Boca De Valeria, Amazon, Brazil March 12

Boca De Valeria is a tiny village on a tributary of the Amazon.  There is a small one room school, a church, and a few houses along with a "bar".  The ship anchored just off shore and we had to take tenders up a narrow waterway to get into the village.  People (mostly kids) come from the surrounding area to greet the passengers.  As you come off the tender you are mobbed by kids trying to take your hand and act as a guide even though very few know any English.  Some are dressed in feathered costumes and want a dollar for you to take their picture.  Others have all sorts of animals, sloths, monkeys, parrots, toucans, snakes, and even  huge catfish, same story, they  want money for a picture.  It is really sad to see this, especially the sloths, of which there must have been about 25, there was even a female with a small baby on her back.  We have been told that they take the sloths from the forest and don't really take care of them and most die within a few weeks.  I did not take any pictures of the sloths but did take one of a toucan and a catfish.

One of the tenders coming into the village. Our ship is just behind the trees on the right. 

Colorful toucan

The "bar" where you could buy beer or soft drinks

It was much easier walking around this time with no mud 

The small school

There were several of these catfish on display














The last time we were here Tom took the chocolate candies from the ship to give to the kids but this time they asked us not to do that as the wrappers just get tossed on the ground and for the most part they have no dental care.  Noel did bring some inexpensive make-up from the dollar store to pass out to the teen girls.  that turned out to be a mistake as she created a mob scene and it got kind of scary.  We also had a bunch of lapel pins to give to the kids but after the scene with the makeup we did not feel comfortable doing that so we handed the pins to one of our crew members to hand out.
Noel did spot a pink dolphin but could not get a picture as the spend very little time on the surface.