In February 2015 we sailed from Barbados to Santarem via a handful of Caribbean islands on P&O’s Adonia. After a day and a night we had sailed up the Amazon from the Atlantic passing by Macapa and Port Santana to Santarem.
In Santarem we went on a river trip in a local boat from just by Adonia’s berth to the Rio Iququi. Adonia was berthed on the river Tapajos and we first went to where the Tapajos joined the Amazon and then we sailed past the city of Santorem to the Iququi. In the gallery below you can see the clear waters of the Tapajos as they merge with the Amazon, some of the wildlife we saw, Amazon river traffic and some of the houses alongside the rivers.
Where the rivers merged is an island and this will be covered by water once the rainy season starts and if you look closely you will see the houses on stilts and on even higher stilts platforms where animals are placed when the rivers are flooding. Their owners having departed to Santarem but returning every day to feed and make sure their animals are safe.
We encountered a lot of river dolphins but I only managed one picture that wasn’t a splash on the water. The monkeys, iguana and the sloth were on trees over the Iququi. The boat stopped for the passengers to try their hand at fishing and we were rewarded by a couple of piranha. I have included pictures of the largest, a black piranha.
The Amazon at Santorem is very busy with boats coming to and from Manaus (several hundred miles further up the Amazon) and with ships coming to carry away the locally mined minerals. The boats going to Manaus were much larger than our boat and passengers had to bring their own hammocks and food for 3 day journey. If you look closely you can see the hammocks strung on the boat that was moored close by to Adonia.
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