Boca da Valeria, Brazil

Of course, not everyone lives in a big city like Santarem. A lot of people live on the riverbank and inland in small communities. One of these places has an Italian name - Boca da Valeria.
This community is normally home to about 75 residents, but today it was invaded by about 600 tourists!

Here in 'downtown' Boca da Valeria, most of the houses are up on stilts. This is because the Amazon river usually causes floods every year and the people like to stay dry. As soon as the locals found out that we were coming, they got ready. The kids were let out of school and mom, dad and all the kids got dressed for the occasion. They even brought their pets along. Most people couldn't speak English, but they all knew two words – one dollar! They would happily pose for you as long as you would give them one dollar or one real (local currency). As you can see, I handed out quite a few dollars.

In the end, we all got what we wanted, so it was a win/win situation. They got our money. We got photos of the locals in colorful, but completely fake costumes!

To really appreciate the Amazon, you need to get off the big ship and explore the backwaters on a small riverboat. Above is a view of the river from the deck of the ship. It's nice to look at, but you really can't see that much.

So my friend and I climbed into a small canoe with a local resident and headed down one of the tributaries. Many of the other passengers were doing the same thing, so there was practically a traffic jam on the waterways.

Our first stop was to see the giant water lilies. These massive plants were at least 3 feet wide and looked like they could support a small child.

This little fella obviously knew better and was content to stay put in his mother's boat.

Some of the passengers took rides in covered boats to avoid the hot sun. Most locals used paddles or poles when they reached sensitive areas, like the lily pads, to avoid harming the plants.

This is what typical housing looked like on the riverbank. What you can't see are the satellite dishes and TVs that everyone seemed to have!

Schooling is very important down here and this school was well equipped with good classrooms and a room full of computers.

The guy giving us the tour invited us into his home, offered us a drink and gave us some local fruit (guavas) to snack on. Then he took us deeper inland to see the real jungle. We had a great time! If you ever get the chance to do this, then go for it.

Santarem, Brazil

The water down here is so muddy, it's hard to believe that there are even any fish in it. In fact, there is so much silt, trees and logs floating in it, it is hard to believe that anything can survive in there. The water is so muddy that the ship can not even filter it to produce clean water. Everyone has been told to drink beer, shower with a buddy and not do laundry until we reach cleaner waters!

Santarem was our next port of call. When most people think about the Amazon, they don't think about traffic jams and construction delays. Instead they think about that National Geographic special they saw when they were a kid. Well, I'm here to tell you that times have changed. This little city, of about 250,000 people, is what a typical Amazonian city looks like today (and they do have traffic jams).

The downtown area is filled with stores selling everything that you would expect to find in Toronto. However, there were a couple of key differences. For instance, I never saw a big grocery store. I never saw a big department store. And for some strange reason, every second store seemed to be shoe store, every third store sold school supplies and every fourth store was a pharmacy. Apparently, everyone in the Amazon has an Imelda Marcos foot fetish, a severe need for note paper and a hankering for prescription medication!

After checking out the stores, I went over to visit the cathedral. It's bright blue color made it easy to spot from anywhere in town.

Then I went to the city lookout to see Santarem's premier tourist attraction – the meeting of the waters. From the hilltop, you can see where the milky brown waters of the Amazon meet, but do not mix, with the dark blue waters of the Tapajos river. These two rivers run side by side for miles without mixing!

Above you can see one of the many riverboats that take tourists to see this natural phenomenon up close.

In the Amazon, you can see a lot of beautiful things like colorful birds and these bird of paradise flowers. You can also see brilliant sunsets like this every evening.

Belem, Brazil

The Amazon is so long, that it takes at least 2 days to get from one city to another. This gives us time to relax. Instead of getting into a new port every day, we arrive every other day. The next stop for us was the city of Belem.

Nowadays, this place is famous for it's large waterfront market (supposedly the largest in the country). As always, things are relative. Compared to most of the places that we have visited, it was big. Compared to the Eaton Center (or any shopping mall in Toronto), it is small.

After walking through the many stalls and the smelly fish market, I headed for the city's central square. As usual, there was large cathedral on one side of the square. However, I couldn't take a look inside because it was closed for siesta. In this part of the world, at least half of the shops, churches and offices are closed between 11:45 am and 3:00 pm. (You really have keep this in mind when you are travelling around.) It also didn't help that we were visiting Belem on a Monday because it meant that almost all the museums in town were closed.

Undeterred, I headed off to the art museum. It was located in a former rubber baron's home. Yes, this one blue building used to be someone's house! Back in the day, the industry that put Belem on the map was rubber. Rubber tree plantations were everywhere. Plantations made the slaves lives miserable while they made a few people, like Antonio Lemos, rich beyond words.

As a result, Belem is sprinkled with many huge, old mansions that are now used for other purposes (like museums and offices).

The rich needed a place to relax and unwind (after counting all their money), so they engineered the construction of some beautiful parks. Nowadays, the fountains and statues are covered in graffiti and the park benches are covered with homeless people and bums.

What would the Amazon be without piranha fish? Probably a good deal safer I would imagine. Supposedly their vicious reputation is overstated. We saw many locals in the water and they didn't look like they were being chewed on. Some tours allowed you to go fishing for piranhas, but most passengers decided that the easiest way to get a hold of one was to buy a stuffed one in the marketplace!

Oscar night

The Academy awards are on tonight, so the ship put together a big celebration. They had great hors d'oeuvres, great pastries and special party drinks. The showroom was decorated in a Hollywood theme and the event staff all came in costume. (Even 'Julia Child' was there to welcome us into the showroom!)

Big screens were set up to broadcast the show and everything was ready – except the audience. Even though it was only 10 o'clock, most people headed for their beds instead of going to the show. They really missed out. Oh well, more food for me!

Fortaleza, Brazil

Surprise, surprise! It's another hot day in Brazil!. Thankfully, a cool breeze was blowing so the 86 F heat wasn't too bad. I boarded a shuttle bus into town and then explored the colonial part of the city on foot. The new section of the city is just a mass of skyscrapers and tall apartment blocks, so there was no point looking around there. These high rises went on for miles and miles because more than 2 million people live here.

First stop was the massive Metropolitan Cathedral, the third largest cathedral in Brazil. It's only 40 years old, so everything looks really clean and new. If you are into stained glass, then you will love this place because there are panes and panes of beautiful, modern illustrations throughout the whole building.

After battling traffic, both on the sidewalk and on the streets, I finally made my way to the Jose de Alencar park. There, one of Brazil's most famous writers has a theater named after him.

Warning – the park is filled with people and some of them like to make fun of passersby. You are expected to give something to these jokers. If you don't tip these talkers, then they will heap insults on you. It won't matter if you don't speak a word of Portuguese, you will clearly understand that what they are saying about you is not good!

Next stop was the Dragao do Mar center. This entertainment and museum center is usually buzzing with activity in the late afternoon and at night, but I got there too early, so nothing was going on.

One of the first things that you notice about Brazilian cities is that there is a lot of graffiti. If it was all nice like this, then it wouldn't look so bad, but the majority of it looks terrible. I thought that New York had graffiti problems, but it has nothing compared to Brazil. One tour guide said that most of the stuff was political in nature and not gang related. Most small political parties can't afford to run ads or pay for billboards, so they hire people to mark up the streets with their slogans. If they stuck to fences, it wouldn't be so bad, but they mark up everything that they can lay their hands on. As a result, it makes many places look grimy and rundown.

Englishman's Point looks like a nice place to swim. It has a long pier that goes out into the water, a nice sandy beach and crashing waves that are perfect for surfing. Too bad the industries that used to line the waterfront have made these water practically poisonous. Only the crazy kids that you see here ventured to get into the polluted water.

What would Brazil be without Brazil nuts? Surprisingly, up until today, I couldn't find them anywhere. Then I came upon this marketplace (which looked like a parking garage full of stalls). It had vendors hawking cashews and Brazil nuts by the ton. Now that I had finally found the nuts, I couldn't find a currency exchange! All I could do was drool and watch all these delicious goodies go by.

Recife, Brazil

The further north we go, the hotter it gets. This morning, we pulled into the city of Recife and it didn't take long for the temperature to rise to 40C. I must have lost 2 lbs of sweat just waiting for the shuttle bus to drive us into town!

Recife is made up of three islands and has rivers flowing through the town. For this reason, it is often referred to as the Venice of Brazil. Only people who don't know any better would call it that. Certainly no one who has ever set foot in Venice would even dare to make such a comparison.

Like Salvador, this port was a major player in the slave trading business. As a result, most of the people here are black or mixed race. The colonial part of town is close to the port and contains some wonderful pieces of architecture, like the Governor's Palace above, as well as a lot of rundown old buildings. Since the governor wasn't home, I took a tour of his palace. It is nicely furnished but the main attraction here are the beautiful stained glass windows.

Note – even though it's was a 100 degrees outside, shorts are not allowed in the Governor's Palace. Several tourists got turned away when they tried to get inside.

Next I headed over to the church of San Francisco to see the golden chapel. Inside the ornate chapel, there are plenty of paintings and all the wooden carvings are covered in gold leaf. For some reason, in this church, all the statues of Christ are adorned with wigs! (take a close look)

A short walk down to the river brought me to the old prison. These days, the jail cells are being used as souvenir shops. It was an interesting place that quickly filled up once the tour buses started to unload their passengers.

If you want to check out one of the lamest museums in town, then head down past the smelly fish and vegetable market to the City museum. The 'museum' is located inside one of the old city forts – the Fort of 5 Points. Even though it only cost one Brazilian dollar to get in, you feel like you should be getting some change back. The 'museum' consisted of one small room that had a couple of old photographs and pictures of the way the city looked back in the 1800s. If this is your idea of museum, then do I know a place for you!

Salvador, Brazil

Back in the day, Salvador was the major slave trading port in the Americas. Most of the slaves gathered in West Africa, were brought to this central location and then shipped to the United States or the Caribbean. However, the vast majority of them (60%) stayed behind in Brazil to work in the sugar cane fields. As a result, 30% of Brazil's population is African. Because of Salvador's past, most people in this city are either African or have a mixed race background.


The old city is divided into an upper and lower part. Not surprisingly, the nice apartments and beautiful colonial mansions are located on the upper level. As you can see from the photo, the slums (favelas) where the poor people live are located on the lower level. Once you get away from this old part of town, the suburbs look like any other North American city with their shopping malls, condos and McDonald restaurants.


Instead of taking a tour, I boarded a hop on/ hop off bus to explore the city. This enabled me to check out the nice places (like the beach area above) as well as the run down sections of town.


While Coca Cola can definitely be found everywhere, many of the residents rely on coconut water to slake their thirst. On practically every street corner, there are vendors selling this natural beverage.


The upper part of town contains some colorful old buildings as well as some very ornate churches. The over-the-top Rococo style of decoration was used to display the wealth of the church. The intricate wood carvings are all covered in gold leaf and hand painted ceramic tiles adorn many of the hallways.

Make sure that you have proper shoes on if you plan on walking around the old town. Almost all of the narrow streets are made up of cobblestones. The sidewalks aren't much better since many of them are made up of Portuguese tiles.