Boca Da Valeria, Brazil

The Boca da Valeria Port in Brazil means “mouth of the Valeria River”; it is where only 100 people live. It is a tiny Indian fishing and trading village where the people sustain a livelihood through tourists’ purchases of their products.  The Amazon Basin Rio da Valeria converge to form this village. Boats are its means of transportation.  The children are dressed up for the tourists to have photos taken of  them and receive payment. They also act as escorts to the visitors.  The village allows visitors to witness the lifestyle and hardship that the residents experience daily.  The river dwellers’ houses are made of wood and built on stilts. There is a church and a school in this remote village.

The Church

The School

When the ship dropped anchor, the canoes and small river boats , full of people suddenly appeared. They had fresh produce and trinkets for sale.  They pulled up along side the ship and spent the whole day there.  Since we were being tendered ashore, there were several canoes that would come along side the tender boats as they were being loaded. The children had jewellery for sale and two boys held sloths inside the window for photos to be taken.

Children with pet sloths

We were advised to bring small things from the ship as payment. We had shampoo, soap, lotion, small jars of honey and jam and the most popular item …. the leftover balloons from my birthday.  All these items were gone in no time!  We had bottles of water which they loved. 

We were adopted by 4 children; one on each hand and away we went to the village. Our 4 little boys were so cute and one of mine spent the whole time repeating my name over and over. He would say it and giggle.  It was so interesting to see their homes, all on stilts because of the rainy season in July. Their gardens in most cases were raised, either on the rooftop or on raised wooden platforms, all covered with mesh.

 Eric with his little children

The village has a power generator and the batteries are replaced on a regular basis by passing riverboats. The houses have lights and deep freezers. Also each home has a satellite dish … they love to watch soccer.  It is interesting to note that since they are located right on the equator, the satellite dishes point directly up.

 Houses with satellite dishes

The families line both sides of the pathway from the dock to the village and they have their children dressed in native costumes and the children also have their pets on hand.  We were able to see caimans, monkeys, turtles, rats and sloths. There were lots of fish in pails of water and many more birds and animals.  All from the local rainforest.

Home with raised garden

3 of our 4 little boys

It was a wonderful day and we took many photos, too many for this blog.

We have enjoyed experiencing life along the Amazon river.  Sometimes the river is quite narrow and next it is several miles wide.  This is the dry season, but in the wet season, the river floods in some places to 30 miles wide.  Riverboats are the only means of transportation and the trip from Malaus to Belim takes 9 days. People bring their hammocks and hang them on the open decks. They sleep all day and party all night.  They arrive hours before the boat is supposed to leave in order to get a good place to hang their hammock.  These people are very social and happy.

Amazon Riverboats

Goods and cars are also put on the riverboats; but most goods are shipped by tankers and barges. Our ship had to change pilots periodically since the pilots have a very specific area they cover. The people in the little villages are very poor, but Brazil is a very wealthy country. The Amazon river consists of many island and it wanders all over the place. We travelled from the mouth of the river to Manaus and went through 3 time zones. It is all rainforest, but we did see “slash and burn” many times.

All for today.  My next blog will be about our 2 days in Manaus … a city of 2,000,000 people in the middle of nowhere!