Sunday, March 14, 2010
Parintins, Brazil Feb 15
Parintins lies on the right bank of the Amazon on the island called Tupinambaranaa. This is the largest group of fluvial islands in the world. Parintins was founded in 1793 and has few landmarks or monuments, the people are what make it so special. In June they celebrate the Festival Folclorico which is second only to the Carnival in Rio de Janiero in numbers of attendees. The festival is called Boi-Bumba and tells the story of a scared ox which is killed because a farm workers pregnant wife has a craving for ox tongue. The townpeople are so upset that St John the Baptist brings the ox back to life. The Festival is a competition between two teams, the red and the blue, to see who can tell the story in the most spectacular way. Cocoa Cola sponsors the Festival and this is the only place in the world where you will see the sign in Blue
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Manaus, Brazil
Valentine's Day Feb. 14, '10
Manaus is one of the largest cities in Brazil and until recently could only be reached by boat or plane. There are roads that connect with the rest of Brazil now but they are often closed in the rainy season.
Our ship is the Royal Princess, 355 cabins, 11 decks. A smaller cruise ship that is just right for the Amazon River.
Doug and I decide to take an excursion called Meeting of the Waters. This is where the brown Rio Solimoes meets the black Rio Negro and what a sight it is. The trip was combined with a journey to Lake January to see the meter-wide Victoria Regia water lilies. The water levels of the rivers can change up to 40 feet between the rainy and dry seasons. Homes are built on stilts or on balsa wood that float with the levels.
Back on board the ship sails at 7:30 p.m. Dinner the first night is open seating and we will meet our table mates tomorrow evening. Learn that of the 615 people on board almost 200 are doing what is known as a back-to-back, meaning they have been on board two weeks already and doing the return to Ft Lauderdale. Realize after dinner that with so little sleep the past two nights we are too tired to go to the welcome show that night. Couple glasses of wine, the rocking of the ship and we will sleep without stirring until the morning.
Amazon River Pre Cruise
Day one...Feb 12 '10
What a beautiful day, sun is shining, Todd and Shannon coming to drive us to Miami, but first Todd has to go in for a MRI on his left hip. The drive is very pleasant and we arrive in time to have a nice lunch at Tropical Pollo and then check in to The Miami Airport Hilton. Since we live in FL during the winter Doug has tried to get us out of this reservation but it is a package deal with the charter company that is flying us to Mansus, Brazil ... so here we are at the Hilton. Todd and Shannon leave us and they go on to Ft Lauderdale to visit with friends in their old neighborhood. After going to our room to leave our carry on bags we take a walk around the grounds, stop, have a drink at the outdoor bar and meet two couples that are on the cruise also. After a nice visit we go to the room for a nap before leaving for the airport at 10:00 p.m. From here on things get "interesting" for a few days. The 10 p.m. bus is loaded so we agree to take the 10:15 and find the couples from the bar also on this bus. We arrive at the airport at 10:30 and at checking find that they have us sitting in center seats, one behind the other. Doug tells them this won't do so they work their computers and get us two seats together. Arriving at Gate 17 we notice that our flight is "on time" but all the flights around us are several hours late, at 11:30 when we are to be boarding the plane the time changes to new departure time....1 a.m. Then to 2 a.m. Finally they make an announcement, flight has been cancelled as the plane is in Atlanta, Georgia and needs to be DE-iced but since this is a charter they have to wait for Delta to de-ice their planes so they will send us back to the hotel. We're informed that the hotel is sending buses for us, after 15 minutes our new friends form the bar ask us if we want to share a taxi to the hotel as they heard that no buses were coming. It is a mass exodus for the taxi stand where the airport has called in all available taxis. Everyone gets in line and things move along smoothly for several minutes until.......you guessed it someone at the back of the line hijacks a taxi then everyone jumps in the road hailing down the taxis. We were three groups from the front of the line at this time and the people in front of us were upset and the taxi dispatcher was trying so hard to make the taxis bypass the people and come up front without much success. We finally get back to the hotel, check back into our rooms, told to come down at 10 a.m. for a bus back to the airport. 10 a.m. we come down and are told no it will now be 1 p.m. After breakfast learn that the Atlanta airport had been closed all day and just opened back up for business that morning. We finally get to the airport at 10 p.m. wait around to leave at 12:50 a.m., exactly 24 hours after we were to leave originally.
Finally we arrive in Mansus and see a Delta plane has arrived first, also on the tarmac is an ambulance with their lights flashing. The crew informs us that Delta passengers are going through customs 50 at a time and we will have to wait on the plane until they have all deplaned and gone through customs. At this time medical personal come on board and check out a passenger who had been having chest/breathing problems. He convinces them he is okay and it is time for us to deplane. Do they let us off 50 at a time? No, everyone(350 people) off at once and into a room that is the size of our front room (okay a little bigger but not much)that has a turntable they can put maybe 50-75 pieces of luggage. People start taking the luggage off and placing it everywhere there is an open space so by the time Doug and I get there he has a hunting job tracking down our bags. By now all luggage is off the plane so Doug starts putting it back on the conveyor belt, finds ours and we start forward to customs. We had filled out custom forms on the plane but find out they need one more and it is passed out to everyone where we find that it is in Portuguese and no one can read it, guess work filling it out but do okay and finally pass through customs. Meet outside by the Princess people and bused to the cruise ship. We are informed that the ship will not leave at 6 p.m. as planned but later so the passengers that had side trips planned would be able to re-schedule them. It is now Valentine's Day and everything is turning around to be a beautiful day.
What a beautiful day, sun is shining, Todd and Shannon coming to drive us to Miami, but first Todd has to go in for a MRI on his left hip. The drive is very pleasant and we arrive in time to have a nice lunch at Tropical Pollo and then check in to The Miami Airport Hilton. Since we live in FL during the winter Doug has tried to get us out of this reservation but it is a package deal with the charter company that is flying us to Mansus, Brazil ... so here we are at the Hilton. Todd and Shannon leave us and they go on to Ft Lauderdale to visit with friends in their old neighborhood. After going to our room to leave our carry on bags we take a walk around the grounds, stop, have a drink at the outdoor bar and meet two couples that are on the cruise also. After a nice visit we go to the room for a nap before leaving for the airport at 10:00 p.m. From here on things get "interesting" for a few days. The 10 p.m. bus is loaded so we agree to take the 10:15 and find the couples from the bar also on this bus. We arrive at the airport at 10:30 and at checking find that they have us sitting in center seats, one behind the other. Doug tells them this won't do so they work their computers and get us two seats together. Arriving at Gate 17 we notice that our flight is "on time" but all the flights around us are several hours late, at 11:30 when we are to be boarding the plane the time changes to new departure time....1 a.m. Then to 2 a.m. Finally they make an announcement, flight has been cancelled as the plane is in Atlanta, Georgia and needs to be DE-iced but since this is a charter they have to wait for Delta to de-ice their planes so they will send us back to the hotel. We're informed that the hotel is sending buses for us, after 15 minutes our new friends form the bar ask us if we want to share a taxi to the hotel as they heard that no buses were coming. It is a mass exodus for the taxi stand where the airport has called in all available taxis. Everyone gets in line and things move along smoothly for several minutes until.......you guessed it someone at the back of the line hijacks a taxi then everyone jumps in the road hailing down the taxis. We were three groups from the front of the line at this time and the people in front of us were upset and the taxi dispatcher was trying so hard to make the taxis bypass the people and come up front without much success. We finally get back to the hotel, check back into our rooms, told to come down at 10 a.m. for a bus back to the airport. 10 a.m. we come down and are told no it will now be 1 p.m. After breakfast learn that the Atlanta airport had been closed all day and just opened back up for business that morning. We finally get to the airport at 10 p.m. wait around to leave at 12:50 a.m., exactly 24 hours after we were to leave originally.
Finally we arrive in Mansus and see a Delta plane has arrived first, also on the tarmac is an ambulance with their lights flashing. The crew informs us that Delta passengers are going through customs 50 at a time and we will have to wait on the plane until they have all deplaned and gone through customs. At this time medical personal come on board and check out a passenger who had been having chest/breathing problems. He convinces them he is okay and it is time for us to deplane. Do they let us off 50 at a time? No, everyone(350 people) off at once and into a room that is the size of our front room (okay a little bigger but not much)that has a turntable they can put maybe 50-75 pieces of luggage. People start taking the luggage off and placing it everywhere there is an open space so by the time Doug and I get there he has a hunting job tracking down our bags. By now all luggage is off the plane so Doug starts putting it back on the conveyor belt, finds ours and we start forward to customs. We had filled out custom forms on the plane but find out they need one more and it is passed out to everyone where we find that it is in Portuguese and no one can read it, guess work filling it out but do okay and finally pass through customs. Meet outside by the Princess people and bused to the cruise ship. We are informed that the ship will not leave at 6 p.m. as planned but later so the passengers that had side trips planned would be able to re-schedule them. It is now Valentine's Day and everything is turning around to be a beautiful day.
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