December 9 - Boca da Valeria, Brazil

 This stop is at a tiny village with a supposed population of around 75.  Clive, the speaker, talked about it at one of his talks.  He shared mixed reviews from some of the other passengers on his cruise 12 years ago.  Some people were enchanted, and others were put off by the local young girls who were dressed in feather outfits and would pose for a price ($1 was mentioned).  We tendered in with Tom, as Jan decided she didn't want to strain her hip any more than necessary.  We got off the tender and climbed a short hill for the walk to the village, probably around 100 yards or so, but I'm not a very good judge of distances.  Immediately we were met by young children either just flat out asking for money or sweets (which one couple had and were quickly inundated), or holding a turtle or little sloth or lizard to pose for pictures or let you hold it.  We just went on through.  They seemed happy enough and smiled and laughed a lot.  Then we got to the "village".  Some of those that Clive quoted referred to it as a "fake" village and I'm inclined to agree.  There is a real village a short distance away, but this is what is presented to the cruise passengers.  It has a school, church, "bar", and a few other buildings that might be homes. (Be sure to click on these pictures to better see them.)

Notice the satellite dish

The church

The schoolhouse.  We could hear kids inside laughing and playing

When I looked a little closer to this photo of the school, I noticed something interesting. If you look closely at the "school" sign, it looks like a piece of paper held up to the wall by scotch tape.

I'd like to think that perhaps on cruise ship days, they use this building as a temporary school for the kids.  But there were a lot of other young kids around offering their animals for pictures or posing as I mentioned.  And why would they need a sign if everyone knows what it's used for, and why is the sign in English?

Some passengers walked all the way to the "real" village and said it was very poor with no electricity.  It seems that people come from villages around the area to try to earn some money.  I guess I understand that this is their way to make a living, but it made me uncomfortable that the kids were so blatantly used, especially the young girls who were dressed up.  I didn't want any pictures of them.

I took this on the sly on the way into the village - didn't feel like paying for the picture..

On the way back, this mother caught my eye and I wanted a photo of a sloth.  They must use babies for this because sloths get much bigger than this.  I chose not to hold it though.  I paid her for the photo.

This enterprise was a family affair.  So I ended up paying for the parrot picture after all when I paid the mother in the background.

The bar selling cold drinks

There was a dirt soccer field and a brand-new building whose purpose wasn't clear.

You can see the electrical is ready for connecting and the stickers are still on the windows.

The waiting area for the tender

Getting down to the waiting area.  You can see how low the river is.

We spent probably around 45 minutes in this village and were so happy to return to the air-conditioned ship.  After quick Navy showers (get wet, turn off water, soap up, rinse off quickly) we headed up to the pool deck.  There were plenty of loungers in the shade, although it was still terribly hot there.  We dipped in the pool to cool off, but even the pool was a bit too warm to be refreshing.  When I got out of the pool, what did I see but a cricket!  We haven't heard them on this ship like we did all the time on the Regent Voyager, and Michael suggested there may not be enough of them yet.  I'll have to ask Peter to send a message to Pam (NCL Entertainment director) because she was amazed at the crickets on the Navigator. We had a quick hot dog lunch at the pool grill, which was just OK, and then Michael returned to the cabin for a nap and I hung around upstairs in the Horizon lounge for a while before finding a few more of the art pieces from the scavenger hunt.

I've mentioned that there are water conservation efforts in place which means no laundry services are available anywhere.  I should have enough to get me through, but I may have to wear some clothes twice when going ashore as I treated them with permethrin to keep the mosquitoes away.  They could be laundered a few times and keep their repellant property and I was thinking I'd be able to launder them once or twice, but that won't be happening now.  We should be taking on some water in Manaus while we get rid of some of the wastewater we've been "holding".  If that works as planned, there may be one day of laundry allowed before we leave the Amazon.

Trivia was another good day and there was another lecture by Bill Lee about Einstein and his theories.  Can't say I really got any of it.

The Captain has announced that we will be 4 hours late getting into Manaus so will get there at 2:00 pm.  We have a 4-hour tour scheduled for the first day, so we'll see how that goes.

We had our second dinner at the Tuscan Steak House and it was much better than the first.  Michael and I shared the 20 oz porterhouse and it was cooked perfectly and very tender.  We'll see if we can get another reservation.