Sailing the Amazon on the Zuiderdam (2024)
After a brief interruption to lament the loss of the Mediterranean portion of our itinerary (see previous post) we now return you to our regular programming
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After leaving Santorem on January 16 we spent January 17 sailing down the Amazon to the ocean. We dropped off our pilots at Macapa early in the morning (before we were up), crossed the Amazon bar late in the day, then spent two more sea days to reach our next port. So this seemed like a good place to sum up our Amazon river experience and also show a little about what is on board the Zuiderdam.
I am not going to bore everybody with a lot of statistics. It is enough to know that the Amazon is easily the biggest river in the world, transporting more water to the ocean than the next 3 largest rivers combined. It is about 200 miles wide at its mouth and, as we may have mentioned before, there is an island in the river near its mouth that is bigger than Switzerland. The Amazon is a very muddy river and a lot of flotsam can be seen floating by, much of the mud and flotsam having travelled from the Andes some 3 or 4 thousand miles up river. The river is wide enough that you often can’t see the shore, sometimes on either side, so it looks almost like being in the ocean.
What gives it away that this is a river is the muddy color, very brown on this visit. The color of the ocean was a significant change once we left the river behind.
The river’s shore is mostly lined with deep green rainforest that looks almost impenetrable, extending for miles and miles as you sail along. But here and there you can also see small houses and out buildings, each one of which has a river boat tethered nearby because that is the only way for them to go anywhere. When travelling on a riverboat for more than a day the locals sleep onboard in hammocks strung on the deck.
Since this entire area is a giant rainforest it is no surprise that there are clouds much of the time. We have seen many spectacular cloud formations rising high into the sky from the fairly flat landscape around the Amazon.
One thing the Amazon has in abundance is insects, some of them quite large. On our first trip here in 2012 there were a number of them sitting on the walls of the ship that were several inches long and very nasty looking. On this trip all we have to show is a moth sitting on a window, but a pretty big one. Several times early in the trip we thought we were seeing meetings of the waters, but we discovered that when the lines between muddy and not muddy are irregular this may actually be caused by shadows thrown on the Amazon waters by the clouds. It looks interesting anyway.
In sum, sailing the Amazon is quite an experience with many aspects you probably wouldn’t experience on any other river. We want to note that, while we have made much of the low water in the river on this trip, we were pretty lucky about that because a month or so earlier the water was so low that several ships cancelled their river cruises. We are told that navigation was pretty tricky this time, and the Captain seemed very glad to have the river pilots to help find the deeper channels and avoid the sand bars, but the low water never interfered substantially with our itinerary although we did anchor further away than previously at several ports. Our other visits here were both a month or two later in the year so the water at this time of year may have been lower anyway (the Amazon rises and falls some 40 feet between rainy and dry seasons even in normal years). So congratulations to Captain Van der Hoeven for bringing us through without a hitch.
We also want to give a brief idea here of some aspects of life aboard the Zuiderdam. The ship has many venues where an amazing variety of activities are usually going on throughout the day and evening. The Crow’s Nest on deck 10 at the top of the ship extends the full width of the ship and has panoramic windows showing where we are headed, with comfy chairs all along the viewing area. There is a coffee bar, a game room and the shore excursions desk is here. Parties often occur here as well.
Zuiderdam also has a small library. It is nice HAL is moving back toward having ship libraries, although they used to be much nicer places to sit and read. Maybe libraries like that will return eventually.
Deck 9 gets a lot of visits because of the Lido Buffet, where we usually get lunch. Just outside the buffet is the main swimming pool, with a sliding roof and a polar bear mother and child at one end (the baby is almost 25 years old but hasn’t grown an inch). There are lounge chairs and tables around the pool area where we usually sit to eat our lunch.
In addition to the shows by guest artists and the Zuiderdam Singers And Dancers on the Main Stage, there are several musical venues around the ship active in the afternoon and evening. Billboard Onboard is a pair of pianist/singers often called “dueling pianos” but really complementary ones. Rolling Stone Lounge has (as you might expect) a loud and entertaining rock band with two singers. We frequent two other venues. First is the Ocean Bar which features a jazz trio of piano, bass and guitar called Third Avenue West. The guitarist and bassist in particular are really good jazz musicians and they play a laid back type of jazz appropriate to their instrumentation. Some familiar ditties but also some pretty challenging jazz compositions.
Before dinner we often attend a recital in the Explorers’ Lounge by a classical trio consisting of piano, violin and cello. Their skill is more what one would expect at a concert venue than on a cruise ship. All are graduates of leading conservatories and so far they have presented a different program every day. Among the highlights were three of Bach’s solo cello suites and a program of music recently uncovered by the pianist as part of his doctoral studies that was composed by a prisoner in Dachau concentration camp during World War II. They have drawn sizeable audiences when we have been there. What a great way to build up to a delicious dinner in the Main Dining Room (and the food really has been delicious so far on this trip).
When a ship visits a new port for the first time there is usually a welcome ceremony and the ship is presented with a commemorative plaque (or something similar). That actually happened a few days ago as I write this. Many of Zuiderdam’s interesting plaques from these ceremonies are hung in a curving stairwell between decks 2 & 3.
Past HAL ships on which we have sailed had notable art collections,including very old pieces and many from faraway countries exhibited throughout the ship. This one instead has a rather quirky art collection, including some old Dutch prints, some paintings of old HAL ships, but also more contemporary things. Outside the Rolling Stone Lounge are some interesting paintings of old Rhythm and Blues musicians, including what we think is a portrait of BB King on stage. Near the elevators on several floors are sculptures that appear to represent Renaissance entertainers. We should note that there are midships elevators on each side of the ship made of glass, so you can watch outside as the world and the decks and the tenders go by while you ascend or descend. They are fun.
Not far from the plaque stairwell pictured earlier is a series of six interesting art constructions. The artist, Volker Kuhn, calls them Viewboxes. Each box is about 10” x 14” and contains a bit of rather whimsical sculpture. The lighting inside each box slowly changes color from white to red to blue. We found them interesting, but I am not sure the flat pictures here do justice to these three dimensional creations. I hope I have the correct title for each work (from left top to right bottom): Music In The Air; Heavenly Joy; Way To The Stars; Off We Go.
On deck 2 are a number of glass sculptures that we found attractive and interesting.
During these sea days at the end of the Amazon we had a Formal Night. There used to be more of these on Grand Voyages, but now there are about two per month. Diners at all the restaurants on board, except the LIdo buffet, are required to dress up in semi-formal attire for these evenings. Some men wear tuxedos but most wear a suit (although Rick has always worn a sport jacket and tie with no problem) and women dress in cocktail party clothes. There are other nights called “Dressy Nights,” and really it is unclear what the difference is. On most formal nights there is a show on the Main Stage by the Zuiderdam Singers and Dancers, and sometimes they leave us pillow gifts, found on the bed when you return to your room. It used to be that towel animals were left on the bed almost every evening but now that only happens on formal and dressy nights. On this formal night the dining room crew made nice red and black birds as table centerpieces out of napkins and wine glasses.
So that’s all we have for this short intermission from the relentless parade of port stops. Next episode will be another port as we headed toward the Panama Canal.
BADER JOURNAL 