Parintins, Brazil, Home of Boi Bumba

Travel Blog   January 4, 2014

Parintins, Brazil, Home of Boi Bumba

We spent overnight in the city of Parintins and had the whole day in this little town. We were not asked to escort any tours so we decided to walk the city ourselves. It was Saturday so the shops didn’t open too early. We got into to town around 9:30 and noticed the shops started to open around 10:00 so we wandered

Horse cart in front of cathedral

in and out of many of them once they were opened. We knew that this small rather remote town is the location of the second largest Carnivale in all of Brazil after the famous one in Rio so we wanted to see how the locals celebrate this festival even though it was off season. We had read about the two teams that have a dance-off competition during this event in June which brings in about 20,000 visitors to the town. The dancing centers around a legend about a bull and one team wears red and the other wears blue during the celebration called Boi Bumba. All of the visitors and townsfolk take sides in support of their own dance team and the town is bathed in red and blue. Even Coca Cola is bottled in both red and blue cans and the people of Parintins are proud to say that it is the only place in the world with blue Coke cans and signs.

We were on a quest to find a t-shirt or a pop can with a blue Coca Cola label so we wandered in and our all L. Oh well, it was fun to look anyway. We did find some local shirts to buy and also some inexpensive vodka to bring back to the ship for evening cocktails on board.

Have your Coke in blue or red!

of the shops looking for these but to no avail. We did find lots of blue Coca Cola signs to photograph but nothing to take home as a souvenir. We finally were able to find someone who spoke enough English to explain to us that those items don’t show up until May

It was a hot and humid day of course but a good one as we had time to see this city. We returned to ship and pealed off our dripping wet clothes about three hours later and jumped in the shower and then spent the rest of the day relaxing until our assigned time to sit at the table by the excursion desk and visit with the guests for an hour. It seems a little ridiculous for us to have to do this each day before dinner but it is fun to meet people and answer a few questions. We also get a chance to hear what is going on at the excursion office. Kind of feels like we are little mice hearing the gossip J.

Off to the last stop and main destination on the Amazon tomorrow…Manaus, 1000 miles up the river from the point in which we entered the Amazon. We will be there for a number of days as we all get the chance to explore the jungle before most of the guests disembark for their homes and a new group of guests embarks for the return trip with us.