Thursday 24th January – Alter Do Chao and a red face

We were looking forward to this place. Alter Do Chao is a small town of sandy beaches, smooth lagoon water, hotels and beach bars. Not what you’d expect in the middle of the Amazon rain forest. It is the tourist destination for the Brazilians, and last year, because we visited at the weekend, the place was packed.

This year it wonderfully quiet, (except for the rowdy brits), so first we aimed for the central market square to take advantage of the free wi-fi. Once Peter and I had done as much as we could, it was down to the beach. 

Now we’d come prepared. So once we’d pitched our beach mat under a tree, we stripped down to the swimming cossies under our clothes, and within minutes we were in the water, which was ever so slightly cooler than the hot humid air around us. 

We had a brilliant, lounge about the beach sort of afternoon. The sky was mostly overcast, but I’ve got burnt here before. Once bitten twice shy, so when we weren’t in the water, we stayed in the shade of the tree, watching the vultures circle overhead. 

Well, I thought we had stayed in the shade of a tree. The colour of my skin today suggests that this was not the case. I glow in the dark at the moment, hot, and a rather attractive shade of red, a bit like the coals in a fire. How did that happen? It looks like my very lily white skin has been microwaved!

I’ve worked out that the sun had been very bright and strong on the two 10-15 minute occasions I’d been out in it. (Once talking to a passenger as we came out of the water, and the second time on the walk back to the tender.) And of course, numpty me did not think I’d been out in the sun long enough to apply the Factor 40 sunscreen I had my bag. Well, that’ll learn me. Still, on the bright side, red is a very nice colour, sort of brings out the blue of my eyes............... 

We were supposed to go to Almerim tomorrow, but it seems the port authorities further down the river in Santana have changed the rules, and in order to abide by them, we have to leggit downriver to get to Santana for high water. And then we’ll have to stop overnight and leave on high water the following day. They’re not being very tourist friendly are they? It’s a shame, cos Almerim is nice, and many passengers would have preferred to stop at Alter De Chao and see Almerim than stop overnight than Santana. Still, I think there are tour obligations, and filling up with water and supplies, and all those sort of things to take care of.

So tomorrow is Santana. An industrial port, from where you can travel to Macapa. I’m not sure what we are gonna do when we get there. We’ll see.

To read about our last visit to Alter De Chao in 2012, click here