An Unbelievable Experience

Travel Blog   January 3, 2014

An Unbelievable Experience

Parintins, Amazonia, Brazil

There are thousands of tiny villages dotting the shorelines of the various rivers that make up the Amazon Basin.  Today we would get the rare opportunity to visit one of them, Boca da Valeria.  Perching on the shores of the Amazon, with the jungle to its back, Boca is a community of about 75 men, women and children.  Only occasionally do cruise ships stop here, but the residents were ready for us.

Unlike other stops on our cruise, no organized shore excursions were planned for us.  We could see the village on our own terms.

After navigating up a bayou off the main channel, our tender arrived at the rickety, wooden dock. We were met by scores of beautiful dark-eyed Brazilian children most of whom appeared to be of 100% Indian heritage.  The little boys and girls grasped at our hands as we began our walk around the village.  We declined their hands but were still adopted by two darling nine-year old girls, Liza and Eva, who politely accompanied us as we wandered the footpaths that made up the community.  We had been advised by our Desert Hot Springs friends, Ken and Lindsay, that school supplies were always appreciated and we came well supplied with an assortment of novelty pencils and other items.

Each building in the village is built high on stilts, so as not to suffer damage from the Amazon’s seasonal flooding.  None have windows or screens, but they did have electricity, the source of which we were unable to determine.  Even a few had satellite dished, pointed straight up, since the satellites orbit directly over the Equator. 

The weather was hot and humid, about 90 degrees with 95 percent humidity.  We quickly sweated through our shirts.

We climbed the steep staircase to the tiny one-room school and delivered some pencils and other supplies to the teachers.   We also visited the tiny church next to the school.  Instead of pews, a number of white, plastic Wal-Mart chairs were set up.

Everyone in the village was used to visitors and tried to earn extra dollars by dressing in native costumes or posing with their pets.  We saw a number of sloths, a beautiful toucan and two caiman (a variety of South American alligator). Although the children were eager for any gifts and money we had, none were pushy or impolite.  Even though we don’t speak Portuguese, we managed to get by with our Spanish.

Apparently the word had got out in the area and a number of children of all ages from other communities also showed up at Boca da Valeria! 

John poses with his two escorts at Boca da Valeria

We stopped at the little canteen in the village and tried to hydrate ourselves with a Coke and a local beer.  John was pleasantly surprised that the restroom was fully equipped with running water!

We returned to our ship for a late lunch and our turn at desk duty before attending Sabbath services at sundown.

We turned in tired after dinner with our wonderful table-mates.  We will miss them when then depart on Monday.