March 19, Parintins

This small, two century old village located on eastern end of Tupinambarana Island is situated in the largest river archipelago of the middle Amazon. Rainforest, flood plain, lakes, other islands and a small ridge mountain characterize the surrounding region. Parintins is rich in Indian culture as celebrated with an annual “Bio Bumba” festival is a ritual of magic, mystery, passion and faith. The “Bio Bumba” festival is a colorful event that is similar to Rio’s Carnival that presents myths, tales and legends using characters, parade carts and giant puppets followed by the words of a master of ceremonies who describes in detail every bit of the action. This Folklore Festival is a big deal as thousands of Brazilians and foreigners make the trek to the Amazon Basin to experience it for themselves. “Bio Bumba” started some 80 years ago when Parintins’ two most important families began a friendly competition. The modern celebratory rivalry descends from a symbolic ritual that involves men in bull costumes and is originated from an old legend. The residents of Parintinis align themselves with one of the two bulls that represent the festival and display their allegiance through color, you support either Blue or Red. They dress themselves and paint their houses in the color they support. During the festival, they settle their “disputes” by deciding who can dance better and shout the loudest. During the festival people sing and dance all day long on the streets and at night they flood into the Bumbodromo, a special arena built for the event, seats 50,000 spectators and is designed in the shape of a bull’s head. For 6 hours each team performs an authentic Amazon ritual complete with chanting, dancing, hand clapping and displaying a giant representation of their bull. Each cheering section has responsibility, too – they are graded on everything from the way they decorate their sections to the level of their boisterous support of their team, to the politeness when the other team is performing. When it’s all said and done a new champion is crowned and they have the bragging rights for the year. It was raining most the day so when I went into Parintinis after lunch it was still sprinkling. It had more of a town than Alter Do Chao with streets and traffic lights. A lot of people drove mopeds or were walking. There were some cars, mostly small ones. The blue and red themes for the festival was very evident. I didn’t see a lot of houses painted those colors down by the waterfront but the small stores certainly sold a lot of clothing and costumes with either red or blue. The bank sign was half red and half blue with what looked like separate entries. Coke sponsors the festival and after the first year when the blue team was upset that Coke had a red background, they now have coke signs in red, blue and half and half. I saw some interesting trees, but no monkeys, macaws or interesting bugs. Tomorrow - Manaus