Day 51 - February 23, 2008 - Parintins, Brazil

Parintins photos
OMG, we are down to only single digits left in this cruise! This is our next to last Saturday big breakfast in Compass Rose. We all made it to breakfast this morning. Debbie's voice was heard for the first time in about 8 days.
Parintins is pronounced, Pair in Cheens. Not what we thought. Today we saw Patricia Neal and Ed Asner. We went to Terry's talk about Boi-Bumba. It is a kind of Carnaval-type church-sanctioned event. It takes place for 3 days at the end of June. What we are seeing today is just a short recap of the finale of the winners in a indoor facility. It is a rivalry between fans of 2 bulls, a black one and a white one. You have to be gleeful enough to resurrect a dead bull to win. In reality, no bulls are killed or resurrected, a committee judges who wins. You probably already knew that. There are 2 performances for our ship today. We have tickets for the first performance at 12:30pm. We have to tender off the ship in groups to go ashore for this. Apparently, Parintins is at the tip of an island on the Amazon River and though one of the deepest spots in the river is before we get there, the channel gets very narrow and shallow prior to the tip of the island and confluence of rivers. The current is faster there also, so evidently, anchoring and tendering gets tricky here. Not looking forward to that, but hoping for the best.
We are supposed to be going down river now, since last night. But, for some reason, it deceptively looks to us as if the current is heading against us. It is a mystery. When we were headed upriver, the current seemed to be in the right direction, but now it still looks like it is flowing the same way for some reason. It is more than a little disconcerting. We dropped anchor across from Parintins about 11:15am and sent a tender across the river about 11:30am. So, it looks like we are on schedule. Parintins is visible from our port side balconies. LaVeranda opens at 11:30am for lunch today. Since we are to be inthe Constellation Theater for our tender muster at a little before 12:30pm. We will be heading off to an early lunch now, incredibly. But, we have to keep up our strength!
We were on the last tender to the 12:30pm show of the Boi-Bumba. Big mistake, but not like we had any choice. We showed up early, but it seems that the Theater Guild folks got Priority Disembarkation or something, because they were all on the 1st tender. Basically, anyone who followed the instructions of the Tour Desk staff was on the last tender. So, anyway, there were already 200 some people seated in the gym, or whatever you would call it, when we got there. It was an open-air, roofed building with a level concrete floor. We sat in the last row and hoped that worse case, we would be able to stand up to see over the 4-5 rows of chairs in front of us. Of course, that was not to be because a good number of the people already seated when we arrived decided to stand up to videotape the thing. It was very loud, energetic and colorful. They had great big floats and feathered costumes. It went on for about an hour. It is hard to imagine how hard those performers were working in bare feet dancing on a concrete floor in that heat. And, after we left they were going to do it all again for the 3pm show. It started raining as we left to go to the buses back to the port. We got off and walked for several blocks through town. We were looking for the bull-shaped phone booths, but they were not in the square anymore. Margie met up with a woman she knew from home.
We headed back for naps and showers. Tonight was Country Club Casual again. We went to the 6:15pm destination lecture about Devil's Island. But, we still don't know what to expect. John Tabutt-McCarthy said that no ship's tenders go to Devil's Island, but then he showed maps and photos of what we could walk around and see there without ever explaining how we might get there! Oh, well. We went on to dinner and had a light, quick meal. Debbie and Margie stayed up for the 9:45pm show. It was Tovah Feldshuh Out of Her Mind, a one-woman show. She did a bunch of characters. It was an hour and 15 minutes long. At one hour, she announced that everyone who had complained about the Manaus Opera House performance being too short had gotten their hour now. Then, she kept going. It was OK.
We just realized later today that we will miss our big, late Sunday breakfast tomorrow because our excursion tomorrow is at 8:15am. Bummer!
Parintins photos