​SANTARÉM

Our final stop on our Amazon adventure was Santarém.  The city has a population of over 300,000.  The ship offered a free shuttle bus to the Praca Do Pescador (Fisherman’s Square), about 2 miles from the tender landing and near the town center.

We arranged to take our second Gil Serique tour, which would take us down the Tapajós River to where it fed into the Amazon and then continue down the Santarém until we reached the Maicá River.  Once on the Maicá River, we would continue upstream past Maicá Lake until we reached a landing where we would go ashore.

MEETING OF THE RIVERS

The Zuiderdam anchored in the Tapajós River, a large Amazon tributary.  There wasn’t a line for tenders, and we were ashore in 15 minutes.  Gil met us on the tender pier, and one of his two boats arrived in a few minutes.  We boarded with about 1/2 of our group of 30-35 people.  The rest of the guests moved toward another boat about 50 yards down the tender pier as we shoved off and headed down the river.

GIl met us on the tender platform

The first of Gil’s two boats prepares to land at the tender pier

Little did we know at the time, but the other boat experienced major issues while boarding due to the angle and width of the boarding gangway.  Please read Tom’s blog post here, which describes his experience as he was on the other boat.

We continued slowly down the river, waiting for the other boat to catch up, which it did after an hour.  Along the way, we saw the meeting of the Tapajós River and the Amazon, contrasting the Tapajós blue water with the Amazon’s brown water.

The meeting of the rivers

HEADING UP THE MAICÁ RIVER

As we headed up the Maicá River we came across the numerous boats on the HAL tour “Maicá Lake & Piranha Fishing”.  We saw a lot of lines in the water but didn’t spot anyone pulling up any Piranhas.

Piranha fishing in progress

Continuing upstream, we saw numerous birds and a few cows but not much else.

There were many tour boats on the river

SPENDING TIME ASHORE

Around noon, our two boats grounded on a shallow bank, and we went ashore.  A fire was already going, and we could watch as they grilled some fish – and, to our surprise, some giant insects.

The fish was good, and I tried the grilled insects, which looked like large ants.  They were crunchy without much taste.  Our guides discussed the various plants in the area, but we didn’t see any animals.  Gil promised to get a sloth and bring it to our boats on the way back.  We were ashore about 90 minutes before returning to our boats and heading back to Santarém.

WE MEET A SLOTH

About halfway back, Gil’s boat came alongside, and they passed over a large branch with a fully grown sloth hanging on.

We didn’t go back to the tender landing, but we moored at a commercial pier about a mile away and returned to the tender pier using vans.

Pete with our guide, Jairo

OI BRAZIL

The Brazilian Cultural show wowed the crowd with a high-energy performance on the World Stage.