Carnival Archives - Opher's World

Day 18 – 27^th Jan

I was out of bed at 6.30 to the wonderful trill of the alarm. On with T-shirt, shorts and sandals – I was off to see if the sunrise was spectacular and check out the decks for wondrous insects.

Well the sunrise was spoilt by cloud on the horizon. The decks were wet from rain and it was quite blowy so the insects were fewer. I still found a number of big beautiful moths and some grasshoppers though.

Then it was time for tea. Having a cup of tea on the deserted rear deck is a delight. Everyone else is still in bed or inside. Outside it is warm with a great breeze. You can sit and watch the river bank slide by with its lush tropical rainforest and wonder about all the exotic creatures who, unseen, are watching us chug past. Very pleasant. An hour of peace and beauty followed by breakfast watching the Amazon and its flora. What could be nicer?

We had to queue for tender tickets to get off the boat, which was a pain. Then we were on deck watching Parintins slide into view. There wasn’t much to it really. It is a small town with a pink church and new cathedral. Its claim to fame is this big carnival that it puts on. Thousands flock from all around. It’s like the Woodstock of the jungle. They have a special arena for it called the Bumbodromo and take it very seriously. People descend on the town for the event in June! They sleep anywhere they can – they even hang their hammocks on the beach! The event seems to involve two bulls – a good bull and a bad bull – lots of dancing and huge colourful floats.

So, we hired pedalocabs and set off in the heat! Our pedalo guy had big thick legs and could pedal fast but I think he was glad to have a stop as he showed us the sights. Some were not worth stopping for, but we respected his need. It was bloody hot!

I took a number of photos of the architecture, people and wildlife. There were a number of bright yellow fly-catchers and vultures everywhere, vultures waddling down the street, lurking on buildings – all watching us intently, weighing us up – ready to pounce.

The interesting thing was that the town was adorned with colourful murals – a lot about the bulls. What struck me was that they all seemed to represent the Amazonian Indians and wildlife – that seemed revered while being systematically destroyed. People are strange, muddled and confused.

We stopped at a café for a beer (Liz had a fruit juice – more on that later!). We were at the seafront. There were birds and boats (all hung with hammocks.

then off to a rather obscure warehouse where they made and stored the huge floats used in the carnival. They were in various degrees of dilapidation but were amazing. We spent a happy hour, after bribing the guard to let us in, studying the archaeology of carnival. There were the remains of huge colourful floats with grotesque characters. They could move and were operated like giant puppets as they went through the arena.