Jungle Beach Boat Hammock Sloth

Seeing as the boat going TO Belem right before Cirio de Nazare was packed full, we kind of feared that one leaving right after would be equally busy.
As it turned out it was not. Especially on the upper passenger deck (as on the boat  to Belem, cargo on the main deck, with two passenger decks above).  For some reason that I don't fully comprehend, the mid decks on Brazilian riverboats are always fuller than the upper ones. A bit more shelter from sun/wind/rain? Having to carry luggage up and down fewer stairs?  We (and apparently most tourists) prefer the stronger breeze and better views from higher up.

The trip from Belem to Santarem begins in a smaller channel of the Amazon, which was very reminiscent of the trip across the delta:
Thick, dark green forest right up to the banks, broken only occasionally by single wooden houses surrounded by small groves of açai palms.  Even more infrequently we'd spy a little village with a church, a more substantial pier and sometimes even a school.

But by the time the first day on the water had passed, the banks were more and more frequently bare of trees with cattle or water buffalo grazing.  The settlements on the riversides grew as well, and over the course of our 60 hour journey we made five or so stops at towns whose population I'd guess at between ten and fifty thousand.  These places had paved streets, banks, street lighting and multi-story buildings. At each stop vendors would ply their wares. At first, keen to get the eager customers, they'd toss their goods aboard over the rail. Only later would they come aboard with their cheese, pastries, boxed lunches, coffee, juice and ice cream.

Between the vendors and the meals available for sale from the boat's cafe, you could probably survive without bringing any food aboard.  But for the most part Sarah and I ate picnic lunches of cookies, passionfruit and crusty buns with cheese, veggies and hot sauce.
Later in the trip, we replaced the buns with farinha, the dried cassava flour that's eaten as a condiment in Brazil, but that we'd learned to enjoy as a staple in Guyana.
Farinha comes in finer or chunkier variations, and we'd chosen the latter as the larger chunks give a nice crunchy texture to it.  Unfortunately they can also be a bit hard on the teeth.
With about twenty hours left to our destination, Sarah calmly announced that she'd broken a tooth.

Thankfully it didn't hurt, because there was nothing for it but to wait until we arrived in Santarem.  The offline map on our phone (OSMAnd, which uses OpenStreetMaps data, and has been incredibly helpful on this trip so far) showed several dentists in town.

We arrived at a small dock near the centre and chose one to go look at based mostly on its proximity to the port.  The office looked clean and pleasant enough, and was about to open at 08:00, so we went inside and within about twenty minutes, Sarah was the first patient of the day.

Though they had virtually no language in common, the dentist was great.  Very friendly, patient and insistent that Sarah fully understood what he was proposing before he did it.  This was all done using phones and translation apps, so it often took quite a while to get the meaning across.
But within two hours of arriving, Sarah had a cap on her broken molar and an appointment at 16:00 to come back and fix two other cavities that had showed up on the x-ray and caused the dentist concern.  This gave us several hours to check out the city.

Santarem has a population of around 250,000, but feels (at least in the old centre) more relaxed than that. We spent most of the day lounging in parks and by the river(s).  (S) because the Rio Tapajos joins the Amazon at Santarem.  The fairly clear blue-green of the Tapajos appears divided sharply from the muddy brown of the Amazon as they meet and very slowly comingle.  The exact location of this meeting of the waters changes, but on this day it was right in front of town, maybe 200m off the riverfront promenade.

Back at the dentist I sat in the A/C waiting area drinking coffee and waiting (I'd wondered whether a dentist's office might be an exception to the Brazilian habit of drinking their coffee intensely sugared, but no).
By 17:30 Sarah was all done and popped happily out of the office.  She'd had a full set of x-rays, a cap put on her broken tooth, a cleaning and two fillings done.  The cost for the lot was NZD190.

We considered spending the night in Santarem, but figured that we still had time to make it to our primary destination for this stop on our journey, Alter do Chão.  We share the 60 minute, 35km city bus journey with commuters heading home, so it was a wee bit cramped but it got us to Alter by 19:30 where we were happy to find that there was plenty of room at our chosen inn.

The next morning we were up with sunrise and went out to explore our surroundings.
Alter do Chão is a town of about 7000 on the Rio Tapajos. For visitors, the highlights are its beautiful (and seemingly neverending) beaches of soft white sand.
On our first morning we waded across the narrow entrance to the Lago Verde to the white sand spit (it's not actually an island, at least not during the dry season) of Ilha do Amor.  We walked up the left side of the beach, and within half an hour all signs of the town were gone. It was just us, the beach, the lagoon and some terns.

We had lunch in the central square, which is really the tourist focus of the town.  One side faces the beach, one has the church and the town's only supermarket and the other two are lined with outdoor restaurants.  A bit closer to the middle are two rows of small thatch-roofed stalls selling more affordable meals and snacks.  Later that night we returned and sat in the square to slurp tacaca (salty-sour shrimp and veggie soup) and beers from the supermarket.  On weekend evenings when it gets "busy" (which is really not very busy at all) bands would set up in the square, visitors welcome to join right in the display of local Carimbó dancing.

The next day was, if possible, even lazier.  We took our hammocks out to the beach and nearest our hostel (maybe 200m), strung them between trees and spent the day there, alternating between reading, sleeping and swimming.

The water at Alter is fabulous. It's freshwater, so no need to shower salt off yourself when you've been swimming.  Unlike many freshwater beaches, it doesn't have a "lake-y" smell to it.  And the water is quite clear.  About the only downside is the need to shuffle your way in to the water lest you step on a stingray.
As the day started to cool down I headed up the Ilha de Amor peninsula again, this time (successfully) trying to find the trail up to Serra Piroca, the small but very prominent hill that you can see from everywhere in the region.  While up the too, all alone save the black vultures cruising by at eye level.
While up there I got better view of just how extensive the beaches of the region are. You could walk for kilometres along the shore in any direction and still not be close to reaching their end. Of particular interest was a long, wide beach maybe 5km north of town with a narrow arm of sand reaching right out into the Tapajos near its northern end.  It had several tourist boats parked along it, confirming the (fairly obvious from just looking at it!) idea that it was worth a visit.

The next morning we set out with 5L of water, a picnic brunch and lots of sunscreen.  The walk was pretty much all on beach, with a few short gravelly bits near the base of low pink cliffs and a few lightly muddy bits where it looked like vegetation was just beginning to get a foothold.

The beach at Ponta Cururu was every bit as good as it looked from the air.  On one side it was very shallow.  And the water was very calm and sheltered, allowing me to lay down in the water, stretched out on the sand, chin resting on my arms with no fear at all of a wave coming to dunk my head under.  And unlike the previous afternoon there were few other visitors.  At many times we had it all to ourselves.

There was a downside to this, however.  We'd planned to stick around until it got hot then hop aboard a boat making the return journey to town.  With the minimal traffic this turned out not to be possible, and we ended up walking all the way back under the early afternoon sun. There was a nice breeze, so it wasn't actually terribly hot, but so powerful was the sun that we took to stopping under trees when we could and waiting for a cloud to appear before continuing in hopes we'd make it back without being fried to a crisp.

Apparently most of the visitors to Ponta Cururu visit in the late afternoon, both to avoid this very problem.  AND to check out the sunsets.  Many Brazilians say that Alter do Chão has the prettiest sunsets on Earth.  My mom holds that Simcoe Island (near Kingston, Ontario) still holds the title, but three out of our five evenings certainly showed that ADC is in the running.  (Not that beautiful sunsets are entirely to be desired... Simcoe's sunsets benefit from being filtered through the pollution of Toronto to the west, so are Alter's filtered through smoke from burning Amazon forest).

We'd planned this to be our final day at Alter do Chão, and with the incredibly beautiful beach at Cururu and the sunset it would've made a fine finale.  But the Tapajos had an even better one waiting for us.
Some of our Brazilian hostel-mates (they were all Brazilian except for a one Argentinian who was working there) had planned a full day boat trip the next day and asked if we wanted to come along.  It might make getting our planned boat onwards from Santarem slightly trickier, and it did cost 100 Reais per person. But I was interested in seeing a bit more of the forest around the area, and when the possibility of seeing sloths was mentioned this turned a maybe into a How Could We Not!?

Some of our six boatmates were a bit slow getting going in the morning, so it was around 10:00 by the time we headed out of the lagoon, around Ponta Cururu and out into the Tapajos and the Amazon.

As I've noted before (and you've doubtless heard elsewhere), this river is HUGE.  Where we joined the Amazon proper it looked about as wide as Lake Taupo.  This wasn't quite the case, as the air at Taupo is a lot clearer, but it did mean that there were some decent waves out there, some with white water on top for us to bounce and splash our way along as we spent fifteen minutes crossing the channel to a large island out in the middle of the river.

Once there we ducked into a narrow, shallow channel that was occupied on either side by small farms (mostly cattle) and their owner's homes (up on stilts, as even in normal conditions the river would rise 3m in the wet season) and fronted by mudflats that were just starting to grow grass.

It was cool to see life on the river up a bit closer than we could from the big, intercity river boats.  And at one point we were lucky enough to spot a caiman (a medium sized one, maybe 1.5m) slithering its way down into the river as we approached.  This was a good omen.  Caimans are usually shy and difficult to spot in the daytime.

Shortly thereafter we pulled up at the dock of one of the houses.  I almost immediately feared that the sloths we were going to see were captive and/or pets as I'd just been reading about places that do exactly that.

The family running the place called it the Tralha de Preguiças (Trail of Sloths) and offered short guided walks around the forest behind their home for 20 Reais (about NZD7.50) per person.  I was slightly surnoyed (I've just invented this word! It means at once surprised and annoyed!) about the entry fee on top of the boat trip. But there were no caged animals in sight, and the lady in charge seemed excited to show us around.

And was it ever worthwhile! It mightn't have felt very wild, with wide, well maintained trails crisscrossing the regenerating forest behind the home and small farm, but this was without a doubt the wildlife viewing highlight of our Amazon experience so far.  We saw a greater Potoo (owl relative that looks kind of like the Australasian frogmouths, but much larger, about the size of a great horned owl.  We saw yellow armed macaques (attractive little monkeys) up close. We saw hoatzin weird crested birds maybe 50cm long whose call sounds kind of like a reindeer.  I'm still not 100% sure whether they're pretty or ugly, but they're distinctive.  And apparently they also smell bad and the young ones have claws on their wings that allow them to climb around in the dense bush that they live amongst (I remember seeing them doing this in Ecuador some 30 years ago!)

And of course there were sloths. Four of them, including a three month old that had just left its mom. None of them were far away, but the baby in particular was only about 50cm above eye level and two or three metres into the bush.  Sarah would very happily have spent an entire day just watching that one baby sloth slowly making its way around the trees, yaaaaaawwwwwning and blllliiiiiiinnnnking, both at sloth speed.

After leaving the forest and having a good long chat with the sloth lady and her family under their stilt house (most of which was lost on us as it was all in Portuguese) it was time to head back to the boat.

Back across the channel we went, returning to the blue water of the Tapajos and (yet) another beautiful remote beach.  This one was backed by a few little restaurants.  We'd been eyeing up the peixe assado (whole grilled fish) on the Ilha de Amor, and sharing one with a couple of our boatmates, Thays and Lourenço (on Holiday from Minas Gerias/Rio), was a perfect opportunity.
It took quite a while to prepare, during which we swam an went for walks on the beach. When it was finally ready the fish was delicious (and only slightly bony) and with all the traditional accompaniments it was a very large meal, even for four people, even with one of them being me.

After lunch we had just enough time to visit one more isolated beach before our final stop, a return visit to Ponta Cururu to watch the sunset.  I'll have to admit that I initially felt like I would have rather gone somewhere else that we hadn't been before and that wasn't so busy (there were maybe 100-150 others there).  But as with the Tralha de Preguiças, my hesitation proved entirely ill founded.  The sunset was beautiful, we had fun swimming with our new friends.  And then the dolphins appeared!

Probably close to a dozen small grey river dolphins started splashing, playing and even once or twice jumping through the water, not 50m from shore. We stood, knee deep in the water with them, almost entirely distracted from the gorgeous sunset until they decided to really show off and start playing right in front of it.  Even our boat driver seemed delighted and impressed. He was just as busy smiling and photographing/filming as everyone else was!

I'm not sure how long we spent watching, grinning, pointing and gasping at them, but ours was the last boat to go and it was fully dark when we got back to the lagoon at Alter do Chão.

I'd really expected that the boat trip would have taken us to see more "wild" areas in the neighbourhood.  And I was a bit annoyed at having to use the ATM in town (which charged a NZD9 "convenience" fee and gave a truly terrible exchange rate).  But there were just so many amazing things about that day that even an occasional grump like me is going to be thinking back to it and smiling for a long time to come.

Alter do Chão really had seen us off in style.  The next morning we caught the bus back to Santarem and headed for the Docas de Para, the main port for large passenger and cargo vessels.  On the way we stopped at a convenience store to buy some farinha for the upcoming trip (the softer, finer grained kind this time!) where Sarah picked up a new pair of pink Havaianas to replace her two-year old orange pair that was coming to the end of its life.

Down at the docks we bought our tickets and went to board the boat.  Not as early as on previous journeys, but still with a couple of hours before departure to allow us to get decent hammock spots.  I left Sarah in charge of setting up so I could catch the end of the boarding window (in a surprisingly safety conscious move, the busy cargo port only allows passengers through at fixed times) to do a bit more shopping in town then dash back to catch the final boarding window before our noon departure.

As it turned out I needn't have worried.  Noon came and went.  As did 13:00. And there were still several full truckloads of tomatoes and plantains to be brought aboard for the journey to Manaus.

It was 16:00 by the time we pulled away from the pier.  But we were comfortable in our hammocks and happy to be out on the water again.

The first 24 hours of the trip were similar to the end of the Belem-Manaus journey.  Evidence of (if not actual) human habitation everywhere.  Lots of cattle, but quite a few horses as well.

Overnight we passed the town of Óbidos where, almost 1000km upstream from its mouth, tidal effects on the Amazon are finally completely gone.  Then in the morning a comparatively long stop at Parantins, home to a major annual celebration of Amazon culture.  And then the people disappeared and it we were once again cruising past mile upon mile of thick forest (though this time with beaches and, at one point, beautiful bright red cliffs to add a bit of variety).

It seems that (so far at least), travelling by public riverboat up the Amazon isn't a fabulous wildlife experience.  Far from it in fact.  Even heading upstream when  the boats stick closer to shore, the forest is either non-existent or too thick to see much. Sarah she MIGHT have seen a capybara on the shore once.  But other than that our best sightings were (previously mentioned) river dolphins, a few macaws and a few ospreys.

Which is not to say it isn't enjoyable.  It's kind of like long distance travel on a slow train.  You get to watch the world slide by, seeing people going about their daily lives all around you.  The landscape changes slowly, letting you feel more a part of it, even if you do only look up from your lazy, comfy hammock spot once in a while.

Indeed, on day two of the 44 hour trip to Manaus I commented to Sarah that this may be my new favourite mode of transportation.  Which is not a bad thing because on arriving in Manaus we're still only halfway done our journey up the river.

The Candle of Mary of Nazareth

Almost imediately on arriving in Belem our Couchsurfing host Lysmar took us out for a walking tour of the central city.
As he explained, with how busy things were about to get there wouldn't really be another opportunity. 

The reason for this was that in Belem it was the Friday before Cirio de Nazare.  On the second Sunday in October up to a million people accompany a miraculous image of Mary of Nazareth in a procession from the Cathedral de Sé to the Basilica de nos Senhora de Nazare.  What makes the image so miraculous you ask?
It was discovered on the riverbank by a fisherman in 1792. He took it home only to find that overnight it disappeared and returned to the spot where he'd found it. This happened a few more times before he got the (obvious!) message that it was a sign to build a shrine to Mary on the site.

I'm not sure when she stopped returning, as while her official home is on the site of the shrine (now the basilica), it's actually a replica on display there, with the actual image stored securely in a monastery (or was it a seminary?) a block or so away.  (She makes the procession to the Cathedral de Sé on the night before the main event).

Coincidentally the Basilica was our first stop.  While we looked to be the only foreigners around we clearly weren't the only out of town tourists, as dozens of others were milling about the cathedral, taking photos of its marble ceiling, paintings from the life of Christ and, of course, the statue of Mary herself, who kept an eye on proceedings from her spot above and behind the altar.  All of this in the middle of a service! But no one seemed to mind, so we were reasonably content to join them.

Next was a visit to one of the many artisan's markets that spring up around the procession route. These are both an opportunity for local craftspersons to sell their wares and for out of town visitors to fund their pilgrimage.  Cool local stuff on sale included lots of colourful balsa wood carvings (birds, riverboats, ferris wheels), balata (natural rubber) statuary and toys, and sculpture rendering the different common breeds of water buffalo in the area.  Lysmar and heaps of other people were wandering around snapping photos of the crafts, which would annoy a lot of sellers back home, but here everyone was entirely cool with it.

From the Basilica we headed down to the riverfront and the tidied up/touristified area of the port called Estação das Docas.  Amongst other fancy restaurants and shops it also held the Amazon Brewery. The oldest craft brewery in Brazil, almost all of their beers feature Amazonian ingredients. So we had an Açai stout, a priprioca red ale and a tapereba witbier amongst others. And I'm happy to say that, as in Sao Paulo, the beers were all fault free and good!

After the Amazonian beers came a bunch of Amazonian produce at the market. I'm a big fan of markets and if they've got a profusion of local and/or unique goods then so much the better.
The Ver o Peso market was filled with people "peeling" Brazil nuts with their machetes, stacks of the jambu leaves that are a key feature in local cooking, homemade condiments and drinks (including all sorts of different flavoured cachaças and various jambu extract sauces). And of course at the restaurants, lots of fish and açai, which is heavily cultivated in the area.

On our way home we got to taste some of the cuisine that these ingredients inspire.  Sarah had Tacaca, a shrimp soup, sour and spicy and filled with the aromatic (it smells kind of like coriander leaf) jambu leaves. The jambu leaf has two other effects as well: when cooked it produces a clear, viscous gloop that sits at the bottom of the bowl (it wasn't terrible, but I wasn't a huge fan) and it gives a similar mouth tingling, numbing sensation to Sichuan pepper. The overall impression of Tacaca was of a Brazilian version of Tom Yum Gung.
Meanwhile I enjoyed some Maniçoba, a dark green (almost black) stew of Manioc leaves, bacon, blood sausage, pork belly and jerked pork.  It doesn't look that fabulous, and I'm not sure what they meant by jerked, but it was absolutely delicious (and super rich).

The big meal set us up nicely for an afternoon nap before we hit the town for the first of the major pre-Cirio festivities, the Auto do Cirio.
Lysmar got us an Uber to near the Cathedral de Sé, but traffic was already getting heavy as we approached, so we hopped out and soon were wending our way (with heaps of others) into the narrow streets of Belem's old town.

Somehow or other we emerged right near a mobile (it was on top of a truck full of speakers!) stage. The air was hot and the crowd was thick and energetic as a couple of singers and a rock-ish band played on top of the stage. But this was just the warmup.  All of a sudden a samba band only a few metres away (I'd scarcely noticed them before!) burst into action. Somehow the truck-stage found room to start down the street, the samba band got moving behind it and all of a sudden we were in the middle of a parade.  The brilliantly (and sometimes bizarrely) or costumed dancers followed, and the mini-floats. And a few costumed individual who were practically floats themselves.  And then we ourselves were off, following them through the same narrow streets we'd arrived via.

I've never been to a Latin American carnival event before, but this was exactly what I thought it must be like.  A crush of bodies, all dancing shaking, smiling, drinking, buying drinks from the vendors who miraculously managed to walk through the crowd with coolers on their heads or (not sure which is more miraculous) navigate carts or bikes through it.

It took us maybe twenty rhythmic, thumping minutes to arrive back at the Cathedral where the parade parked in front of the stage while a troupe of clowns (I think? We were right near the side of the stage and could barely see them) performed.

And then the parade was off again.  The thumping, swelling, dancing snake made its way to a public square where the next show took place in front of, and out the windows of, a beautiful old blue and white tiles building.  A choir of drag queens singing Ave Maria.  The crowning of the three (black, white and Amerindian) queens. More choral exercises, then off again.  We leapt out ahead of the parade this time to get a good(ish) spot for the final show.  It featured a drag queen dance ensemble (Vogue-I Will Survive Mashup), a Brazilian pop band, and then for the finale, a small crowd of (I gather) famous musicians played continuously for maybe half an hour as all the parade participants strutted their stuff on stage.

All through this, chants of "Ele Não!" ("Not Him!") would erupt in the crowd.  Brazil is in the middle of a presidential election. After the first round it seems almost certain that far right candidate Jair Bolosonaro is going to win. He's a genuinely scary candidate who has said (amongst many other things) that the military dictatorship of the 60s and 70s was great, that their torture of opponents was fine but they really ought to have just killed them all, that a female parliamentarian "wasn't worth raping," and that Brazil's poor, black and Amerindian populations are a drain on society and should be dealt with by martial law, forced sterilisation and various other means.  The main focus of his campaign is on getting rid of corruption and restoring "family values," but I wouldn't want him to be my head of state in a million years.
We'd seen lots of posters, stickers and t-shirts supporting him elsewhere in the country, so it was wonderful to see such strong opposition at this event.  There were heaps of people with signs reading things like "Fraterno Verdadeiro Cristão, Facismo Não!" ("True Christian Brotherhood, Not Fascism!") and many more wearing #13 (the poll number of Fernando Haddad, his opponent in the second round of the election) stickers.  True, Para was one of a only five (out of twenty seven) states that Bolosonaro didn't win in the first round, and he did get 46% of the vote, but where there are energetic, passionate people like these, there's hope.

Anyhow, enough politics. Back to the party!

By the time we'd made it home it was almost 02:00.  For Sarah and I who'd been more or less going to bed with sunset for the previous week it was way past our bedtime.

But only so that we could get up and join the next round of Cirio festivities the following morning!

Lysmar was going to visit his mom, so we were on our own for checking out the Motorcycles' Cirio.  We and thousands of others were walking into town and saw the preparation for it.  Maybe a kilometre of six lane road was packed kerb to kerb with motorbikes, many of them decorated or carrying replicas of Senhora de Nazare attached to the handlebars.

And after that came the Cirio Fluvial.  If every motorcycle owner in Belem had joined the bikers' procession, every person who owned a vessel of any sort had joined the river procession.  From jetskis to fishing boats to huge passenger ferries to Brazilian navy vessels.  We only caught the last quarter or so of it, but we did get our first glimpse of the Senhora herself on the deck of a Navy corvette.

Just before the Cirio Fluvial ended we made our way down to the market we'd visited the day before.  I wanted to take some photos (my phone had been acting up the previous day).  And more importantly we wanted to eat at some of the fun and delicious restaurant stalls located there.
We'd already had a couple of classics of Pará cuisine the night before, but another, açai con peixe (fish with açai) was the feature item on the menu there.
I was slightly familiar with açai before coming to Brazil, but here in its heartland was the first time I'd tried it without sugar added.  On its own, açai is still slightly fruity, but it's notably bitter and earthy as well, so it is a pretty good accompaniment to savoury dishes.

During our meal a small fire broke out in the kitchen of one of the food stalls maybe 60m away.  We and others were immediately on our guard.  I'd gone so far as to lay our payment on the table and stand up, prepared to leave.  The fire itself wasn't huge, but given how crowded it was in the are of the market, you had the feeling that a panic there could be very dangerous.  The fire was doused within less than a minute though and we were able to go back to our lunch with no fear of being trampled by a crowd.

Speaking of crowds, after we'd returned home and had another afternoon rest, Lysmar took us out to see the largest of the pre-Cirio processions, the previously mentioned one from the basilica to the Cathedral de Sé.  Indeed, this procession is often of similar size to the main event. 

Even in the one small section where we watched the crowds were immense.  Thousands upon thousands standing watching, waiting for a glimpse of the Senhora herself, packed into a sweaty fraternity by their own numbers and the (cooler, but still) tropical air.

And if the crowd watching was a little uncomfortable, it is was undoubtedly only devoted bliss that kept many in the procession going.  Almost all of them walked barefoot, many carrying symbols of their prayers.  Often these were wax images (a baby's head, injured body parts) but were also sometimes more realist (piles of actual schoolbooks resting on the head).

And all around water was being passed in cups to walkers or simply thrown out over the crowd.  This was especially important to those holding the Rope.  As she proceeds, the image is pulled by thousands upon thousands of worshipers grasping the rope connected to her palanquin (it's not quite technically a palanquin, but the image seems right).

In fact, those holding the rope aren't really pulling her.  Rather they're engaging in a tug of war with those far ahead or behind who are moving at a slightly different pace, almost having a wrestling match trying to maintain their often tenuous hold on the cord, all while trying to avoid being crushed from ahead or behind, or sucumbing to heat stroke.  It looked tremendously uncomfortable.  And every now and the you'd hear the blasting whistles of a crew of a dozen-ish Red Cross or other medical volunteers partiny the crowd nearly biblically as they rushed past, bearing a stretcher above their heads, occupied by someone who had collapsed or been otherwise injured during the procession.

The crowd would often sing as they walked.  Some songs directly connected to the Cirio, others (e.g. Ave Maria) old Catholic favourites.

When the Senhora herself appeared (we'd had considerable warning of this, as Lysmar had an app on his phone that showed you her progress in real-time) the area above the crowd turned into a sea of LCD screens as everyone raised their phones to capture the moment on picture or video.  And everyone joined in the song which, somewhat surreally, was a Portuguese (and doubtless with lyrics considerably modified from the recorded track) version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

The Senhora herself, and the glass palanquin she rides in are surprisingly small.  But it's the devotion that's the thing, and even very un-Catholics like Sarah and I felt the excitement and the warmth of community with all those around us.

Speaking of un-Catholics, after the procession had come and gone, the streets relatively empty save for empty foil-topped plastic water cups and a mushy paste of wet and thoroughly foot-pulverized cardboard, we moved less than 100m to join one of Brazil's oldest gay parties, Chiquita.  2018 was the fortieth anniversary of its founding as a reaction to the intolerance of the church to homosexuals.  But these days many of the participants (if not the devout adherents [and if them, then if not the church hierarchy {and actually to some degree even them, as they'd been a sponsor of the Diversity of Love themed Auto-Cirio}]) are happy participants too.  Despite our spot near the porta-loos, despite our being constantly jostled by people coming and going (and it felt like I was the only one who care about this at all) we had a pretty fun time watching the concert.  Particularly the glam-rock performed by the festival's founder in a spectacular sequinned jumpsuit.

It was another late night, so Sarah and I actually just caught the wrap-up of the Cirio itself the next morning, seeing the crowds streaming away from the basilica as we arrived.  We wandered about amongst the crowds taking advantage of the Cirio buzz to give us snacking opportunities that would otherwise be absent on a Sunday: Delicious ice cream whose sticky texture reminded me of Lebanese ice cream.  Sarah had a guava+cheese (yeah, I know what it sounds like, but A. It was good and, B. Sarah.)  Cheese.] And a couple of savoury pastries plus icy cold pineapple juice.

Munching away we wandered through the city streets and into a residential area. It was fun seeing everyone preparing their courtyards/garages/balconies for post-Cirio celebrations with friends and family. Lysmar later told us that Cirio is a bigger deal than Christmas in Belem.  Whether they are devoted Catholics, protestants (we saw big celebrations on at several Baptist churches the night before Cirio) or entirely secular, it is the peak of the year's calendar.

Through the residential neighbourhoods and we ended up at Mangal das Garças (Mangrove of Herons).  This place is a smallish park (maybe 300x250m?) park next to the river that provides a protected home and feeders for a variety of birds.  They're free to come and go as they please, but as the feeders are designed to only be usable by certain species, you tend to find them there.

We probably spent a couple of hours there, admiring the loads of great egrets, iguanas, flamingos, the lone Jabiru stork and, most excitingly, the couple of dozen scarlet ibices (I know that's not the plural of "ibis" at all. But it amuses me to think of it as the plural of ibex, so now it just flows naturally off of the tongue).  Several of these were birds we'd missed out on seeing at Bigi Pan in Suriname, so even though it wasn't quite the same it was cool to spot them in Belem.

We spent one more evening with Lysmar.  It was a Sunday and apparently we'd left it a bit too late to go find something to eat, as by 21:00 almost the only place open was the food court at a nearby mall.  No matter! I got to fulfil a Brazilian fast food wish (and take full advantage of free refills on the drinks by having four full cups of Fanta guarana flavour!)

Monday was a half-day holiday in Belem, so we had plenty of time to spend with Lysmar then too.  We'd been so busy (in no small part due to his showing us cool stuff to do) that we hadn't managed to cook a meal for our host yet!  We remedied this by producing a big stack of crepes (ham + cheese and chocolate + banana) that we all shared for brunch before Sarah and I headed to the port to buy tickets for our onward boat journey.

Thanks to Lysmar's advice (in short, always ask for a discount on the posted price.  You'll almost invariably get one) we paid only 175 Reais each (NZD65) for the 60 hour journey upriver to Santarem.

There was one small snag, which was that the boat was leaving from a different port than the one we were at.  We took an Uber there (which cost almost the exact same as bus fares for two with a change of buses would have).  This was no bad thing, as we might have struggled a bit to find the port.  And it was in a bit of a scruffy looking neighbourhood.  But our driver got us there no problems and when he tooted his horn the sheet metal door opened up and the boat of the appropriate name was sitting by the pier, loading up for the journey.

Before finishing I'll say a big thanks to Lysmar who made our visit to Belem on its biggest weekend of the year even more memorable.