It's a perfect Sunday here on the river. At noon it is sunny, 80F, and humid but not bad considering where we are. Room service delivered breakfast at 8am and I enjoyed my Sunday caviar while watching river. At 10am we went down for our interdenominational worship service which is held in the Horizon Lounge. First time I have had a bar waitress ask if I wanted something to drink just a the service was starting. Must be a "progressive" church!! It was a wonderful service led by our cruise director. I like it as it is only 20 minutes long. After the service we went to the other end of the ship where the theater is located for another lecture on the Amazon titled, "Development vs Diversity". She was saying how "now" the Brazilian government is promoting the development of the Amazon basin but at the same time trying to protect the eco-system here. For example if a farm or other enterprise clears land the also have to buy and equal number of acres and set it aside and leave it forested. There is lots of land, as remember, the Amazon basin is larger than entire 48 states. The government also started building roads from Brazilia, the capital further to the south, up to the Amazon area. The road from Brazilia to Santarem, which we will be passing by in about a half hour, was recently completed. Now soybeans from farms south of here can be bought to the Santarem river port and exported via ships out to Atlantic and onward. Cargill, an American seed company, buys the soybeans and ships them out of here. We will be stopping in Santarem on Friday after we stop in Manaus on Tuesday & Wednesday and head back down the river. Another interesting fact: Brazil is the world's #1 producer of beef and soybeans. If you eat Walmart beef, you are eating Brazilian beef!!
While up at La Veranda (upper deck buffet type restaurant) enjoying some fresh pasta, we were sailing past Santarem so I got some photos for you. I also saw a "meeting of the waters". This is where the clear water from a tributary river is flowing into the dirty brown main Amazon river. It is quite a contrast. We turned up the tributary and will be dropping anchor off the little village of Alter do Chao at 3pm. This is a scheduled stop of only 4 hours but we will be tendering to the village. Not sure how they plan to get everyone off the ship and back on in 4 hours.
Ok, now 6:30 and back from visiting the little village of Alter do Chao. Man, was it HOT and humid. Even Princess Rebecca, who I rarely ever see sweat, was sweating. They did not even have a proper dock for our tenders to tie up to for unloading and loading so they basically ran one of the tenders aground and then tied up to it. We then passed through it to get ashore. As we were reboarding the tender I overheard a radio conversation between the Captain on our ship with the Safety Officer on the tender. Apparently they did not have clearance from the local authorities to run the tender aground. Regent is in trouble!! Another couple of cases of whiskey and some "under the table" money will solve it. That's the way it is done in SA. I know! Since I was sweat wet when we got back on the ship, I climbed my 103 floors for exercise. Now I am downloading today's photos and getting ready for cocktails and dinner while finishing this posting.
