Travel with Dale & Margaret

Today we arrived in the “resort” town Alter Do Chao, which is 20 miles West of Santarem or a 45 minute bus ride along one of the only roads in the state of Para.  It is located on the Tapajós river and next to a lagoon called Lago Verde.  According to our daily newspaper, Passages, it is justly the subject of a thousand postcards.  We’ll have to take their word for that but there was a beach, some hotels and a pier to which we docked.  Margaret and I decided to make a quick trip…we just had no idea just how quick the trip would be!

We were anchored today so we boarded the tender and opted to sit up on top.  Sometimes it feels hotter sitting on top (fully exposed to the sun) while other times it feels hotter sitting inside the tender…so it’s really a coin toss.  There were no organized excursions today so the only thing to do was to go to the town center and “walk around” a bit.  As we slowly made our way to the small dock, we realized that it was getting even more HOT and HUMID (assuming that is possible)!  Luckily there were some river dolphins swimming near the tender so we could take our minds off the heat by searching the water for glimpses of these playful animals.

When we got closer to the dock we realized there were some local children showing off by jumping off of a nearby pier into the water…and this looked like it might be the most fun thing to do here.  There were a number of local vendors selling handicrafts near the dock but not much else.  So, being the practical people we are, we decided, along with a few other people, to just kept our seats on top of the tender and called it a “Boat Ride and Dolphin Viewing” tour!  The tender loaded up a lot of hot and sweaty looking cruisers and we slowly motored our way back to the Mariner, thereby ending a nice, short afternoon tour.

I learned later that Alter do Chão has for many years been a popular tourist destination for locals and is pretty much THE destination for the wealthy people in Santarem and Manaus.  It is also becoming a somewhat well-known international destination due primarily to a sand bar that appears during the dry season (we could see a bit of it…but in the dry season the beach is much wider) that fills with bars and visitors when the water recedes.

Alter Do Chao Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Alter-Do-Chao-Mar-3-2010/25178292_vtRgbP#!i=2065160552&k=2Xw7wtw

OK, I’ll admit.  This title may not be for everyone.  But, if you were as big an Amazon.com shopper as I am you would get the joke.  It’s hard to say Amazon WITHOUT saying “dot com” after it!  And, I’ll get the other one out of the way right away.  This subject is clear as mud.  Just look at the picture of the Amazon I took today off our veranda.  Ha, ha, ha.

This isn’t my morning latte. This is the Amazon River!

Yesterday, the Amazing Terry Breen, our resident expert on South America and Jean-Michel Cousteau, the infamous oceanographer, gave presentations on the Amazon.  This article is intended to pass on the highlights of those talks about one of the most amazing (pardon the pun) places on earth.  I’ll give it to you in snippets.

– The biggest disappointment for most cruise passengers is the Amazon River.   Why?  Because the Amazon River is absolutely huge.  Much different from the picture painted by Hollywood.  Instead of a slow moving, narrow muddy river with overhanging jungle it is really wide (more stats on that in a bit).  In order to more accurately represent the Amazon region it is now called the Amazonian Rain Forest.

– In square miles, the Amazon basin would cover the entire continental United States and covers 40% of South America!  Seriously, it is as big as the ENTIRE United States.  That’s really big and changes the whole way you view this area.  You cannot generalize things like “if you go to the Amazon you can get Malaria”.  The area where Malaria is endemic is on the area bordered by Columbia, Venezuela and Brazil and is literally thousands of miles from where we will be in Manaus.  It would be like saying you can get Malaria in Seattle when it exists only in Atlanta.

– The Amazon Fan, that area defined by the waters exiting the Amazon and spilling out into the Atlantic ocean extends over 100 miles.  The brown fresh waters of the Amazon mix with the clear salt water of the Atlantic to create a brownish (called “brackish”) mix of the two.

View of the entrance to the Amazon.  Over 7,000,000 cubic feet of this muddy colored water pass here every minute!

– The Amazon is the largest river system in the world as well as the largest river.  It is not yet the longest (that’s the Nile) but the Nile is only 75 miles longer.  First explored in 1547 it took 2 years for Francisco de Orellana to go from the largest tributary in Ecuador all the way to the Atlantic.

– During rainy season, the average width of the river is 30 miles with some parts extending 120 miles in width.  The mouth is over 200 miles wide.  There is an island in the middle bigger than Switzerland.  There is a consistent 5 knot current moving towards the Atlantic. The average depth in the rainy season is 75 feet but there are portions over 300 feet deep.  Pororoca, a tidal flow that is 22 feet high occurs from time to time and this flow moves in several waves at 6 mph and push up to 500 miles inland.  Surfers even come to the Amazon to surf on these waves!

I don’t know how to say it other than the Amazon produces a LOT of water.  The volume flow is larger than the next 10 largest rivers combined!  In one day, more water goes through the Amazon than an entire year in the Thames.  Nearly 20% of the world’s runoff comes from this one river and one days discharge could supply all the US water requirements for a year.  Here are comparative flow stats:

Nile – 651,000 cu ft/ second
Mississippi – 1,500,000  cu ft/second
Congo – 1,600,000 cu ft/second
Amazon – 7,000,000 cu ft/second

– The Amazon River system is comprised of over 1,000 rivers that are over 1,000 miles in length.  Of course, there are many, many more that are smaller.

– You can fly for hours in any direction and not see a rise in the tree line.  This area was once the bottom of an inland sea and this former seabed is hard packed clay that is only 2 inches thick.  Amazingly (sorry for the pun again…it just seems to apply) the Amazon only descends 345 feet (105 m) from the Peruvian river port of Iquitos, a full 2,300 miles from the ocean. Thus the river descends at a rate of only 1.8 inches per mile!  That’s REALLY flat and not what most people expect to see.

– Over millions of years, as the South American continent drifted away from Pangea (the large land mass that formerly consisted of a larger area of South America and Africa among others) the Andes mountains were forced up and the Eastern coastal areas of Brazil were forced down.  This forced the water from the inland lake to start flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, creating the Amazon River basin.

The meeting of the water…above see the chocolate colored water mixing with ocean water.

There are three types of water in the Amazon:

Main branch: White water.  Milky, chalk/reddish brown.  pH 6.9.  Lots of nutrients.  Supports vegetation. Floating clumps or “rafts” of living water hyacinths and grass.

Rio Negro: Black water. Filled with tannins.  Golden black color.  Free from sediment and low in nutrients.  pH 4.9-5.3.  Fairly acidic.  Not much lives here.

Tapajos:  Clearwater.  pH: neutral.  Has some vegetation.

When the black water meets the white water, in an area called the meeting of the rivers around Manaus, it takes 5 miles for it to combine.  In the meantime, it has a very clear demarcation between the milky brown and darker waters.

–  There is a diversity of plant life in the rain forest but that’s a whole story unto itself.  The sad thing is that damaging any part of the ecosystem can have unforeseen effects on other areas.  For instance, the trees root system is only a couple inches deep so they spread like tentacles.  Each tree actually supports other trees.  So cutting down one can cause many others to fall.

–  One of the more interesting creatures in the Amazon is the pink dolphin.  While they look somewhat similar to the dolphins we are used to seeing they are (surprise!) pink.  They also have a larger bulb on the front of their “head” and a much longer and thinner snout.  The bulb area provides more acoustic capabilities since they have very poor eyesight and, let’s face it…it’s hard to see in a chocolate milk river! They use the bulbous region of their head like “radar” to catch fish.

That’s it for now.  Looking forward to exploring more of the Amazon and reporting it back to you!

Amazon Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Amazon-Mar-1-2010/25178236_xtvDSD#!i=2065153824&k=HzjqG2T

The ship remained docked last night in Fortaleza and we had a few hours in the morning and early afternoon to explore the area today.  Fortaleza (fortress in Portuguese and pronounced “fohta lesa”) reminded me a lot of Salvador.  It is the capital of the state of Ceará (pronounced like “sierra”).  It is the fifth largest city in Brazil with well over 3 million people living in the metropolitan region.

The Spaniards arrived here in 1500 followed by the Portuguese who built a fort and started colonization in 1603.  The Dutch made a run at it by establishing Fort Schoonerborch but were expelled by the Portuguese who renamed it Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora da Assuncao.  Fortaleza became the capital of Ceará in 1799 and eventually became known for its cotton industry.

Fortaleza has a large number of expensive and quite architecturally brilliant (in color and style) high-rise buildings near the water and seems to be experiencing decent growth.  As we moved out from the downtown area it transformed into the typical one and two story dilapidated 3rd world type of structures with a preponderance of trash, small merchants, informal restaurants, open air hardware stores, tire stores with outside “displays” of used tires, bicycle repair shops, etc.  Not a chain store in site.

I went on a dune buggy excursion today.  The area we saw on our bus trip out to the dunes had a large number of informal low-end “resort” type businesses on the beach.  Once in a while there would be some estate-style homes and even 5-6 story buildings but there also seemed to be a number of those buildings in early stages and possibly “stalled” stages of construction. After 30 minutes or so we reached the area where we would take our exciting dune buggy rides.

This beach area was replete with sand dunes that seem to go on for more than 50 miles inland and extend for an equal distance up and down the coast.  This makes for a big industry for off-road vehicles, which we saw frequently on our ride to the beach.

With it’s strong and consistent winds, this area is also known as a haven for wind and kite surfers. I spotted some interesting fishing boats that had, what appeared to be, a mast laying down and extending over the front of the boat. There was, in fact, an example of this type of boat on the lawn in front of the resort where are activities took place (see photo below).  The rigging was unique to say the least.  It seems the fishermen need to “sail” out past the waves to get to the fishing spots, which is something I have not seen before.

Our tour guide led us into the resort where we divided into groups of 3’s and were taken to our dune buggies, which came complete with a driver.  One person sat in the passenger seat and the other two sat somewhat precariously in the back holding onto the roll bar.  We drove across the street away from the ocean and drove on sandy but firm roads until we came to the top of a hill where a series of grass covered shacks were perched.  Here we could buy local crafts (although I never even looked at what was there) from what seemed to be mostly children.

They also were letting guests take “sand sled” rides down a steep hill. The locals call this ski-bunda but it is high speed sand dune sledding on something that looks like a skateboard without wheels.  They wax it up using candles, sit on it and guide themselves wtih light downward hand pressure.  Several tried, some successfully, but Mike (who, along with his wife Cheryl were my buggy partners) was used a little too much left hand pressure and went literally head over heels including an unexpected head plant in the sand.  He may have even hurt his back (turned out to be short term pain from the embarrassment more than anything) but definitely got super fine sand EVERYWHERE which was pretty miserable until he hosed off at the resort.  See photo below — for my brilliant (just ask me, I’ll tell you!) video titled “Mike Does a Dump in the Sand”, click here:  http://gallery.me.com/travelwithdmcontent/100548

After a little more driving around in the sand and stopping at another hillside location where they were selling customized picture T-shirts of guests with their local ponies — who were dressed up in a very festive style!  After this we went back to the resort where some swam in the ocean and others (like me) sat around and sipped on authentic coconut milk from chilled coconuts.  Finally, we boarded the bus and, on the way back to the ship made two more, let’s say, mildly interesting, stops…first at what they called the English Bridge which was really a run-down pier and the other stop which was called the Old Prison but was really another local craft marketplace – they are known for the lace here and it was available in ample quantities.  We were then taken back to the Mariner where we arrived about 1:15…just in time for lunch.

We took it easy the rest of the day by having lunch in Compass Rose and drinks in the Observation Lounge. By chance, our friends Nick and Sherrie came into the Observation Lounge and, after a martini, we went to dinner at La Veranda.  We had a nice dinner of veal parmigianino and a magnum of 2003 Antinori Super Tuscan.  Nice!  (Thanks Nick!)  After we taught Sherrie our two cork tricks we also taught the head waiter the same tricks and he showed us a couple of his own.  Good times!  We ended the night by finishing our wine on the pool deck accompanied by warm ocean breezes.

Photographically, once again, I was amazed at the colors from my backup camera, the D200.  They look like photo-realistic models of buildings or watercolors.  Simply amazing considering I took most of these pictures from a bus with dirty windows that was going over 40 mph most of the day!

Also, when we were safely back on the ship in the afternoon — we heard Lisa, the assistant cruise director, paging some guests in French…seems they weren’t back on the ship yet (good thing they scan our ID cards coming and going or they wouldn’t know).  The two missing guests finally showed up (only 15 minutes late…but the ship gets concerned because they are on a schedule!). Below, you can see my paparazzi shots of the guests boarding the ship right below our suite!

Next I am going to start working on my Machu Picchu movie as I have much of the content ready now.

(PS: Turns out that the video made the Ray’s Quirky Moments segment and made Mike a big star on the ship and on YouTube!  Used with his permission of course).

“Mike Does a Dump in the Sand” Video: https://vimeo.com/52571171

Fortaleza: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Forteleza-Feb-28-2010/25178080_WqNB5W#!i=2065134267&k=7t7bNMx

 

We wanted to post a blog to let our friends and family know that yesterday we arrived safely in Fortaleza in Northeastern Brazil — far from the earthquake that shook Chile and on the opposite side of the continent from the tsunami threat.

There definitely seems to be one disaster after another on this cruise — first we passed by Haiti just after the earthquake there, we were trapped in Machu Picchu after biblical flooding, we missed a cyclone in Tonga (where we are going on our next outing in April with the kids), there was flooding in Buenos Aires just after our departure and then flooding in Rio just before we arrived!  Let’s pray that things slow down for a while on the weather front.

We also feel for the travelers in the U.S. challenged with the crazy snow and wind on the East coast.  And there was over a foot of snow at our home yesterday…but that’s why we’re taking this trip, isn’t it?

Once again, thanks for your concern.  Our hearts go out to those in Chile who were/are affected by the earthquake and we are gratified that the resulting tsunamis didn’t cause much further damage.

If you would care to donate to the International Red Cross  you can access their site with this link:  http://www.redcross.org/