One of the oldest cities in the Brazilian Amazon, Santarem
was founded in 1661 as New Santarem, named after the historic city in Portugal.
Located midway between Manaus and Belem in the state of Para, Santarem is an
important regional market center in Lower Amazonia and a popular tourist
destination. A laid back city of approximately 300,000 inhabitants, the area
was once home to the Tapajos Indians, an influential agricultural fiefdom that
flourished before the arrival of the Europeans. The city witnessed many boom
and bust economic cycles revolving around timber, rubber, coffee production and
gold mining. Today the new boom is soybeans. To meet the global demand for
soybeans and to make enormous profits, Brazilian farmers are now clearing vast
tracts of forest south of town. Despite the substantial agricultural
development, Santarem, remains a pleasant city with a wide waterfront
promenade, interesting museums, brightly colored buildings and churches, and
shops selling beautifully made handicrafts. It also retains all the
accoutrements of the Amazon rainforest mystique in the form of tropical
forests, small river lagoons, ponds and two great rivers. Santarem, is where
the murky brownish yellow waters of the Amazon River meet the aquamarine waters
of the Tapajos River. For miles beyond the merging of the rivers, the different
colored waters don’t mix and there’s a very visible dividing between them.
Again, no tour, we just took a shuttle to a square (kind of)
and looked at a church and came back. This town is very similar to the other
Brazilian cities and towns that we have been to. However, it appears that these
on the Amazon are not as dangerous as the other port towns in Brazil that we
visited.
Since we arrived during the day we got some great pictures
on the way in. Notice that one of these is of their floating gas stations,
which they have all up and down the Amazon.
We docked here so need to take a tender to shore nor to take
a shuttle to the port entrance. Notice, I have circled our cabin, right above
lifeboat #2. The picture of the person holding up the 10 is Sherwin, one of our
bartenders. He had been able to go on one of the tours and was the one who held
the sign. It was a piranha fishing tour and he should have the pictures
tonight.
And, we did go to the church and some markets. The cathedral
was much more low key than the ones we had seen before.
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