DAY 61 Mar 14 - Parintins, Amazon River, Brazil

Parintins is a small remote municipality and is known as the city of Parintins. It has about 80,000 residents and is situated on the right bank of the Amazon River, about 350 miles from Manaus. The original village is 200 years old and has a rich Indian heritage. Parintins is only accessible by boat or airplane .

Each June, the City hosts the famous Boi Bumba Festival when tens of thousands of visitors pour into the town for the week-long party. Many festival-goers even sleep in hammocks on the boats that carried them to Parintins.The Boi Bumba is really a friendly competition that started between two Parintins' families prior to 1920. The legend involves a young woman, her husband, a bull, and a happy ending. The Boi Bumba Festival involves a lot of music, dancing, costumes, and huge animal floats.

By air, the estimated time is one and half hours from Manaus. Santarem is the closest town to Parintins, a couple of hours by boat and a few minutes by plane.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Cruise Critic, a curious thing to receive, especially when from a senior editor of that organisation.

It was there in my Inbox when I checked e-mails yesterday evening.

It had the following message:-

I’m one of the editors at Cruise Critic, and I’m investigating a story about ships not being allowed to dock in Manaus today. I believe you’re currently onboard Prinsendam – if so, could you send me a quick e-mail to let me know what the situation is there. Has the ship been cleared to dock, and/or is there some hope it will dock tomorrow?

I’m grateful for any assistance you can provide.

It was from Erica Silverstein the Senior Editor at Cruise Critic

Unfortunately for Erica my attempts to e-mail a reply with an update were returned as unable to send/failed.

I just wonder who is blocking e-mails to Cruise Critic? My only way of relaying information on this subject was therefore via my blog.

Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK and we were woken at 6.00 am by the cabin phone ringing.

Amazingly it was the youngest daughter Amsy to wish her beloved Mummy a 'Happy Mothers Day'. Wow what a girl, all the way from the UK to the ship. Now that wasn't a cheap phone call.

It was quite an emotional conversation with Amsy reaffirming that Maria was “The best Mummy in the world”

At 8 o'clock the Captain came on the PA system (it must be urgent news for him to come into our cabins at this time in the morning) to inform us that we were running 2 hours late. This was because the pilot was not available to board the Prinsendam at the expected time in the early hours of the morning.

The ship is now travelling at its top speed of 22 knots trying to make up some time. We now expect to be at Parintins at around 10 o'clock and not 8.00 as originally planned.

We ourselves have no particular plans for the day and will just take the tender over to the town once the ship has dropped anchor.

Knowing what the local climatic conditions will be like, we don't intent being away from the luxury of air conditioning for too long..

Maria has used the extra time we have on board this morning to pack away some more clothes and bits and pieces. She is the expert at this chore and I’m definitely no help when it comes to packing!!

It’s all downhill now once we leave the Amazon and our focus is slowly bearing in on getting home to Naples.

Just before 10 o’clock we dropped anchor a mile or so off Parintins. It was indeed a small town and being Sunday most places might be shut.

The ship’s tenders were soon launched with their Netherlands flag proudly displayed at the rear of their roof tops. Our ship is of course registered in Holland.

Shortly after 11 o’clock we were heading to the shore on a packed tender.

The actual town quay is small and mostly used for tour boats it would appear. Things were quiet there with little activity other than us.

Placed in strategic places were young boys, in full uniform, from the local Boy Scouts organ-ization. They pointed out the way to walk to the exit and where to be careful because of perhaps a step in the road. They used their little English to communicate with us.

Henk and Lucia were on the tender with us and suggested that we take one of the many rickshaws that were there at the quay.

Off we went ostensibly for an hours ride at the princely sum of $10.

This would be an easy way to see this small town and allow us to escape from the heat of the sun as we would be under cover. The journey took us round this small little community which had very little to offer.

The exception was at the new Boi-Bumba show centre where for $99 a performance of the famous dance would be performed.

We continued on and soon passed the cathedral that was very new and which dominated the skyline.

Although it was Sunday it appeared shut so no possibility of an inspection of the interior.

We also passed a very large Baptist ‘Temple’ where a very full congregation could be heard singing the Lord’s praise with some gusto.

At one point we passed a collection of boats tied up by the waters edge and these seemed to provide the main transport round the surrounding neighbourhoods. As no roads in or out of the town existed this was the local bus service equivalent.

Eventually we came to the end of the tour and Maria then looked at ways of spending her last Brazilian Real notes. However nothing much caught her eye and we still have quite a few Real left in our pockets.

Henk and Lucia who had first suggested the ride round town to us followed on with their own bike and we enjoyed one anothers company on this short tour.

Most of the tour boats or boat buses or whatever they are have hammocks slung from the rafters on at leats one of their decks. These are for sleeper category passengers and presumably cost a little more to hire.

By one thirty we were back on board and enjoying lots of cold drinks and a pleasant lunch up in the Lido.