March 18 – Alter Do Chao

This small Amazon beach resort is nestled in a scenic bay of the Tappajos, and is sheltered by two hills, one of which resembles a church alter, hence the name. This is a very serene respite where the bay is fringed by white sandy beaches and almost has a Mediterranean feel to it. That is right up until you see all the local stands offering things like piranha earrings and blow guns. But the area where the beaches were did have an old time Mediterranean feel. The beaches form a long spit that almost closes off the Largo Verde lagoon from the river. The pretty white beaches were lost today because it rained all but the last hour we were there. I did go ashore by tender in spite of the rain, but I didn’t go over to the beach area. It looked like it was only accessible by water taxi (VERY old and small boats) and I’m not sure anyone could have accessed the beaches today because the water was so high. The town is very small but has a little town square with primitive stores and little thatched roofed stands where they sell local goods. There were a large number of mangoes all over the town square and the trees were heavy with them. I did see a bit of an increase in bugs today on the ship, although I haven’t seen any mosquitoes. The bugs are mostly moths, butterflies and beetles. There are none on my veranda but there are quite a few on the Promenade deck and up by the pool. In town I didn’t notice many bugs or see any unusual animals or birds, but we did hear a lot of birds. Those on the nature walk said that the ants they saw were 2-3” long, they also saw some bright colored poisonous spiders and heard a lot of birds, but didn’t see any colorful ones. On the nature hike they brought along a local specialist with a machete to deal with any poisonous snakes. Yikes! Tomorrow the town of Parintins