Where to Next?: December 26 - Parintins, Brazil (Amazon River)

welcoming us to Parintins

Weather –32º, humid, late afternoon

just checking out the world

thunderstorm

Steps – 5,753

Parintins is a small village in the Amazon. The main attraction today is the “Boi Bumba” folklore show. They have a Bio Bumba festival every June and this show gives us a flavour of it - the townspeople reenact the festival for visitors throughout the year. It’s not Carnivale, but it seems to me (the inexperienced) that it would be similar.

black vulture

The only excursion today is to see the Boi Bumba show. We took the tender about 90 min before the show was to

Boi Bumba show

start figuring we’d beat the rush and maybe find a beer – success on both fronts.

It was a hot one today and by the time we were off the 10-minute tender ride we were damp to say the least. We found the theatre and then found a beer.

Boi Bumba show

Brazilian beer culture should be adopted worldwide, or at least by the hot countries of the world. In Brazil, they sell beer by the 600mL bottle that are served in foam sleaves – like a beer cooler. You get as many accompanying small glasses for the number of people want to share with. These sleaves keep things cool, sharing does that too. These 600mL beers were 3USD. They were actually just over 2USD, so after the show when we got 2 it was more economical.

Boi Bumba show

The Boi Bumba show was great. Everything you’d imaging from a Brazilian parade show – loud, bombastic, with colourful costumes. The festival centres on a local legend
about a resurrected ox. I’m not really sure I got it. It is also a competition where two teams, compete in extended retellings of the story, each team attempting to outdo the other with flamboyant dances, singing, and parade floats. All of the music was performed live.

During the show there were free-flowing caipirinhas. We had 1 or 2, or
maybe 3?? This place wasn’t exactly air-conditioned, but it kinda was, and

Boi Bumba show

we situated ourselves right in front of 2 huge fans…comfortable. We also found a spot on the back at the side, so we could stand when ever we wanted, to

Boi Bumba show

take photos, see better, and dance up a storm!

To avoid the mad dash to the tenders back to the boat, we figured a couple more beers wouldn’t hurt us. We went back to the spot from before the show, found a place overlooking the water and hung out for a bit. We even got a bit of extra beer from a British 4-some who each got one 600mL and that was a bit too much for them – we try to be helpful. We sat, drank

Boi Bumba show

beer, enjoyed the water view, watched vultures perch on telephone poles, other birds fly in giant flocks, and boats come and go. We could see the tender situation, so when we thought the crowd had dissipated and our beer was done, we headed back. Just as we got back the wind became fierce and there was a huge thunderstorm – I’m glad we got back when we did.

I check out washroom facilities the world over. I’m not a princess when it come to taking care of business – when you gotta go, you gotta go. I’ve used a hole

Lisa Bumba

Chris Bumba

behind a wall in the Egypt desert after dismounting a camel, I’ve squatted in Asia, I’ve used high tech loos in Japas…the ones that wash you, dry you, fragrance you and play music to mask any untoward sounds you might make. I’m always fascinated by international facilities. Often paper has to be put in a trash can rather than down the toilet to preserve fragile plumbing…the Eco Lodge required this - this is nothing new for me, but for Chris this was new. It’s OK for