Santarem, Brazil

February 26, 2008

We sailed from Belem to cross the equator yet again...it seems that we are almost constantly going back and forth across the equator in these parts.

We arrived in the hustling city of Santarem whose population is over 1 million. And like so many other of the cities we have visited in Brazil it looks very similar.

I decided to take a river cruise....a chance to see the “meetings of the waters” as they say.

Because the Amazon is made up of hundreds of smaller rivers that feed it, there are a number of spots along the way where these rivers meet. It seems that there are some four different “types” of rivers designated by their color. The Amazon is brown because of the strength of its current and the fact that it erodes the coast line for thousands of miles and moves so quickly that the sediment does not have a chance to settle. There are other rivers that are known as “green” water because of the algae that collects in their streams. “Clear” water is very rare, but apparently exists. Perhaps the most abundant, other than the “brown” water of the Amazon, is the “black” water of many rivers. These black rivers get their distinctive color because of the very acidic water that results from the dense jungles that grow along their banks. When these various colored rivers meet there is a section of the main Amazon that, for many miles, is both brown and black. Slowly but surely the great Amazon will eventually absorb the smaller river and the water will become the same color...but the line between the two is very distinctive and a delight to see.

We were told that there are several reasons that the two waters don’t mix immediately. First the acidity of the black water and the brown water is different. Secondly, the Amazon is flowing at almost double the speed of the smaller river. Thirdly, the temperature of the Amazon is several degrees colder than the smaller river as it gets a lot of its water from melting snow from the Andes. These factors all combine to make this natural phoneme of the meeting of the waters.

We spent a relaxing day on a small ferry boat on the Tapajos River as we saw the stilted and floating homes of the locals. We fished for piranhas along side the locals. We even found a nice sandy beach where we swam in the delightful warm waters while fresh water pink dolphins playfully watched us from a distance.

A very nice day indeed!