2005 - Amazon Cruise

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Dec 10 – Today we are on the island of Tupinambarana in the city of Paritins, Brazil. This is a very unique city in many ways the most amazing of which is the Boi-Bumba Festival they hold each year in June. It’s the largest party in the state of Amazonias. The three-day festival has theater, drums, dancing, music and a circus all combined. It’s a blend of European and African traditions. The festival reenacts the kidnapping, death and resurrection of an ox, which is a metaphor for their agricultural cycles. Over the years the festival has developed into a competition between two teams that live in Paritins, the red ‘Gaurantido’ (guaranteed) and blue ‘Caprichoso’ (careful) teams. Each team has several thousand members.

This rivalry grew out of a friendly feud between two families, the Monteverdes and the Cids. They hold a competition between the two teams in a 35,000-seat stadium built just for this contest. The stadium has two sides; one with blue seats, the other side is red. Each side performs in turn. When the red side is performing the blues remain totally silent while the red supporters whoop it up to the max, and vice versa. Everyone in town belongs to one team or the other.

To say that this festival dominates the entire city’s culture would be to completely understate the case. The people are red or blue to the bone. They have red taxis for the reds and blue taxis for the blues. The phone booths here in Brazil are traditionally blue, but in Patritins you will see red ones right next to the blue ones. A red person would never use a blue phone booth or taxi. In general the major directional signs are green and white like in the USA. Not here, here they are red in the red area of town and blue in the blue area. People wear blue or red clothes, paint their houses blue or red, at least the trim, drive red and blue cars. I knew the level of commitment to their color when I saw Coca-Cola cans in blue and white, rather than the normal red and white. If they didn’t have the blue cans of Coke the blues wouldn’t drink it. Amazing!! Some enterprising taxi drivers have half their car blue and the other half red. You just have to make sure you pick the customer up on the correct side of the cat. Double yikes!!

We are lucky in that this year’s winning team, the reds, has agreed to perform their show for us. 400 people from the ship are going to the arena to sit on the red side and experience Boi-Bumba. Diana and I are going for sure.

Parintins is a small city of about 27,000 people but during the festival there are over 300,000 people here. This makes the 35,000 tickets for the stadium competition a hot commodity.

When we got to the arena I was carrying all my cameras, of course. One of the staff saw them and motioned to me to go up into the building that overhangs the seating. When I got up there I found that there were box seats with a great view over the arena floor. I could not have had a better viewpoint. It was hard to take still pictures of all the action so I don’t have many. The video should be great. Only drawback was that the arena was in full sun making balanced exposure impossible. The shadow areas will be a little dark and the sun areas will be a little overexposed. No way to avoid it.

The show started with the band setting up a very strong, samba type beat. The band had lots of drums of all sizes, guitar, base and a singer. The music was loud but it was not overwhelming. It certainly set the mood for the show.

The show started with a chorus line of nine men and women in local costume performing a welcome dance. The story will be told by the entrance of a series of floats carrying the main characters into the stadium. The first was a girl in a large colonial style hoop skirt riding on a snake (left). Next came the white (the red team bull is actually white with a red heart on his forehead, the blue bull in black with a blue heart but we didn’t see him as we are watching the red show) bull riding on an alligator float (right). Both the girl and the bull dismounted and danced with the chorus dancers. It was hot and humid but the dancers didn’t seem to be effected at all.


Next came a line of dancers with horse costumes and very tall, Thai type umbrellas (left). They performed as though they were riding a precision horse drill. After they were done the original chorus line returned but they had added large feathered headdresses and shoulder fittings for this dance (right). The shadows cast by the costumes were fantastic.

The next float was a red Macaw (left) carrying another of the main characters, this one a girl with a flag representing the Guarantido team. They brought the snake float out to help her dismount from the parrot, as it could not be lowered enough. After she went from the parrot to the snake to the arena floor, an assistant brought her a large feathered headdress (right) and she danced with the chorus.



For the next dance the chorus no longer wore the feathers (left), and the men in this dance were reenacting some sort of fight. The next float was an iguana (right) or some sort of lizard, carrying a girl in a straw hat. She also used the snake for an assist to the ground. She also got a feathered outfit to wear. I’m calling the headdresses but they are more like the outfits you see in the Philadelphia Mummer’s Parade.

Cultural Note: I don’t know how popular the Mummer’s parade is outside Pennsylvania but it’s a big thing there. If you’re curious it will be on WGN Superstation at 3PM EST on New Year’s Day. It grew out of various New Year celebrations by various ethnic groups in the city of Philadelphia. Scandinavian, German, Italian, English and African traditions are blend into a riotous march down Market Street. It was formalized as a city event in 1901 but had been going on informally since the 1700s.



Next the men in the chorus donned skull masks and long straw colored grass wigs (left). As they danced a large spider float brought in a man dressed in the most elaborate costume yet (right). Long feathers fanned out from his head and shoulders (below-left). His face was painted. It appears he is some sort of shaman or witch doctor. Shortly after he alit from his float, some dancers came in dressed as flying insects of some sort and started attacking the men in the skull masks (right).









For the next dance the chorus was back in their original outfits and a large puma float standing upright on its two hind legs brought in the last main dancer (below-left). Even though this float was clearly the tallest it could bend down and the dancer could dismount without the aid of the snake. It carried a girl in another feathered costume (below-center). As she danced with the chorus the puma stood back up and danced in a very animated fashion.




After this everyone came out and danced together for the finale with the white bull at the front of the formation. Four men came out dancing in huge, float like shoulder rigs (above-right). Each one had a little panel on the front with a scene depicted on it and several large rings of decorations. They looked heavy, but the dancers didn’t seem to have any problems moving to the beat with them. One had two large feather circles and statues of two girls on it. The dancer carrying it was playing a drum.

After the dance was done they introduced the main characters (below-left). One of the girls was held the title of ‘Prettiest girl in the Reds’, another was the ‘Queen of the festival’, and another was the ‘Flag Girl’ of the Reds. After the show was over, the band played and the dancers invited people out to dance with them and pose for pictures. It was a very impressive show and a very good time.
Diana and I were some of the last people to leave the arena. There were a few little shopping booths right outside where we waited for our bus back to the ship. Diana bought 2 feathered headdresses from the vendors there. Four of the ship’s cast members were there, waiting for the last bus to the ship. They always let the passengers go first if possible. I had someone take out picture (right: l to r - Michelle, Ray, D, R, Melissa, Antoine ) with them. Diana was wearing one of the headdresses and Michelle from the cast wore the other one. After that it was back to town and to the ship as we are leaving at 2PM.

Now we have three days at sea! Yea!!

Dec 11, 12 & 13 – Ah the joys of sea days; talking to people, attending lectures, watching movies, writing my journal, naming picture files and, of course, eating. The only way it could be better is if we were setting the clocks back an hour.

We had a formal English tea during this stretch of sea days. (left & right) I don’t usually attend the 4PM teatime but I did for English tea. They had scones, little sandwiches, macaroons, chocolate dipped strawberries and dozens of other delicious goodies to pick from.


We also had the ‘Crossing the Equator” King Neptune Ceremony yesterday (left). As usual, members of the crew who had never crossed the Equator were made to kiss the fish and then after being covered in various brightly colored liquids, foods and pasta, dunked in the pool. Loads of fun, at least for the passengers who get to watch!

They set the props up at the Lido Pool. King Neptune and his Queen were on a platform on the hot tub. The jail for the Pollywogs was built around the small pool and the large pool was used for dunking. In between the two pools they set up the tables for the ‘doctors’ and ‘nurses’ (below-left) to operate on the Pollywogs, a process that transforms them into ‘Trusty Shellbacks’ (right).

The performers for these three days were a cellist, a pianist and a dance duo. The first two were very good indeed but the third was something very special. They used to be competitive dance participants until about 5 years ago when they discovered their love of performance dancing. They were trying to work out something that would make them different when they saw a magic act that included the art of quick-change.

Apparently in the 1800s in Russia there were a lot of practitioners of the art of quick-change but staring with WWI and continuing through WWII the art was completely lost. Then in the 1970s someone read about it and resurrected the art form. There are currently 5 couples doing it but the other four are all magic acts. Soul Mystique is the only act combining dance and quick-change. After they decided to include it in their act it took 3 years to track someone down who would show them the secrets. They spent a year constructing the costumes. They couldn’t use the ones that the magicians use because all they do is walk around in the costumes. Soul Mystique has to dance, jump, spin and move around quickly in theirs. After they had the costumes made they spent another year perfecting the techniques and fine-tuning the costumes.

Their act is only described as dance so the first quick-change came as a complete surprise. They were doing a Latin dance, probably the Paso Doble, a very bullfight music oriented dance. He brought out a red cape that he used as a prop in the dance. When he passed the cape over his partner at the end of the dance she had a different costume on when she reappeared. I mean, it was just that fast! He passed the cape over her like a matador does when fighting a bull, and there she was in completely different costume. The audience gave an audible gasp and broke into applause.

From there they did about 7 more costume changes each one just as fast. Sometimes he dropped a curtain attached to a hoop like a circular shower curtain over her head and yikes, there she was in a different costume.

I have to admit, I have no idea how it was done. If the costumes had gotten smaller and shorter every time they could have been layered and she was just ripping one off and hiding it somehow. But in some changes she went from a very skimpy outfit to a floor length dress. There’s no way that the new costume was hiding under the skimpy outfit because the skimpy outfit was way too form fitting for it to have been folded up inside it somehow. Obviously the new costume must be in the cape or the curtain, but it passes over her so fast that I don’t see how she can get the first one off and the second one on.

The final quick-change was the most spectacular. She had on a fairly small outfit when he brought an umbrella onto the stage. He opened it upside down and swung it over her head from behind. A cascade of blank and gold confetti dropped over her and when the confetti cleared there she was in a floor length black and gold dress. You can imagine how long it would take an umbrella full of confetti to drop to the floor. Not very long I can tell you. But there she was, arms raised and in an off the shoulder, floor length, evening dress. They got quite an ovation for that one.

I guess I should mention that they are excellent dancers as well.

Tonight’s a formal night and they will have the Black and White Officer’s Ball after dinner. Sometimes we don’t go to the balls, but I might tonight.

Next we have four ports in a row. Tomorrow, Bridgetown, Barbados. We’re going to be in the water again.

Dec 14 – Here we are in Bridgetown, Barbados (right). Barbados was named by the Portuguese in the 1600s but soon after was taken over by the British who anglicized the name and have been here ever since. In 1627 Barbados became Britain’s first overseas possession and the beginning of the worldwide British Empire. The first crops attempted were tobacco and cotton but the soil here was not suited to them and sugar cane quickly became the crop of choice. The island is still known for sugar and dark rum. Barbados’ Mount Gay Rum is world-renowned. We’ve been here several times before, including May 2nd this year. We really like it. It’s a favorite in the Caribbean for both of us. The people are friendly, as they are on all the British islands and English is the language. We’ve opted to go snorkeling this time.

As we arrived it was obvious we were not going to be lonely here. The Carnival Destiny, the Queen Mary 2 and the Sega Ruby are all in port today. (r to l Destiny, Prinsendam, just visible behind Destiny, Sega Ruby & QM2) The Destiny and QM2 both carry about 3,000 passengers, I don’t know about the Ruby, but at 700 I think we’re the runt of the litter. This is fine with me as Diana and I both like smaller ships. The port area is like a demented ant’s nest. Shuttles running to the Destiny, Ruby and QM2 scurrying everywhere taking people to and from the ship. We got the closest docking point on the piers so we just walked to the terminal.

Through the terminal was a clog of tour vans and busses taking tours from all 4 ships around the island. We had a very short bus ride to the marina to catch the sailing catamaran that will take us to Turtle Cove. It’s a very new boat with a friendly and very funny crew. After motoring out of the marina they set the sail and we headed north along the coast. On the way we passed many very nice resorts and homes. We passed the golf resort where Tiger Woods was married not all that long ago.

When we arrived at Turtle Cove and the diving began. There were lots of fish in the area including some of the largest spotted puffers I’ve ever seen. The main attraction was the green sea turtles. The guide diver was feeding them and they would swim through the group close enough to touch. The first one to show up was large. I’m not sure how many I saw but I was quickly out of film from taking pictures of them. Yes, sadly my underwater camera uses film so I won’t be able to send any pictures of the turtles home. The large one had to remora attached. These are the same fish that accompany sharks. They have a sucker on top of their heads that they use to hitch a ride and eat scraps that the turtle leaves when he eats. The water was great and the snorkeling fun.

After about 50 minutes there we got back on the boat and headed to a beach for some water sports. There was water skiing, banana rides (above-right), Big Mabel (above-left) (a big 4-passenger lounge shaped mattress they tow behind a boat). Diana rode the banana and Big Mabel twice, screaming all the way.

When everyone was exhausted we sailed back to the marina and transferred to the ship. I got a little too much sun and so after some shopping at the market place at the port we headed to the ship for a shower and some rest.

When we arrived in the dining room our window table framed a pretty sunset between the Ruby and the QM2 (right), a very nice setting for dinner.
To Follow the rest of this trip, click here: http://r-d-am4.blogspot.com/2006/01/dec-15-to-dec-21-back-to-usa.html
(c) Rodney Longenberger - 2005 All Rights Reserved