novels or characters in it.

The streets are wide, the buildings are colorful, although sadly in need of repairs, and the people are friendly, making this one of our more pleasant stops.

SALVADOR DA BAHIA, BRAZIL

Salvador de Bahia is one of the oldest and historically most important cities in Brazil, and the third most populous. It is closest to the African continent, so in the 1500s slaves were brought here via the “trade triangle” -- trinkets from Bristol, England were traded for African tribesmen captured by Islamic peoples, then sold to ships’ captains who brought them to South America where they were sold or traded for cotton and sugar cane, which then went back to England. One male slave was equivalent to 6 female slaves.

Eighty-seven per cent of the population comes from descendants of the black slaves, and their “slang” name for whites is “filet mignons”! They are pseudo-Chistians, -- they developed ‘orixas” which is statues of African gods comparable to the Christian saints, and their counterpart for Jesus (the Saviour) is the sun. When the missionaries first came to convert them, they listened and helped the first bishop build a church (heaven) and when there was a disagreement about the saints, they killed and ate him. They still have their complicated religious ceremonies called ‘candoble’.

We visited two churches -- the 17^th century Jesuit Basilica Cathedral which is one of Brazil’s oldest intact structures, and is the largest Jesuit seminary outside of Rome. The other was the church of San Francisco. Both are amazingly ornate inside with carvings covered with gold leaf (500 kilos in San Francisco alone!). People were tithed 27% of their income to help build “heaven” but the blacks were not allowed in the main church - they had to stay in the back which was painted a plain white. However, there were some hand painted blue and white Portuguese “azulejo” tiles in the walls.

Like most cities in Brazil, they celebrate their own version of Carnaval, and the Guinness Book of Records describes it as the biggest street party on the planet! For 7days, almost 2 million people join the city’s street celebrations!

FORTALEZA, BRAZIL

We woke to light showers as we left the ship for our shuttle ride to the market, but no sooner had we left the port when the sky opened up and it poured!! The rain was so heavy that we were hardly able to see out the windows -- but one thing that I found unbelievable was the fact that they hadn’t planned ahead and built adequate drainage. The roads were almost instantly flooded, with cars creating rooster tails as they made their way through the foot deep ‘rivers’ stretching from the gutters to the middle of the street!

As luck would have it, the handicraft market we were headed for was a multi level, covered structure, filled to overflowing with all kinds of laces, tablecloths, leather shoes and hats, clothing, jewelry and pottery. Once our bus finally maneuvered through the traffic that was at a dead stop, we waded through the ankle deep water, stripped off our soaking jackets, shook off our umbrellas and started browsing through the various stalls.

Because of the rain, we couldn’t wander through the town to visit the church or museums, and the ride back to the ship didn’t do justice to this tropical paradise and its many spectacular beaches. Life is simple in this growing city of nearly 3.5 million inhabitants with its modern high rise hotels and condos. The old 17^th century Dutch-built fortress -- for which the town is named -- no longer stands.

BELEM, BRAZIL

We enjoyed our visit to the busy city of Belem, also known as the “City of the Mango Tree” because of the many mango trees that grow in the area. Our ship had to anchor about 20 miles from the center of the city, so we were treated to a view of a very poor, dirty port at low tide, prior to reaching our destination of the Hilton Hotel in the center of town via shuttle bus. Even the intermittent showers (for a change!) didn’t deter our exploration.

Walking towards the river, we carefully made our way over the broken tile sidewalks past typical colorful buildings of Portuguese style architecture until we reached the waterfront. Here were 4 huge warehouses, “Estacao das Docas,” that have been converted to upscale restaurants, coffee bars and an auditorium, located next to the market, center of local life and commerce.

What a fun and amazing place! The Ver-o-Peso Mercado (verify the weight market) is an enormous, crowded market sprawling over several blocks, offering everything from everyday fruits and vegetables to exotic items such as live snakes, dried fish and rolled roasts of unknown origin (no refrigeration anywhere, and lots of flies!), and questionable spices, powders and potions! The cages of live animals -- chickens, quail, rabbits, ducks, a turkey and even mice caught our eye … The odor of fish drew us to another warehouse where whole fish, cut up portions and fish heads were offered for sale. The market was a result of the 1688 tax charged by the Portuguese for everything entering and leaving Amazonia.

We also passed by the shrine to the virgin Mary, Basilica da Nossa Senhora de Nazare, site of an annual festival on the second Sunday in October attended by hundreds of thousands of people. The city also boasts an art museum, a historical State Museum, one of Brazil’s largest theaters and the Goeldi Museum with 3 separate displays, the most fascinating being the zoo where many native animals roam freely in their natural habitat.

The southern channel of the mouth of the Amazon lies just north of Belem, so is our last port of call on the Amazon River. We now leave the muddy waters and daily showers of the rainforest, and look forward to the clear blue waters of the Atlantic on our way to Fortaleza.

　

AMAZON FACTS AND FIGURES

AMAZON FACTS AND FIGURES

The mighty Amazon River begins in Peru and flows 4,600 miles towards the Atlantic Ocean, where its mouth is populated with an archipelago of islands. One of these is Marjos, the largest island in the world which is the size of Switzerland. Along the way, many smaller rivers feed into the Amazon, and at many intersections of these tributaries, the waters flow side by side for several miles without mixing. This has different names such as, “The Meeting of the Waters,“ “The Wedding of the Waters,” or “Marriage of the Waters.“ The Amazon itself also has several different names as it flows through different areas.

The water of the Amazon is a muddy yellow brown color, caused by the silt and other sediment it carries, and its depth varies. It is also the wet season, and the river is filled with all kinds of debris such as clumps of grass, branches, trash and logs. Our ship was affected by both these factors, and we could often hear and feel the propellers working through shallow water and sand bars. On one occasion the captain announced that we had to stop and back up to try to dislodge a large log that had become caught in the propeller -- a maneuver which was successful.

The rainforest/jungle is about 1.2 billion acres, about half of the world’s remaining rainforests. It covers 9 nations: Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The rainforest is also know as Amazonia, and 60% is in Brazil. The rainforest is often called the “lungs of the world” producing 10% of its oxygen. Rainfall varies between 67-78 inches per year because the earth moves very little at the equator, and water is easily evaporated from the ocean. Rain, however, leaches out soluble nutrients so the soil is poor. There are many cattle ranches and soy is now an increasing crop. Transportation is mainly by boat, but a Trans Amazon highway network was completed in the 1980s and connects all major cities of the Brazilian Amazon interior.

Now here’s some of the statistics (more than 1/3 of world‘s species live here):

2.5 million insect species

2,000 bird and mammal species (1,294 birds & 727 mammals)

40,000 plant species

3,000 fish

428 amphibians

378 reptiles

More than 100 species of monkeys

1 square mile can contain over 75,000 types of trees and 150,000 species of higher plants

Many important medicines come from plants only found in the Amazon region.

In the 1940s President Vargas’ government started to develop the interior. Roads were cut through the forests but the soil was hard to cultivate. Cattle farming was introduced, and this deforested the area. About 1/5 of the total area has been clear cut and fortunately preservation of the remaining forest is becoming more prominent. Devastating droughts like the one in 2006 could change the rainforest into savannah or desert, and this could have dire consequences for the world’s climate. It’s vital to preserve this diverse part of Earth.

ALTER DO CHAO, BRAZIL

Continuing down the Amazon River, we next stopped at the little resort town of Alter do Chao (Earth’s Altar) up the Tapajos River just before it meets the muddy Amazon. Named for its flat, altar-like hill, it looks like a Mediterranean tropical paradise, with palm trees, white sand and clear blue water.

It was in this area that Henry Ford tried to start two rubber plantations, and he planted over 3 million rubber trees! The first attempt was in the 1920s in Fordlandia approximately 80 miles to the south of Santarem near Alter do Chao, and later in Belterra about 12 miles south of here, in the 1930s. Ford’s idea was to produce rubber for his automobile factory, and built roads (just unpaved dirt tracks!) and an American-style town for the workers. Unfortunately both ventures failed and at the end of WWII Ford sold his interest and the Brazilian government now operates it. People still live in Belterra, and many of the homes and services Ford built are still in operation. His fully equipped machine shop is used for furniture manufacturing today.

Rubber trees originally grew only in the Amazon jungle, giving the province of Amazonia a firm monopoly on latex collection and rubber production. Fortunes were made by the “rubber barons,“ jobs were created and cities flourished. One of the main reasons for the demise of the natural rubber industry was the theft of 70,000 rubber tree seeds by Henry Wickham. In 1876 he smuggled them into England where they were sprouted under supervision, and a few decades later the seedlings were sent to the British Asian colonies. Brazilians called him the “Executioner of Amazonas” but the British knighted him! The final nail in the natural rubber coffin was the development of synthetics in the 1920s.

PARINTINS, BRAZIL

Parintins, Brazil is a typical third world town along the Amazon River whose claim to fame is their Boi Bumba festival (boi is Portuguese for bull) held on the last 3 days of June every year. This is Brazil’s answer to Rio’s Carnival. Legend has it that a pregnant woman got an urge for a bull’s tongue, and her husband killed their master’s prize bull to satisfy her. The owner set out to punish the man, and the woman raced to the local priest who restored the bull to life. Of course a celebration was needed for the happy ending, and so the tradition was established.

Somehow over the years, things changed, and when two wealthy families began a friendly competition, suddenly there were two bulls instead of one. The festival now incorporates a competition between a black and white bull, and the locals choose one of the teams to support. It’s evolved into a huge carnival-like celebration, similar to our Rose Parade with floats, singers, dancers, drums and costumes that draws up to 200,000 visitors every year. It’s a very colorful, energetic, exciting and noisy event. We were treated to a small preview of what the festival is like when a local folkloric company gave a performance on the ship.

There are few paved roads and highways along the Amazon, so transportation is by boat and may take several days depending on distance. For example, Parintins is 350 miles from Manaus and the riverboat trip takes 15 hours downstream, but 27 hours going upstream against the swift and powerful current! The people are used to this, and bring hammocks that they set up side by side wherever they can find room, and stay in them for the trip. There are a few ferryboats that have cabins and suites for those who can pay.

There were a few shops and souvenir vendors, pedicab drivers, an open produce market and a small park, but not much else. The locals used motorbikes to get around town, with only a few cars. We found it to be hot and dirty, and decided to head back when I spotted two dead rats in the gutter …

MANAUS, BRAZIL

Manaus, located 800 miles up the Amazon River from the Atlantic Ocean in the heart of Brazil, blossomed during the late 1800s and early 1900s because of the boom in the rubber industry. Charles Goodyear patented rubber vulcanization in 1839, the automobile was invented and the industrial revolution began, so rubber was a vital commodity. “Rubber Barons” emerged, along with many jobs, and Manaus became the “Paris of the Tropics”. Lavish homes and buildings were built, among them the famous Opera House. The glass chandeliers were imported from Murano, Italy, the steel columns were handcrafted in Scotland, the wood for the chairs and floor tiles came from Brazil (Bahia) but was sent to Europe to be carefully molded before being returned to the jungle for installation, and the ceiling mural was painted by an Italian painter, Domenico di Angelis -- his technique makes it look like the main characters are always watching you. It took more than 15 years to complete. Many famous actors, singers and dancers appeared in the Opera House in its heyday.

Manaus has one of the first floating docks, added in 1906. Because of this clever innovation, loading didn’t depend on the river flow and tides any longer which was important for their port operations. The Amazon can rise as much as 65 feet in a heavy wet season!

We arrived on a Sunday and unfortunately most of the stores were closed. However, we were able to take a shuttle bus to a hotel resort, giving us the opportunity to see much of the city, as well as a small zoo operated by the hotel.

On Monday we took a cruise and short walk through the Amazon jungle to Lake January where we saw giant water lilies whose leaves were about 3 feet in diameter! Happily the caymans (small alligators) were nowhere to be seen… Along the way, it was fascinating to see the floating houses -- balsa wood logs are used to keep them afloat -- and the houses on stilts with the occasional cow and few chickens scratching about. We saw many water birds -- among them white and blue herons, along with other native (unknown!) birds near the shore or in the wild rice growing wild close to the shore. It’s not cultivated for food.

At last we reached another Meeting of the Waters, this time the Amazon which is called the Salimoes River at this point, and the Rio Negro. It was amazing to see the muddy café-au-lait colored Amazon flowing beside the dark, clear water of the Rio Negro without mixing! This phenomenon is caused by the different chemical composition of the suspended particles in each -- one is more acidic than the other, as well as different currents and temperatures. You can actually see a stripe before they finally blend after more than three miles! This happens in several places where tributaries feed into the 4,500 miles of the central Amazon River.

What an education this trip is!

DICK'S BRITHDAY - 1/15/11

We celebrated Dick’s 79^TH birthday cruising from the tiny AmerIndian village of Boca da Valeria up river to Manaus. His back was still bothering him, so he wasn’t able to go ashore, and he rested up so he’d have the strength to open a bottle of champagne!

The dining room staff honored him with a birthday cake, and all the waiters sang Happy Birthday to him in Indonesian. He wore his “King for the Day” crown through the entire dining room, and several guests got up and bowed to him as he passed their table -- what fun!

BOCA DA VALERIA, BRAZIL

A day in the life of an Amazonian Indian village … what a delightful visit! This community of about 75 families is very friendly and very poor. However, they’ve quickly adapted to tourism. Children greet visitors showing their exotic pets like parrots, sloths, lizards, an anaconda snake, a baby alligator, a catfish, various canary-sized, colorful birds, and various insects, and pose for pictures with them (all for $1 per picture, of course!). Many children of all ages dressed in fancy outfits made of feathers and had painted their faces to make themselves look more appealing. We rewarded their efforts with the gold foil chocolates we get every evening, and they loved them!

Their houses are wooden shacks, built on stilts because the river overflows its banks by many feet during the rainy season. They have no plumbing or bathrooms, but are very proud of their electricity. We heard music from boom boxes coming from some of the homes, and even saw a few satellite dishes in front of some of them! There is a school, and Holland America donated a large globe to them on a previous trip.

The children loved to take our hands and walk along with us, chattering and smiling the whole time even though they couldn’t understand English. One woman carrying her 3-year old daughter took us all the way to the other end of the village to show us her home, and proudly brought out a box of books and told us she was studying. She also showed us several pictures previous visitors had sent her, and produced a crumpled envelope with her name and address on it, indicating that she would like pictures from us, too.

What a wonderful experience interacting with such happy, friendly natives!

SANTAREM, BRAZIL

Santarem is Brazil’s third largest city and is located at the junction of the Amazon and Topajos Rivers. It is one of Brazil’s most important trading regions because of its accessibility, and is about the same size as Belgium! Today they have many soy plantations, as well as cattle and some mining. The port was full of boats of all sizes, from small motor boats to large passenger ferry boats, all bustling around the harbor.

We saw the “Wedding of the Waters,” which is a phenomenon that occurs in two or three places where rivers join the mighty Amazon. The two rivers flow side by side for several miles, never mixing together. In Santarem you can clearly see the muddy, beige colored water of the Amazon flowing beside the clear blue water of the Topajos River. This occurs because the rivers flow at different speeds, are of different depths and carry different sediments in them.

We spent a pleasant afternoon in the downtown area, exploring the shops and taking pictures of children who were delighted to see their images on our digital cameras! As we waited for our shuttle bus back to the ship, we caught a glimpse of two iguanas sunning themselves in a small garden! However, sneaking up to photograph them proved to be more of a challenge than we expected …

All in all it was an enjoyable visit, especially since the expected thunderstorms held off.

　

MACAPA, BRAZIL

Our first stop on the South American continent was in the small port town of Macapa, Brazil in the “Middle of the World” at the mouth of the Amazon delta. Its claim to fame is their statue erected right on the equator (Monumento Marco Zero) which acts as a larger-than-life size sundial, and a soccer stadium which is half in the northern and half in the southern hemisphere. They also have a well preserved fort that was used by the military for protection for many years. It’s a typical third world town, with a population of about 500,000 and typical tropical climate i.e. lots of short, heavy rain showers, with no dry season. It can only be reached by air or sea -- no land access -- is very humid and very lush and green. Its steamy atmosphere supports a wide variety of wildlife and is a migratory route for colorful birds. Their most popular craft item is the piranha fish -- stuffed, dried, or carved. Their true purpose is to clean the river.

The Amazon River is really dirty -- it’s a muddy beige color, full of silt and when it empties into the Atlantic Ocean, its sediment reaches out 200 miles into the ocean. We were asked to conserve water because this silt clogs up the ship’s water purification systems.

There are several islands in the delta, one of them is the largest island in the world and is larger than Switzerland! The rainforest is larger than Europe, and there are more than 15 million types of insects (hope our Off repellent works!). More about this amazing river later.

DEVIL'S ISLAND

We anchored off of Ile Royale, largest of the 3 “Salvation Islands”, the other two being Devil’s Island and Ile Ste. Joseph, and took a tender ashore to visit the ruins. The French created a penal colony on these beautiful tropical islands in 1852 and it was a very harsh place to be imprisoned. Many of the guards were very cruel and enjoyed beating the prisoners for no particular reason. Depending on their crime, inmates might do light maintenance work on the island, have limited liberty if their crime was a political one, or sentenced to hard labor if they were felons. It was finally closed in 1946. Seventy per cent of the prisoners died from malaria or other illnesses -- they were stitched into sacks and simply thrown into the ocean for the sharks to dispose of. The guards and their families were buried in a cemetery on Ile Ste. Josephe, where the solitary confinement buildings were located. Very few prisoners managed to escape. They showed the movie Papillon yesterday to prepare us for some of what the convicts might have endured.

It was a lovely walk around the island, and we saw areas that we had missed two years ago; the children’s cemetery, hospital, convent, chapel and guards’ quarters. There were no iguanas to be found, but we saw a squirrel monkey, several agoutis, lots of chickens roaming the grounds freely, a macaw and peacocks. On the far side of the island we saw people swimming in a protected cove, which was probably the remains of the stone-lined, sea-fed swimming pool that was built for the guards by convict labor, safe from the many sharks and strong currents.

We were lucky with the weather -- 84 degrees, calm seas, but very high humidity! Enjoying the beauty and tranquility of this lovely tropical island, it was hard to imagine the brutality and lives of the convicts who existed here for 94 years.