Where are we today? Santarem, but I am still thinking about Manaus

 

More delicious Amazonian food

For the next part of our journey, visit we piled into tour boats and chugged about 30 to 45 minutes across more freshwater than I have ever seen. (I grew up on the St. John’s River and lived near the Mississippi for many years and hung out at various huge lakes and bays, so I have seen some freshwater.  😄The Amazon region of  Brazil seems to be a whole water world unto itself.). On the way, we crossed the of the meeting of the waters, where the River Solimões (The Amazon) and the River Negro run side by side without mixing. They have different PH levels, different amounts of silt, and different colors.  The rivers run side by side for a long way until they finally mingle, so you have dark water on one side and lighter on the other. 

I am not going to attempt to explain where we ended up, because I don’t know! We came to a complex of floating open air restaurants where we were served a delicious buffet. I tried an Amazonian fish that I think was the pirarucu. 

The restaurant was in (natural?) rice paddies.  I understood our guide to say that the local people do not harvest the rice, though it is of good quality. Apparently, the snakes make it difficult to gather the grain.  At least, I think that is what he said. Some parts of the year, the place is a wide lake leading back into the rainforest.  Other times, it is drier.  We got into smaller boats — sort of motorized canoes — and went deeper into the forest, past rough, floating huts that mostly had electricity and TVs, and into nature. 

Then, we got back into the tour boats and back across the water.  We landed somewhere back in the general direction of Manaus, but still outside the city. We walked through another set of floating restaurants. We crossed rotting boards through lots of water and mud, past people holding animals for pictures, and up a short trail to a group of even more rudimentary huts. A small indigenous tribe displaced by the drought performed a ceremony of their history for tips. That part was fun, especially when the dancers pulled us into the last dance, but I had the nagging feeling that the scantily dressed, exotic to North Americans and European tourists, were being exploited just as the animals were being hawked a few yards away. Then again, I could be looking at it through my own cultural assumptions. The people seemed genuinely proud of their heritage and music. At any rate, I am not posting the videos and photos we took there on social media. 

After that, we went to a section of the meeting of the waters, which is amazing. 

I can’t find a good picture of the meeting of the waters ion my photos, but here is a link where you can see it if you are interested. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_Waters

Dave is enjoying Santarem today and just texted that I would love the tour he is on.  I  am sidelined with sinus 🤧

issues. 

To compensate for being stuck on the boat, I watched an interview about Elizabeth Elliot.  She and her husband were missionaries in the Ecuadorian Amazon when he and four other men were killed by members of a local tribe.  The tribe  had a huge murder rate within itself  as the members settled all internal disputes with spears. Elizabeth and the sister of one of the other men took their children and lived with the tribe, painfully building peaceful relationships with the people who had killed her husband. She had her flaws, as we all do, but that part of her life is inspiring. 

To all of you back home, stay warm!!