Alter Do Chao, Brazil March 11

The rain has left and we awoke to a sunny sky with a few puffy clouds.  The Amazon continues to amaze.  Islands everywhere, large navigable channels and a few dwellings here and there.  Millions of people live along the rivers of the Amazon basin but most areas have no roads, power, sewers, etc.  Boats are the way everyone gets around.

This morning we had a special brunch in the Signatures Restaurant for Grand Voyage guests.  It was very nice with many tasty dishes including caviar, lamb chops, filet mignon bites, fruit, fancy desserts, etc, along with champagne, mimosas, and bloody marys.  There was a beautiful ice sculpture of a mermaid where the caviar was located.

Mermaid guarding the caviar 

Fancy desserts including cream puffs in the shape of swans 

All the food displays were very nice

Signatures restaurant was a tight fit for about 100 guests














We arrived at Alter Do Chao in the early afternoon.  We had visited here in 2012 and since it was very hot with a bright sun Noel elected to stay on the ship.  Toms assignment was to go ashore and take a picture to compare with one from 2012 when there was a lot of flooding in the area. While Tom was waiting in line to get back on the tender it was very hot with no shade, no breeze and no water unless you had brought some from the ship.  Only about 20 people were able to board the tender before a man collapsed and they stopped the boarding process to return immediately to the ship to get medical treatment.  The passengers had to wait about 20 minutes for the next tender to arrive and while unloading the passengers from the ship a lady fainted and fell to the sand.  Tom was able to board the tender, but another lady collapsed before many others boarded so they left immediately with few aboard.  Tom drank two bottles of water on shore and a Heineken in 11 seconds back on the ship.  Noel was glad she did not go ashore.

Alter Do Chao in 2012

The same area in 2016














While we were having cocktails in the Observation lounge Noel spotted a small pod of river dolphins and of course we did not have the camera.  There are two types of dolphins  in the Amazon.  We saw the pink ones in 2012 and now we have seen the ones that are charcoal gray with a pink underside.  We hope to spot the pink ones again on this trip.