Musings on Brazil

 Sea Date  January 25, 2024

I just wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on the Amazon sojourn.

I was quite surprised by the weather,  It was not the blazing sun I expected, but quite cloudy for many days.  But as I think about it, you need clouds to produce rain to produce a rainforest. We also got much less rain than I expected - a pleasant surprise.  We got caught in a brief shower in Boca da Valeria but that was cooling and appreciated.  The temperatures were much cooler than expected.  Some mornings bordered  on chilly and most days were warm to hot never really that uncomfortable.

TEMPERATURES WERE OFTEN 40 DEGREES LESS THAN BARCELONA LAST AUGUST.  I will never forget that INFERNO.

Although modern in many ways, Amazonas is still in a way the land that time forgot.  Without roads and cars, travel is similar to 1,000 years ago. Brazil made the decision about 30 years ago(?) to stop contacting uncontacted tribes.  The danger of disease is very similar to 400 years ago.  So, on many parts of the Amazonas maps, officials are aware that tribes exist but they believe they have had no contact with modern civilization. They mark them in red and they are forbidden territory.

Also, I heard a woman became ill on the Amazon.  She was not getting better so she left the ship in Grenada. There she was diagnosed with dengue fever. (RUMOR - not Known) The Amazon is not domesticated.

The forest and the flood plain are truly stunning landscapes.  I enjoyed our hikes in the forest with our naturalist guides and our boat rides on the many rivers.  Pink dolphins, three toed sloths, Meeting of the Rivers, Ford's Beltara, the Amazon brown river, the welcoming family in Boca, the Boi Bumba- the closest I may get to Carnavale and Gil, the wild guide will never be forgotten.

Jim and I are Shellbacks - we have crossed the equator.  We are Emerald Shellbacks because we have crossed the equator at Null Island, where the prime meridian and the equator meet. Now we are Anaconda Shellbacks because we have crossed the equator on the Amazon River.

By the way, we got our Brazil visas on January 15.  If Brazil authorities had kept their earlier edict, I would have missed all but Parintins and Santarem.  Well, I can now visit Brazil for 10 more years.

Off to the Pacific Ocean for the next several months.