New Year's Eve Eve

Still catching up. We left Manaus and sailed downriver -- and it's  BIG FRIGGIN' RIVER -- to the much smaller town of Santarem (named after Portugese Saint Irene, who is revered, naturally, for killing herself after being raped. Duh.)  Manaus feels overwhelming, but Santarem feels very "do-able."  We took an all-day excursion, several busloads of us, to a stop at a native village -- a bit reminiscent of colonial Williamsburg, but not so much -- where we saw more native plants (mango, trees, avocado, lime & cashew trees and manioc roots) and saw how they process the manioc to eat it.  It's a multi-step process of peeling, soaking, draining, grinding, roasting to produce two different kinds of manioc flour, tapioca and farina.  Then we got to taste some manioc pancakes and fresh-off-the-vine fruits.

After the village we continued to Alter de Chao, "the Mediterranean of the Amazon," a small community on an Amazon tributary where many Brazilians holiday.  We boat-shuttled over to an island with beautiful sand beaches, clean river water, many many huts / bars. Swam in lovely water on December 28th, got lightly sunburned, watched birds, drank a Brahma beer, bought some gifts. Very few English speakers, but we managed very well with hand gestures and the Portugese phrases for "please" and "thank you" -- see, Captain Kangaroo was right about those being the magic words!