Another freaking tender port!  That’s all I’ve got to say!  But, it’s our last tender port as de facto tour organizers, the end is in sight! For some reason this morning’s tender tickets are the most trying.  All these people should know the drill by now, but…well….  Anyway, we do our count – Ed gets his 10 tickets, I get mine, another lady we’ve roped into service gets hers.  Everyone has their numbers – how hard is it for numbers 1 through 10 to go with Ed, 11 through 20 with me and the rest with our surrogate tender leader? Sigh. We somehow manage to get everyone tickets, organized and going down the stairs for the first tender, although somebody took an extra tender ticket, leaving me without one – but no fear – I just go on the stupid boat.  Not really a problem!

On shore, Laysa, our local guide is right there waiting for us. She organizes our motley crew and gets us up the beach to the walkway that leads into town.  We have another guide along with us, Paolo, who is more of a naturalist and quite funny in a deadpan sort of way.  We follow our leaders through the trinket market and over to the beach where we can look out over the water to Love island, a small strip of sand dune that will be completely covered with water soon.  Again, the river tides are amazing. Laysa tells us that as late as Monday, there wasn’t any water here between the beach and Love Island, you could just walk across.  Boats couldn’t go through.  Now, you need a boat to get across the island and we will be motoring between the two in our 3 little skiffs.

We divide up into our boats, with Laysa as our guide and head out onto the Lago Verde.  This is a large lake with shores that range from pristine white beach to rainforest choked banks.  We circle around the lake, watching a few folks fish, going past a forestry school we had hoped to visit, but Laysa couldn’t get in touch with the teachers, then circling back and heading into the flooded forest – where literally there was dry ground a few days ago!  We can see the bottom of the now lake very clearly on a few feet below our keel.  The forest supposedly has magical properties and people will come out here for good luck or blessings or what have you.  It is magical in every sense of the word really, it is serene, peaceful and entirely other-worldly as we quietly glide past semi-submerged trees. 

Turning back into the lake proper, we are going against the wind so the spray is really heavy, drenching Ed and I in the front of the boat.  We’re also a little off-balance with all the guys on one side, but I’m the only one saying anything (as we list to the left when we hit wakes and try to get up to speed), so I just shut up.  Laysa does move to the back to give us a little more balast and let the the prow of the boat rise up out of the water a bit, which nominally helps the spray.  We’re not really concerned about being wet – we’ve got our drip dry clothes on, and in this heat? The water feels really great actually! The bonus of this route though, besides the water spray, is that we get great views of Serra Piroca, the highest point (peak) in the area where we will hike to see the views a little later. 

After an aborted attempt at finding turtles on a sandy beach head, we circle back around Love Island passing all the palapa bars and restaurants on the beach (and the ones where the tables are in the water now because the tide has come up so fast just over night!), then round the back of the island facing the shore, where little skiffs will take you over to the island for 5 Reais (about $1.25 USD).  Lots of people are taking the boats, but lots are also walking across in chest high water, holding all their possessions above their heads. After watching the little canoe-like skiffs going across the water, I might actually choose to walk too.

Here most of our group has decided they want to go shopping instead of going on a rainforest hike up the hill top.  So Laysa, sighing in frustration, counts out the number of people leaving and tries to corral them up the beach into town.  The remaining 12 of us negotiate our way through the water obstacles (i.e., people walking across the bay) to move closer to Serra Piroca, beaching our 2 boats at the base of the hiking trail.  After reviewing the actual hike with Paolo, we all decide we don’t want to commit to 1 hour plus of strenuous hiking to get scenic views.  Call us wussies, but we’re all happy with that decision!  A) we don’t think we’ll have enough time, and B) we’re hot!  Wussies!

Anyhow, we end up walking up the trail for about 15 minutes or so, then decide to turn back and go into town for a while. Unfortunately another couple want to hike on for 15 more minutes.  Ugh.  So, we split up – they go on with Paolo, we head back to the boats. But now we have to stuff 12 people on a boat that is only meant for 8 or 9 max.  Sigh.  We all get on, but then get stuck and can’t push the boat off.  So, 3 of us get off, they push the boat out, then we hop in (well, not hop, more like gently climb in) and head back to town. The boat driver (who speaks no English) sweetly takes us right to the tender pier instead of where we boarded the boats, a ten minute walk away.  Very nice for those who go directly back to the ship.  We, on the other hand want to wander, so we head up to the trinket market, finally find some Pirarucu shells to buy, then head into town, but divert to the beach finding a sweet little palapa restaurant where we can sit and have a beer in the shade and the river breeze.

Meanwhile, Laysa is having a fit because she is trying to count all the folks on the tour to make sure they get back to the ship and she wants to know where we are!  We are talking to her via WhatsApp, and she has a good laugh that we are sitting at a beach bar drinking. We tell her she never needs to worry about us!  But she still does.  Great tour guide!  We close out our tab, buy some extra beer and walk back to the pier so Laysa can see that we safely get back on the boat!

Bing bonging into the ship’s security system, the security guy from last night looks at us and says, “oh, you’re not the last ones on today, huh?”  No!  Not today.  Too funny!

It’s an early day for us, so we sort of hang out, grab a bite to eat, clean up, then sit on the balcony as we sail away from our last Amazon port.  A very fun itinerary, not anything like we expected, but still a whole different world. It has been an educating experience learning all about the different cultures, the ecology, environment and ways of life here on the largest river in the world.