12/6–Parintins and the Boi Bumba

Another freaking tender port. Oh, we’ve never liked tender ports, but we are really hating them on this portion of the trip! As we are now the de facto Rafa tour organizers aboard, it is our job to now corral everyone who is coming on the Rafa tour and get them off the ship together. To complicate matters today, we have bus that will only hold 20, yet somehow our numbers have swollen to 24? Hey, at this point, we are just the tender ticket organizers – we’ll let the boss man figure out the numbers!

Somehow we accomplish everyone off on the first tender, Hooray! On land, we are met with a steep slope up to the main level of the town (which is a little hard for a few of our folks to maneuver) but we get everyone safely up top, find Rafa and eventually organize the right people to get on the bus. This is why we don’t do this all the time on cruise critic! We are happy to come along on a tour, but managing it, un huh, no how, no way. Particularly no way after this crowd. Sheesh.

But, I digress – we are on the bus, that’s all that matters. We have another local guide, “Chief,” so named because of his Indian Chief outfit (no clue what his real name was – but he answered to Chief, so it really didn’t matter!). The tour starts out around the town (which we have been “warned” by the ship is just a regular, residential town, we’re not to expect many touristic services), which seems like a lovely little Amazonian village. We are taken to the Praca da Liberdade, Liberty Park, where, in the middle of the park, lies a fountain surrounded with bas relief sculptures that depicts the history, legends and culture of the city. While slightly unkempt, the fountain artwork itself is marvelously vibrant, encompassing everything from the first European settlers, the original agricultural society, fishermen catching the pirarucu fish (one of the largest fresh water fish in the world) to historical and current architecture, its a stunning piece of artwork that really captures the creative spirit of the town.

Which is a perfect segue into an explanation for what this town of 100K that can only be reached by boat or air (there are no roads that lead to Parintins) is famous: The Boi Bumba Festival. This is 3 day annual festival that rivals Canrival in Rio. It is the 2nd biggest celebration in Brazil and literally divides the town into 2 sides: The blue Carraphicho side and the red Garantido side. Seriously – on one side of town, architecture has blue accents and on the other, red. The stadium where the competition is held is equally divided into a blue and a red side – and everywhere you go, you will see signs of this division. Coca Cola has even produced a blue can (and ads with a blue logo) specifically for the festival each year. And it is said that one year they produced cans that were half red and half blue in an effort to remain completely impartial.

The festival is a retelling of the legend of a resurrected ox, which is “Boi” in Portuguese, however where the competition began, I’ve no clue. I only know that now, it is a huge deal, with roots going back ages. Essentially, each team creates elaborate dances, performances, costumes and huge floats to tell the story of their “boi.” Then they face off for 3 days in June, with the winner being declared on the last day of the festival. We are visiting the Bumbodromo, which is the stadium in which the festival is held each year, and then hopefully visiting the top-secret warehouse of one of the teams to see their preparations for the current year festival.

A quick ride from the Praca da Liberdade, the Bumbodromo is a large 3 or 4 tiered structure with some very artistic bas-relief sculptures and murals depicting indigenous people of the region and their legends. We spend quite a bit of time examining the different village scenes, tribal warriors, the fisherman catching a Pirarucu, women riding horseback, the serpent that ties to eat Sunny and of course the “Bois.” Fantastic representations of the regional culture.

After taking a group photo, we finally leave the hot sunshine of the sidewalk to walk inside the stadium, admiring some of the historical displays in the entrance way before winding our way into the arena. We actually get to go out onto the performance floor, which is about the size of a baseball diamond, just without the grass. And its totally cool, because when you turn around and look at the stands, you see the perfect division of the blue on the right and the red on the left. We wander around the performance field taking pictures as Chief tells us about the festival, how it is organized, that it is free to attend and explains that people come in the morning, picnic and party, then go home to rest while others come and take their place. Can’t imagine how fun it would be to attend a festival…but then again….maybe it might be just as fun to watch it on YouTube when we get home. LOL.