Castries is the capital of St. Lucia with a population of 50,000 of the total for the island of 170,000. We took a taxi tour of Castries and the north end of the island which included some great viewpoints and mountain roads to Pigeon Island in the north. We left the taxi and toured the cathedral and downtown before returning to the ship. This is quite a nice island. Neat and clean with great scenery and plenty of beaches and resorts. Castries has many sho...

Exited the Amazon today. Largest river in the world. In some places it is 23 km. wide. It is hard to get a sense of the size since for the last day we have really been on the Amazon delta which consists of several arms of the river before the ship actually reaches the Atlantic.

Our last stop on the Amazon and in Brazil, Alter do Chao is mainly a beach resort on the Rio Tapajos, a tributary of the Amazon. It primarily serves the residents of nearby Santarem (where we stopped a few days ago) and the odd cruise ship. It only has one resort and several small hotels, since most of the visitors are day-trippers. Lots of bars and handicraft stands. Many beaches with beautiful fine sand. Some of the beaches were partially submerged since...

Parentins is a town of about 100,000 with no road access. It is known for the Boi Bumba festival at the end of June. The festival is a smaller version of Carnival. It depicts a struggle between a mythological blue ox (Caprichoso) and a red ox (Garantido). All the people and businesses in the town are divided between the blue and the red. The parade features flamboyant dances, costumes, floats, singing, dancing and drumming. A 35,000 seat stadium has been b...

Two day stop in Manaus, the major city on the Amazon. It has a population of 1.3 million and is as far up the Amazon as large cruise ships can go. Day one saw the first day of our 50-day cruise (day 40) with a weather issue. We had just reached the port terminal when the skies opened - the heaviest downpour we have experienced since we were in a typhoon in Manila in 1980. Thank goodness we were inside. After an hour we returned to the ship and at 2:30 we tri...