Tag Archives: Brazil

August 2020:
It’s Getting Sketchy Out There

August 1, 2020 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

The great Bard Jimmy Buffett wrote, “Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes. Nothing remains quite the same.”

This past December we flew to Valparaiso, Chile at 33⁰ South Latitude, about 2,285 miles below the Equator, to begin a cruise.

When we stepped off the ship in Los Angeles, California in January we had no idea our aqueous journeys were headed for suspension.

We spent mid-January to mid-February on an extended winter holiday in glorious Montreal, 5,435 miles away at 45⁰ North Latitude.

For the past two decades or so, we have been spending about six months of each year aboard ship. By this time–as I write these words in August–we had been scheduled to sail the west coast of South America, then from Iceland over to circle the United Kingdom and on to Norway and next the Baltic Sea. The fall was going to take us to the Greek Isles and Israel.

Instead, 2020 has become The Year on Dry Land, with no certain change in sight.

Cruising will resume, in some form, sometime and we intend to be on board, somewhere.

NEW PHOTOS BY COREY SANDLER. CLICK HERE

Seeing Old Things with New Eyes

As an author, I can write anywhere. As a photographer, I see the world through my lenses.

But without changes in in latitude, I’ve been making some changes in creative attitude.

Firmly ensconced on the penultimate floor of a condo tower in Boston’s Seaport, I’ve embarked on a project documenting the changing light of the big city and the harbor.

With my travel circumscribed by the invisible fence of the microscopic virus, I’m exploring artistic enhancements to photos: drawing with light, which is the literal meaning of the word photograph.

All of the images in today’s post are photographs I have taken. When I first took up a camera, we would retreat to the darkroom to dodge, burn, filter, and perform other techniques to find new ways to view the image. Today, digital photography gives us amazing tools to make new versions.

Someone out there is sure to be thinking, “These images are not real.” That is correct.

But I would point out that no photograph is real. The photographer chooses what to include and exclude before the shutter button is pressed. Settings on a lens select short or deep fields of sharpness. The shutter speed determines whether a dancer’s foot is frozen as if not moving, or blurred in action. And today’s advanced digital cameras can literally see in the dark, capturing details not discernible to the human eye.

Here are some of my interpretations of recent photos and a few older images from my back pages.

**Impressions of Sunset in Boston, July 2020. *Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020.* All rights reserved**

**A View of Our Perch in the Sky in Boston’s Seaport. *Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020.* All rights reserved**

**An enhanced view of International Place along the water in Boston. *Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020.* All rights reserved.**

**A Photo Turned Magazine-cover Water Color: Boston from the Seaport. *Photo art by Corey Sandler, 2020.* All rights reserved.**

**Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, Bermuda 2015. Photo art by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.**

*Boi Bumba Dancer, Parintins, Brazil 2015.* Photo art by Corey Sandler

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1 December 2017:
Fortaleza, Brazil:
The Fortress City

December 1, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Our seventh and final destination in Brazil was Fortaleza, the Fortress, population more than 2.3 million, the largest of Brazil’s northern cities and fifth largest in the country.

Here in Fortaleza, we are near the part of Brazil closest to Europe, about 5,608 kilometers or 3,484 miles from Lisbon, Portugal.

On February 2, 1500, the Spaniard Vicente Pinzón landed in the cove here, but he was very much out of place.

The Treaty of Tordesillas, the 1494 papal-organized division of the new world into areas of control for Portugal and Spain put this part of South America on the Portuguese side of the ledger.

Proper colonization began more than a century later, in 1603, when the Portuguese Pero Coelho de Souza constructed the Fort of São Tiago and the settlement of Nova Lisboa (New Lisbon).

THE METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL OF FORTELEZA

The French, who were not included in the pope’s division of the new world, were poking around this part of the world—including in what is now French Guiana and Guyana—and fought a battle against the Portuguese here in 1612.

After a victory over the French, the Portuguese expanded their fort, renamed as Forte de São Sebastião.

But the fortress could not withstand a Dutch invasion which began in the Brazilian Northeast in 1630.

And then in battles with the Portuguese and natives in 1644 the fort was destroyed.

In response, the Dutch West Indies Company—a government licensed private company that operated with war powers—a new fortress on the banks of the river Pajeú was erected.

Fort Schoonenborch, or “graceful stronghold” opened in 1649.

When the Dutch were forced to pull out of Brazil in 1654, the Portuguese renamed the Dutch fortress as Fortaleza da Nossa Senhora de Assunção (Fort of Our Lady of the Assumption), the source of the name for today’s city of Fortaleza.

On a tour today we visited the Cathedral as well as the Theatro José de Alencar in Fortaleza. Named after a prominent playwright, the imposing structure–built mostly of wrought iron–was completed in 1910.

While we were there, a ballet troupe was practicing for a performance of “The Pharoah’s Daughter”, or “La Fille du Pharaon,”

This is a well-regarded but not often-produced work choreographed by the Russian master Marius Petipa to the music of the Italian composer Cesare Pugni and using the libretto of the French writer Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

It was first presented at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1862.

And now this cosmopolitan mix was on stage in Fortaleza, Brazil.

I explored the theatre from bottom to top, including the attic which contained the stained glass signage for this national treasure.

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29 November 2017:
Maceió, Brazil:
Dutch Retreat

November 29, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

When we start a cruise, the captain is given his instructions. The navigator prepares charts (mostly electronic these days) that are intended to take us to each of the ports of call. And a computer program calculates the necessary speed for the ship to make it from point to point.

And then stuff happens.

High winds, rough seas, whales in our path, the occasional mechanical problem, and traffic getting in and out of ports.

It’s all part of the adventure of going to sea.

We were scheduled to go to Natal, up on the shoulder of Brazil. But a few days ahead of our call, our captain was informed that the port was doing some work on the pier and we had no place to dock.

So instead, we headed for Maceió, a dot on the map of the huge country of Brazil. Few of us had even heard of the place.

Brazil is the largest country in South America, and home to more than 208 million people.

That dot on the map that is Maceió, is home to more than a million people.

Brazil never ceases to surprise.

Oh, and one more thing. A few days ago in the small seaside village of Buzios, the chain attached to one of our ship’s 7-ton anchors snapped. The chain and the anchor disappeared into the silt on the bottom of the harbor and despite several hours of searching by divers they could not be found.

We sailed on without the anchor and hundreds of feet of chain.

We have a second anchor and chain, on the port side. And we carry a spare anchor on the foredeck of the ship.

And so part of the day in Maceió—for the crew—was devoted to working with a shoreside crane to lift the extra crane onto the pier and then attach it to the chain.

The process is much, much more complex than changing a flat tire.

A crane on the dock attaches to the spare anchor on the foredeck.

Captain Marco Sangiacomo, master of the Silver Muse, watches the initial lift.

Over the side to the dock, where the anchor was attached to chain from within the ship,

WHY IS MACEIȮ HERE?

Maceió is an indigenous word that means puddles or ponds of water, and there are many.

Some form lagoons and others flow into the sea.

The reason for the water is prodigious rainfall up in the hills.

The reason for Maceió and Natal was location, a straight shot southwest about 1,800 miles from Dakar, Senegal.

The Dutch moved south from Suriname and set up sugar plantations and mills in the early 1600s. They also attacked and occupied parts of Natal and Fortaleza,

And the story is that local Portuguese settlers took to the hills to avoid the attack.

And then came a prodigious rainfall, which caused landslides and flooding and pushed the Dutch away.

Along the coast are local sailing boats, called Jangada, which once existed in most of Brazil before the Europeans arrived.

They have a high, curved bow which allows them to breach high seas, and a sail—similar to a lateen—that allows sailing very close to the wind.

They are very advanced in that feature but that design dates back all the way to Ancient Greece.

When the Portuguese came to Brazil they banned the use of the jangada because they were deemed to be a threat to the colonial power’s ability to govern. The only area to hold onto the design was norther Brazil, a region that went back and forth between Portuguese and Dutch control many times in the early 17^th century.

Later today—we hope with a new anchor in place—we plan to move on to our final destination in Brazil, Fortaleza.

Another dot on the map: more than 2.3 million residents, the largest of Brazil’s northern cities.

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28 November 2017:
Salvador de Bahia, Brazil:
Carnival and Candomblé

November 28, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Salvador de Bahia is Brazil’s third most-populous city, behind São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Salvador is home to about 3 million residents in the city and about 4 million in the metropolitan area.

And its Carnival celebration—not Rio de Janeiro’s—is claimed by some to be the largest party in the world. It would be difficult to perform an actual count, but it certainly is very, very large and involving nearly everyone in town plus visitors for a full week. Just the organizing of the event involves about 100,000 people.

COMING IN TO SALVADOR

Salvador was founded by the Portuguese in 1549 as the first capital of Brazil, making it one of the oldest colonial cities in the Americas.

Salvador’s considerable wealth and status during colonial times can still be seen in the magnificence of its old palaces, churches and convents, most of them from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The colorful Pelourinho district of the upper town, the Historic Center of Salvador, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a well-preserved Portuguese colonial town with a somewhat off-color back story.

As the first capital of Portuguese America, Salvador was a center of slave labor and had its pillories, or “pelourinhos” installed in open squares to administer punishment.

The local cuisine is mostly based on African recipes and spices. Many dishes are prepared with azeite-de-dendê, an oil extracted from palm trees brought from West Africa in colonial times.

Here in the Salvador region, most of the slaves were brought from Sub-Saharan Africa, especially the Yoruba-speaking nation, present-day Benin.

The enslaved were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism, but their original religions came into the mix, forming the syncretic religion Candomblé, which survived despite prohibition and persecution.

The slaves managed to preserve their religion by attributing the names and characteristics of Yorùbá deities to Catholic saints with similar qualities.

Candomblé is considered to have originated in Salvador, and it continues to be centered here; about two million followers are in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela.

The most obvious place where Candomblé and Roman Catholicism come together is at The Church of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim (Our Lord of the Good End.)

The most famous Catholic Church of Salvador, inaugurated in 1754 on a hill in the Lower Town, and is the site of a famous festival held each January.

The veneration of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim, represented by the crucified Jesus in the moment of his death) is an old tradition in Portugal that was imported to Brazil during colonial times.

Faithful make an 8-kilometer or 5-mile procession to the Bonfim Church, led by by Bahia women in traditional white costume with broad skirts.

When they reach Bonfim, the women wash the steps and the square in front of the church with perfumed water, while dancing and singing chants in Yoruba.

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26 November 2017:
Buzios, Brazil:
From a Tank Top and Jeans

November 26, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Armação dos Búzios is about 105 miles or 170 kilometers northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

Armação can refer to a small armory, or to a frame erected for the processing of whales.

You can call it Buzios.

Its history reads somewhat like an improbable beach blanket movie script, but it has the advantage of being true.

In the early 1900s, the sleepy little fishing village with at least two dozen beautiful beaches became a favored getaway for Carioca high society—the moneyed people of Rio.

And then, in 1964, the rest of the world caught on.

In that year, a not-very camera-shy French actress, famous for her face, figure, and credited with popularizing the bikini swimsuit—as if that needed any assistance—came to town and almost everything changed.

I’m speaking, of course, of Brigitte Bardot, who made a vacation trip to Rio with her Brazilian boyfriend of the time.

When they arrived in Rio, they were hounded by paparazzi. So they broke away to a quieter place: Buzios.

At the time, the small town had no electricity and life there was very simple.

And Bardot liked it very much.

Today there are streets, a movie theater, shops, and other places named after Bardot. There’s even a bronze statue of her along the beach—one of the few, if not the only one in the world that shows a woman in blue jeans and a tank top.

Today, Buzios is home to about 24,000 people, although that number can swell greatly with visitors, mostly from Brazil and Argentina.

It has a string of beautiful beaches on an 8-kilometer or 5-mile-long peninsula. And some of the sun worshipers wear (if that is the word) beach apparel that would make Bardot blush.

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23-25 November 2017:
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
A City of Marvels

November 25, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We are here in Rio de Janeiro for three days, Thursday through Saturday night. I wonder if there’s a party going on somewhere?

That may be the silliest question ever posed about Rio de Janeiro, the River of January.

Rio to the world.

Cidade Maravilhosa, or the Marvelous City to local boosters.

Whatever you call it, Rio–Brazil’s second largest metropolitan area, after São Paulo, is its most famous city to many people.

It is one of the relatively few places on the planet whose name immediately conjures up a spectacular image that combines natural beauty and human exuberance.

Say Rio and you think of the harbor framed by the dramatic Pão de Açúcar or Sugar Loaf peak, and also Mount Corcovado, topped by the colossal statue Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer.

Sugarloaf, as seen from Urca Hill. Photos by Corey Sandler

Corcovado from Sugarloaf. Photos by Corey Sandler

In between, the beaches of Copacabana, Leblon, and Ipanema, usually populated by natural attractions barely covered from the sun.

There’s also the Sambódromo, ground zero for the largest Carnaval celebration in the world, and Maracanã Stadium, one of the world’s largest football stadiums.

Maravilhosa indeed.

Europeans first encountered Guanabara Bay on New Year’s Day, January 1 of 1502, and apparently running short of saints’ names to apply to places, the Portuguese expedition under explorer Gaspar de Lemos called the beautiful inlet Rio de Janeiro, January River.

The city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro was founded on March 1, 1565. Sebastian was the namesake and patron of the Portuguese monarch Dom Sebastião I.

The Portuguese installed sugar plantations, which were very profitable as long as you didn’t have to pay wages to the many workers required to plant, harvest, and process the cane.

That, of course, meant that millions of slaves were brought to Brazil, the single largest destination of that sorry trade.

One of the reason why different islands in the Caribbean, and different nations in Central and South America have differing cultures is that the vast numbers of slaves brought to each area came from different parts of the vast continent of Africa.

In Rio, most of the slaves came from Angola or Mozambique, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in West Africa.

The samba (from Bahia with Angolan influence) and the famous local version of the carnival (from Europe) first appeared under the influence of the black community in the city.

All of this is on display at this little party, Carnaval, which is held 40 days before Easter, starting on Friday and ending on Fat Tuesday.

Dating back to about 1723, by most accounts it is the biggest carnival in the world, with something on the order of 2 million people on the streets each day, some of whom probably do not go home for the entire celebration.

There are tons of feathers, thousands of drums, and acres of uncovered skin.

And the preparation goes on almost all year. Here’s a street scene we observed near one of the warehouses where costumes and floats for Carnival are prepared and stored. I’m still not sure what exactly was going on.

And then along the waterfront, where our ship is docked, many of the old warehouses have been decorated in celebration of the melting pot that is Brazil.

Among the new additions to the marvelous city is the Museum of Tomorrow, an eclectic collection within another extraordinary building designed by the Spanish Architect Santiago Calatrava.

And then tucked into many of the hills of the city are reminders of the vast disparity between the haves and the have-nots, the favelas that hold hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who can glimpse but not partake in most of the marvels.

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22 November 2017:
Paraty, Brazil:
Reflections of Gold and Diamonds

November 22, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Paraty, our second port of call in Brazil, is about 240 miles east of Rio de Janeiro .

Yes, east.

We are nearing the shoulder of Brazil where it extends out from the South American continent.

Without studying the globe, it is easy to overlook the fact that easternmost Brazil is much farther east than anywhere in North America.

Brazil’s furthest east point, near Recife, it is at about the same longitude on the globe as the center of Greenland. Eastern Brazil is a full hour ahead or later than New York or Florida.

Paraty is a well-preserved Portuguese Colonial and Brazilian Imperial town, with a population of about 36,000.

This place reminds us more than a little of our home island of Nantucket, thousands of miles above us in the North Atlantic. Nantucket, like Paraty, was once a place of immense wealth. And both places came to a shuddering halt about the same time, in the mid-19th century, when their core economies collapsed. Both places went into a near-abandonment and both places have had the wisdom not to allow urban renewal in the modern age.

Paraty is essentially an unchanged Portuguese Colonial port town of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Here is some of what we saw today, on a hot and drizzly day. I found reflections everywhere I looked.

Paraty is located on what the tourism folk would have you call the Costa Verde (the Green Coast), a lush, green corridor that runs along the coastline of the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The town is located on the Bay of Ilha Grande, which is dotted with many tropical islands.

Rising as high as 1,300 meters or 4,300 feet above sea level behind the town are tropical forests, mountains, and waterfalls.

More than 80 percent of Paraty’s territory is protected by conservation strictures of one sort or another, with about two-thirds of the town itself within Serra da Bocaina National Park.

In 1696, extremely rich gold mines were found in the mountains of Minas Gerais, inland.

Paraty became an export port for gold to Rio de Janeiro and from there on to Portugal.

The ensuing gold rush led to the construction of the “Caminho do Ouro” or “Gold Trail”, a 1200-kilometer or 750-mile road, paved in steep areas with large stones, which connected Paraty to Diamantina, a diamond mining center that connected onward to the gold mines.

The Gold Trail was used to transport not only the precious metal to Paraty, but also to convey supplies, miners, and African slaves by mule train over the mountains.

The Gold Trail fell into disuse because of attacks on ships carrying gold to Rio de Janeiro by pirates who frequented the islands and coves of the Bay of Angra dos Reis.

Eventually a safer overland route from Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro was created.

And then the gold itself began to run out in the late 18th century, and Paraty declined.

Two substantial sections of the original Gold Trail have been excavated near Paraty and are now a popular tourist destination for hiking.

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20 November 2017:
Itajaí, Brazil:
Big Fish and Little Dubai

November 20, 2017 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We’ve not only crossed the border to a new country on this trip, Brazil, but also a language barrier to Portuguese. This flank of South America, as well as parts of Africa to the east, were under control of Portugal starting from the early ears of the exploration of the New World.

Itajaí was begun in 1658 when settlers from São Paulo arrived.

But the handsome setting grew significantly beginning in 1750, when Portugal encouraged colonists to come from Madeira and the Azores islands.

And as was the case throughout the lower portion of South America and elsewhere, by the end of the 19th century the region received a great number of German immigrants.

The city is on the north coast of Santa Catarina State, at the mouth of the Itajaí-Acú river which allows some commerce into the interior.

Itajaí is Brazil’s largest fishing port, and the country’s second largest container port.

The approach to the port is interesting, passing between two protective breakwaters. That’s good for the comfort of ships within the port. The not-so-good news is that the city is basically flat, its highest point Morro da Cruz, about 170 meters or 560 feet above sea level.

Because of that flatness along the sea, and the river that exits through it, the city and most of Santa Catarina State area is prone to torrential storms, especially during the Spring, which is about now. Floods are frequent.

In November 2008, 90 percent of the city was underwater and about 100 people perished.

Balneário Camboriú

On the other side of the same bay is the beach resort of Balneário Camboriú, about 10 kilometers of 6 miles to the south. There are not one but two fine beaches here, and they are connected one to another by a cable car.

One of its nicknames is the “Brazilian Dubai” because of its modern skyscrapers and wealthy tourists.

We took the cable car up to the Parque Unipraias on a hill between the beaches and explored a small protected rainforest there and also watched cable cars, zip lines, roller sleds and other entertainment installed on the hillside.

Scenes of Balneário Camboriú, including cable cars, exotic flowers, bird islands, and mussel farms. All photos by Corey Sandler

Then we took the cable car down to the second beach at Laranjeiras. and celebrated the day with a glass of Caipirinha, a cocktail made from local cachaça, a rum-like form of fire water made from sugar cane. One glass tastes very good. Two glasses more so. Three glasses not so much when you return to the cable car.

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6-7 February 2015
Parintins and Alter do Chão, Brazil

February 6, 2015 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

We’re headed back down the river from Manaus, a 930-mile trip to the Atlantic.

Silver Cloud stopped this afternoon in Parintins, a hot spot in a hot place. This town is probably best known for its summertime party, the Boi-Bumba, which is held over a four-night period in June at a large stadium in town.

I don’t want to even think about June in Parintins; today, in February, the thermometer passed 91 degrees on its way to who-knows-where, and it somehow seemed as if the humidity was beyond 100 percent.

About half of the ship’s guests went ashore to see a scaled-down version of Boi-Bumba, presented in a slightly cooler than outside temperature theater.

A PARINTINS ALBUM. Photos by Corey Sandler

ALTER DO CHAO

Our last port of call in the Amazon River was the town of Alter do Chao, a bit off the visited path for tourists but quite popular as a beach resort for locals. From here, we have another full day on the river until we reach the outlet of the Amazon at Macapa, and then we turn north toward Bridgetown, Barbados and the end of this amazing cruise.

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3-5 February 2015
Manaus, Brazil: The City of the Forest

February 3, 2015 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

A MANAUS ALBUM. PHOTOS BY COREY SANDLER

The meeting of the waters at Manaus. The dark, clear waters of the Rio Negro meets the muddy main stream of the Amazon

SUNSET ON THE RIO NEGRO AT MANAUS

THE OPERA HOUSE AT MANAUS

TWO SIDES OF MANAUS: A GRAND MANSION OF THE RUBBER BOOM, AND A DIRT POOR SLUM

THE MERCADO OF MANAUS

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2 February 2015
Boca da Valeria, Brazil

February 3, 2015 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

Silver Cloud put down her anchor in a tributary of the Amazon River for a relatively rare glimpse of life in an isolated village of Brazil, Boca da Valeria.

The village of less than 100 people is at the mouth (boca) of the Valeria River about 250 miles from Manaus

Ships do not call here all that often. Our crew brought boxes of clothing, food, and school supplies.

I am often asked by guests about the quality of life in remote places like this. My answer: we may find it difficult if not impossible to consider doing without all of the modern conveniences of our life, and we also do not have the right to decide for someone else whether or not they should remain in their ancient ways or join the modern world.

But this much I do know. People who do not know what they are missing are often quite happy. People who do know what they are missing can spend miserable lives in search of things they cannot get.

A BOCA DA VALERIA ALBUM. PHOTOS BY COREY SANDLER

Uncategorized

1 February 2015
Santarém, Brazil

February 2, 2015 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

A Santarém and Maica Lake Gallery.

Sunset on the Amazon River between Macapa and Santarém

The Meeting of the Waters: the Amazon and the Tapajos

Santarém and Maica Lake

Fishing for Piranha: We caught several, which is better than the other way around

Uncategorized

31 January-8 February 2015
Exploring the Amazon River

February 1, 2015 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

First of all, before Amazon was a globe-gobbling online colossus selling billions of products you never knew you needed, it was a river.

Way back, there were the Amazons, who according to Greek and classical mythology were a nation of fierce warriors who might have lived in Sarmatia (now part of Ukraine) or Anatolia (now Turkey) or elsewhere in the Black Sea or the Aegean.

And yes, in ancient and mythology and modern fantasy, they were alluring women.

But that has only passing connection to where Silver Cloud is spending the next ten days: in the Amazon River.

In 1541, Spanish soldier Francisco de Orellana, the first European to explore the river, named the river the Amazon pitched battles with what he described as tribes of female warriors. That was his story, and he stuck to it.

THE GREATEST

The Amazon is the greatest river in the world.

Okay, okay: I am well aware of the Nile, the Yangtze, and the Mississippi.

They are each great rivers, but the Amazon holds the record for superlatives.

It is—by far—the river with the greatest flow of water to the sea: about 20 percent of all of the freshwater discharged into the oceans, roughly the sum total of the next seven large rivers.

That’s great.

It has the largest drainage area in the world: 6,915,000 square kilometers or 2.7 million square miles. That’s 75 percent more than the Congo River, and more than double that of the Nile.

That’s great, too.

And depending upon how you classify its many tributaries—and who is doing the measuring—the Amazon may be 6,992 kilometers or 4,345 miles long.

That’s about 87 miles longer than the Nile. Isn’t that great?

OUR VOYAGE

After leaving Devil’s Island, off the coast of French Guiana, we sailed south down along the coast of South America to enter the huge mouth of the Amazon River

Huge? The mouth is more than 325 kilometers or 202 miles wide.

It takes us four days to sail from the mouth to the navigable end of the river—for ships of our size—at Manaus, about 1,500 kilometers or 930 miles into the interior of Brazil.

Smaller riverboats can go 1,000 miles further to the base of the Andes, and also serve the hundreds of significant tributaries of the Amazon.

Silver Cloud is stopping at some of the isolated towns along the river: Santarém and Boca Valeria going in, and Parintins and Alter do Chao coming out.

Along the way, we will reach O Encontro das Águas, the Meeting of Waters, where the Rio Negro’s dark (almost black) water comes together with the sandy-colored Rio Solimões near Manaus.

For about 6 kilometers or 4 miles, the waters run side by side without mixing.

This also happens near Santarém with the Amazon and Tapajós rivers.

On board ship, I’m telling guests the stories of some of the towns and the tributaries and the explorers. Wish you were here.

Around the World with Corey Sandler

Tag Archives: Brazil

August 2020:
It’s Getting Sketchy Out There

Seeing Old Things with New Eyes

1 December 2017:
Fortaleza, Brazil:
The Fortress City

By Corey Sandler

29 November 2017:
Maceió, Brazil:
Dutch Retreat

By Corey Sandler

28 November 2017:
Salvador de Bahia, Brazil:
Carnival and Candomblé

By Corey Sandler

26 November 2017:
Buzios, Brazil:
From a Tank Top and Jeans

By Corey Sandler

23-25 November 2017:
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
A City of Marvels

By Corey Sandler

22 November 2017:
Paraty, Brazil:
Reflections of Gold and Diamonds

By Corey Sandler

20 November 2017:
Itajaí, Brazil:
Big Fish and Little Dubai

By Corey Sandler

6-7 February 2015
Parintins and Alter do Chão, Brazil

3-5 February 2015
Manaus, Brazil: The City of the Forest

2 February 2015
Boca da Valeria, Brazil

1 February 2015
Santarém, Brazil

31 January-8 February 2015
Exploring the Amazon River

Cruise Photos and Stories by Corey Sandler