Parintins, Brazil (2024)
January 15 found us anchored in the Amazon River farther upriver from the tender dock than in the past. Perhaps this more distant anchorage had to do with the water level in the river. The water level this trip is noticeably lower than on past trips, but it is much better than a couple of months ago when several cruise ships had to abandon sailing up the river. We understand that the navigation has been more challenging than normal, but we have had no incidents interfering with our itinerary.
Founded more than 200 years ago, Parintins is a river town of something over 110,000 people located on a large island in the Amazon river. There are no roads to this town so transportation in and out is limited, we understand, to river traffic. The town is named for the indigenous people who lived here before the coming of Europeans and this heritage of Amerindian culture is still evident today.
More than anything else, this town is renowned for its Boi Bumba festival every June, which draws more than 35,000 visitors, many sleeping on the river boats on which they arrived. The festival centers on performances of a musical show about the resurrection of a bull killed by a local, based on an old story that we were told originated in Portugal. The whole town is divided into rival groups (gangs?) who stage competing performances in the Bumbodromo, a 35,000 seat stadium purpose built for the festival (although other events may take place there in other parts of the year). The Garantido group is represented by a red bull (really, white with red or pink highlights) and the Caprichoso group is represented by a blue bull. It sounds like Romeo & Juliet, right? Competition between these rival color groupings is so intense that blue group people avoid products that are red and red group people avoid products that are blue. Apparently Coca-Cola has marketed special blue cans of Coke only sold here so that the blue group people would buy their product.
Obviously we were not here for the festival, which was some 5 months away. But when a cruise ship is in town the group that won the previous competition puts on a scaled down version of the show in an auditorium near the tender boat pier. We have seen it twice and it is a marvelous show, but since the tickets are $100 per person we decided we didn’t need to see it a third time. If you would like to see pictures of this rousing performance from 2019 you can look here (worth seeing):
https://baderjournal.com/2019/11/18/parintins-brazil-2/
Instead we decided to walk through the town, looking particularly for what appeared to be the red group’s headquarters and workshop where we hoped to see preparations for the festival in progress. So we tendered ashore, but not in a Zuiderdam tender boat. It appears that local regulations require tendering to shore in local river boats, so that is what we did. It was actually a more pleasant and interesting ride than a normal tender, although it was much longer than last time we were here when the ship was anchored quite close to the tender pier.
After reaching shore we began walking up river toward the Red part of town. It was very hot and humid but it was nice walking in town near the river. We walked past the busy Municipal Market which had vendors inside and out. We saw a very tall sculpture of an indigenous man, possibly part of the sign for a business, and a number of people having lunch at tables near the river served by cafes across the street. As you might surmise from these pictures, the predominant forms of local transportation appeared to be of the two wheel variety, bicycles and motorcycles.
We continued walking further into Red territory. Not many people were on the streets, which were lined with small businesses and shops, many with the red bull incorporated into their signs. We walked quite a way, at least it seemed so with the heat and humidity, but we didn’t find our objective. What we found was a red and white painted facility that looked like a small arena, probably a practice area. We didn’t see anyone there and it was fenced, so we took a few pictures and headed back toward town.
We saw many nice flowers during this walk and some wildlife too, notably a red topped bird and a long bright green iguana crossing the street (traffic stopped for him). One tree, we noticed, had air plants growing on its trunk.
We walked past the local cathedral, which we had been able to enter on a previous visit. Nearing the tender port we came to what seems to be the no man’s land between the red territory and the blue territory. The crosswalk here had blue stripes on one side of the street and red on the other. These folks seem to be really serious about their rivalry. At the tender port we took a regular HAL tender back to the ship, but to reach it we had to walk through one of the local boats like the one on which we rode into town. Apparently, they wouldn’t allow the HAL tenders to dock at the actual pier. We think it must be some kind of local regulation to generate business for the river boats. Presumably the local boat owner was paid to allow us to walk through their boat to the HAL tender.
Thus ends our third visit to Parentins. The clouds in the sky over the city were a pretty pink as we departed downstream, with one more stop in the Amazon remaining.
BADER JOURNAL 