Day 52 - February 24, 2008 - Santarem, Brazil

Santarem photos
This is our last port stop in Brazil. It seems like we have been here for a long time! Tomorrow at 6am we will drop off our last Amazon pilot at Macapa and then we have a sea day as we exit the Amazon. The Amazon is a just unimaginably large river!
Pasted below is today's tour description.
Forest Nature Walk
Duration: 3 Hours.
Hiking.
Code: SRM-6607
You'll take a 40-minute drive from the pier toward the Santarém-Cuiaba Highway, the only road that connects this part of the Amazon with other points in Brazil. The highway climbs to an elevation of 518 feet, considered a "high altitude" level in the otherwise flat region of the Amazon. From here, your bus will enter a rugged roadway leading to the forest of Santa Lucia. Along the way, you can observe the different stages of "slash and burn" agriculture, and its effect on the forest. At Bosque Santa Lucia, your guide will choose one of more than three miles of forest trails for a pleasant nature walk. This forest contains more than 400 different species of regional trees, some of which have been labeled for easy identification.
Please note: It is important to wear shoes with sturdy soles or hiking boots. Long pants are essential, as is sun screen, a hat and insect repellent. We recommend that you be physically fit to participate in this tour.
$49pp
Of note, is the fact that when we booked this tour online the price was $40 and today our tickets said we were charged $49. It is not the only tour we have booked through RSSC that had a price increase between the time we booked and the time our tickets were issued, but it is probably the biggest percentage increase.
So, we were up early for 7am breakfast in LaVeranda. Chimi got Debbie a bowl of raspberries again. Chimi is da man! We had breakfast with Jim, our shipboard next door neighbor, who lives near Margie in Florida as well. He was going on a river cruise today. It was already very hot and humid at 7am. Jim said he did a jungle hike from Manaus and it rained and was miserable. We got lucky and it did not rain, but it was still miserable. They put 37 of us on an old bus that barely made the climb up to 'altitude' and then they divided us into 2 groups of 20 and 17. The groups were too large to be guided, but anyway, they tried which caused catastrophes like the people in the front stand and stomp on a nest of giant carnivore ants and then the rest of us have to get swarmed and bitten as we try to make it past there on the path. You can believe or not that the same people did the same thing more than once! Talk about slow learners. Anyway, those big ants were the biggest animals that we saw in the rainforest. With all the standing and chitchatting that this bunch did on the trail with each other, they learned nothing and any birds or monkeys that live here (lots we were told) were long gone from our path. So, it was a truly miserable morning and we can't say that we enjoyed it. Tovah Feldshuh was in our group. Her cousin got freaked out at the first giant biting attack ants and backtracked to the bus. She told us to tell them that she went back, she wasn't missed for over 20 minutes, so you can imagine how strung out our group had gotten. We saw a whole lot of mosquitos, termites and ants and we can see all of those things in the Southeastern part of the USA. Oh, well.
We had lunch at Compass Rose. We got laundry done and a good thing, with the demand from the new people, we are happy that we decided not to wait until the first sea day morning tomorrow. Competition will probably be fierce then, since the new people had to skip a lot of sailing sights, ice cream sailaway social and Terry Breen to be in the laundry room this afternoon. We had thought that since all that would be repeats for us that maybe only the old sailors would be fighting for laundry. Wrong! Anyway, it got done.
Patricial Neal spoke about her life and her stroke and recovery at 3pm. Debbie and Margie went and it was a pretty full house. Tonight is Formal and the Captain's Welcome Reception again. Honestly, we may just skip this one. We are invited to a hosted table this evening with Bryan Townsend, Cruise Director and David Guy, Assistant Cruise Director. That is at 7:30pm. Tonight is the PGT Ballroom Bravo show again. This is at least the third time they have done this show and we still haven't seen it yet. Not sure if we will make it tonight either. We have had a long and sweaty day already. But, tomorrow is sailing all day, so we will be able to sleep in.
We sat at a table for eleven people last night. There were three other couples, Bryan, David and us. It was a crowd, but it also made the time pass quickly. Debbie and Marge finally made it to the PGT Ballroom Bravo show. Debbie really liked it and Margie liked it, so thumbs up for this show.
Santarem photos