Boca da Valeria – it’s all about the picture!

 January 13^th, 2024 - Saturday

Wow, what a lesson in humility.   Boca da Valeria is a small village in Brazil where if you turn your head or blink for too long you would run right past it and not even notice.   The village consists of about 100 residents.   Although it doesn’t happen too often, on the days when the big boats (like ours) come in, it swells to about 300 or so as surrounding villages all come to hopefully benefit from this opportunity to make a Real.  Unfortunately, many of the people selling are children.   We take a tender from our ship, and we dock at a makeshift area which may or may not allow you dry egress from the tender.   It depends on what the river is doing that day.  This river rules the ways of these people.   Case in point, every house is built up on stilts, some as high 10 to 15 feet up.  The “bar” I went to to enjoy my local beer was at least 12 feet above the ground.   With very narrow and erratic steps.   I daresay more than one or two people have found there way to the ground abruptly.   The strange thing is they have one refrigerator, and the beer is very, very cold.  Generator?   

But let me go back.  We get off the boat and make our way off the dock.  There is one path.  No more than 2 or 3 feet wide.   It is a gauntlet.  These kids all line up and they want you to take their pictures, for a price.  Some of them are dressed in native attire, some are holding a creature of some sort ranging from small caimans, baby three-toed sloths, a variety of tropical birds, etc.  Or they will take your hand and if you let them latch on then you have a guide for the rest of the day to show you around their village that if you stood in one spot you could see the whole thing.    On one hand, it’s sad but on the other hand, it is great to interact with them.    

Most of the kids are as cute as molasses, and it is fun to see all the things they show you.   But I fear this might be a major source of income for families and so in some ways the kids may be the family breadwinner.  We were met at the bottom of the very steep stairs of the church by two sisters dressed up, one with a macaw and one with 2 parakeets.  They had been sent across the path by their mom who saw us coming out of the church.  They were adorable and friendly …. The macaw not so much!

A few of the men were dressed in native warrior attire complete with bow and arrow.  Again, for a dollar or so you can stand next to them and gain yet another memory.  I find that these people are proud of who they are.  They most likely have no idea of our western world and probably wouldn’t trade their life with ours.   

  

Another thing the younger older men do is a short 30-minute ride up into some of the tributaries of the Amazon River in these small wooden boats.  The motors on the boats work most of the time but not always.  The motor is on the back of the boat but the propellor is down a shaft about 5 feet away.   They steer with the propellor, and this set up allows them to not get bogged down in the grasses that are in the water.  This boat ride cost us 5 dollars each.   I figure after fuel, time, insurance and boat upkeep they might make a dollar.   In fact, we saw people carrying gas around in two-liter coke jugs.  No idea where it comes from, but they have it.  And I was of course, joking about the insurance…  

 

Other people sell their hand-made arts and crafts.  Vi bought a couple of paintings of parrots from the little-known artist named Eduardo!

Again, the language barriers are real.   I don’t think their schools teach much English, and Portuguese is a difficult language.   Of course, to me they all are.  

One thing I would like to mention is that this stop is referred to as a service call.   This ship off-loads a lot of supplies for the small village, and I am sure it makes a difference for them.   They also let us know that any donations would be given to the people.   I think I could have given them half my things and I wouldn’t miss it.  Of course one of my shirts could probably make about 3 shirts for them.  We didn’t have a long stay on Boca da Valeria today but it was a good stop.  It isn’t my favorite way to help out a village like that but I would say that it makes a difference to them in a good way.

Tomorrow is Manaus - our third port in as many days along the Amazon River.  Thanks for following us on this incredible journey!

 

LeRoy and Vi