Posted by Paul Groves on March 6, 2018

Day 62 of 68 – Île Royale/Devil’s Island, French Guiana

Our stop today was at Île Royale. The islands of Île Royale, Île du Diable (“Devils Island”), and Île Saint-Joseph comprise what was once a notoriously brutal penal colony in French Guiana and was the subject of the movie “Papillon” starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.

Île Royale was the main prison and administrative center for the complex. Prisoners who attempted to escape or violated prison rules were sent to solitary confinement cells (total silence and darkness up to months at a time) on Île Saint-Joseph. Île du Diable (“Devils Island”), the most famous of the three, housed political prisoners whose most famous political prisoner was Alfred Dreyfus (“The Dreyfus Affair”). French writer Emile Zola’s letter, “J’Accuse”, revealed the antisemitism of 19th century France, leading to the exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus and legal reforms).

We were only able to tour the remains of the prison complex at Île Royale including, the Governor’s House, chapel, children’s cemetery, and hospital since tourists are not allowed to visit Devil’s Island or Île Saint-Joseph.




Devil’s Island lies a little north of Île Royale. It is surrounded by a rocky coastline, strong cross-currents and shark-infested waters. Landing on the island by boat was so treacherous that prison officials constructed a cable car system to connect the island to Île Royale. They used the cable car for years to travel the 600 ft between the two islands. The stone hut on Devil’s Island is reputed to be where Alfred Dreyfus lived while in confinement.

The prison was finally closed in 1953.

Today Île Royale is home to monkeys, agouti (described as guinea pigs on stilts), and tourists. It is also used as an optical and infrared tracking site for rocket launches from the space facility at the mainland city of Kourou.

Posted by Paul Groves on March 5, 2018

Day 60 – 61 of 68 – Sea Days

We spent one day traveling eastward through the Amazon River back out to the Atlantic Ocean. As I do my daily walk on deck, I see people getting a little nostalgic about the huge bugs that have been floating along with us on this portion of the trip. When we reached the Atlantic, I expected the brown, silty water to change to deep blue seas again, but they did not. I forgot that the Amazon continues out into the Atlantic for fully 200 miles! I also figured that our hot, humid weather was over, but again I was mistaken. I was reminded that we are still in the tropics.

We have crossed the equator multiple times this Voyage, especially traveling on the Amazon. For our last crossing of the equator, the ship’s crew staged a King Neptune ceremony. From what I hear, this is an extremely mild version of what used to happen and/or what happened on military ships. OUR version was held on the Lido deck around the pool. The assistant cruise director was King Neptune (with a Scottish accent) and the Queen (the Captain’s wife) held court as the crew members who were crossing the equator for the first time were brought before them. Ultimately, each crew member had to kiss a codfish (displayed on a nice ice sculpture) and were coated with some sort of slime that looked like pastel-colored cake frosting. The chief officers were in attendance and the tall, thin captain can be seen in my picture.

True to the Amazon’s weather pattern, the sunny skies 20 minutes before the ceremony changed to torrential rain and a driving wind just five minutes later. I had found a terrific viewing spot on the deck above the pool, so I held my ground and got soaked. Luckily, the couple next to me had their umbrella and let me huddle down-wind which protected me somewhat from the worst of the rain. The storm disappeared as quickly as it started and the weather was beautiful by the time the ceremony began!

In the meantime, Ron was in the cabin watching the monitor so he could record our last equator crossing. If you look at the latitude value in the upper left of the screen you can see it change from South to North. Unfortunately, the latitude never showed up as 0.0.

As usual, there were terrific lectures, wonderful entertainment, and art classes. I tried to capture views of the Opera House in Manaus and the interesting bridge that leads from the pier into the town at Alter do Chão.

Posted by Paul Groves on March 3, 2018

Day 59 of 68 – Alter do Chão, Brazil

This is our last port of call in Brazil. It is a tender port which means that the cruise ship is too large or the port is too small to allow us to pull up to the port directly. We use one or more of the ship’s lifeboats to travel to and from the port.

We landed on a small beach and had to cross about 30 feet of sand to reach a dock where we were met by a couple of vendors and a couple of great photo opportunities. To get into town we had to cross the blue and yellow bridge with the intriguing arch wrapped with colored cloth strips.

Alter do Chão is a pleasant town that caters to visitors, especially when the water level in the river is low. We are visiting in the wet season so the higher water level has almost submerged the beaches that gave Alter do Chão its nickname of “the Brazilian Caribbean”.

Walking through the town gave us opportunities to see several of the quaint and inviting hotels. I liked the upper deck with its hammock and promise of cool breezes, the colorful chairs of the cafes, and the collection of rental boats that can be hired to take you to the beaches of “Love Island” (Ilha do Amor), the strip of nearly submerged beach we can see across the water. I thought the fish made from an old tire was particularly clever.

The weather was hot and extremely humid so we stopped for a couple of beers in a local bar/restaurant (to prevent heat stroke) then headed back to the ship and the air conditioning. This was a quiet day and a pleasant visit to Alter do Chão.

Posted by Paul Groves on March 3, 2018

Day 58 of 68 – Parintins, Brazil – Boi Bumbá

Today’s stop in Parintins was for one purpose only: to attend the Boi Bumbá Show. This show is done only for Cruise ships and is a smaller version of a huge festival put on in June of each year.

The celebration in June is held over three days and is the main celebration in this region (think Sturgis, South Dakota). The festival is held in a specially built arena called the Bumbódromo that holds 30,000 people and is divided into two sections for the supporters of each of two teams, the red and the blue. These teams compete to tell one of the local legends using singing, dancing, and amazing floats. Each team changes its show from year to year. The event is partially sponsored by Coca Cola and briefly each year, blue Coke cans are available. Apparently these are rather rare and difficult to find.


Today’s 45-minute show was held in their Convention Center, a renovated warehouse with seating for about 400. We were thrilled by the great music, dancing, colorful costumes, and high-energy performances from the cast the entire time (you get tired just watching them).




Great show!

Posted by Paul Groves on March 3, 2018

Day 57 of 68 – Manaus, Brazil – Day 2

Today’s excursion is a jungle trek. Typically, we meet in the ship’s showroom and when our tour is ready, we board a bus. Today, we boarded a boat and traveled for about 45 minutes across the river.

Manaus is located on the Rio Negro, so called, because the water looks black rather than the brown sediment-laden water of the main Amazon River. We could really see the difference in the water color as we docked on a quiet beach that borders a park owned by a group called Amazon Adventures.

After a short walk inland, we came across several simple buildings and a staircase up into the primary forest. Only 86 steps this time, no problem.

The buildings were on stilts because the water level rises and falls many feet each year. The rainy season begins in December and ends in June. We are visiting halfway through the wet season. The dark area on the trunks of trees as well as the dark area visible near the bottom of the doors of the stilted cabins show the high water level that could be reached in June. This change in water level totally affects the lives of the human inhabitants as well as the plants and animals. For example, the stilted buildings and the fact that some fish lay their eggs in the treetops during high water times.

We were guided by two people, an indigenous guide (in orange) and his sidekick, Pedro. Both men were fun and helpful. The weather for this trek was beautiful, but still warm and humid and everyone was damp with sweat. We sprayed ourselves with insect repellent when we first got off the boat, but the bugs were still rather noticeable. Our guide grew up in the jungle and come to the city when he was 14. He knew a lot about surviving in the jungle and living with nature which permeated his lectures and demonstrations for the two-hour trek.

He showed us a very innocuous-looking tree, but when he rubbed his machete on the trunk, out swarmed a colony of 1.5-inch black ants with poison stings. If you had mistakenly attached your hammock to this tree, these night-active insects would have been a terrible surprise. We saw the liana vine where the poison, curare, can be harvested. We also saw a tarantula as well as an insect that sprays a burning liquid. Nothing was attacking us, but I can see that knowing what to watch for would be vital for survival.

Continuing on our trek, we were shown a white powder that forms from the sap of one tree that can cure headaches. We tasted tea that was made from tree bark and is used to treat malaria and another more pleasant-tasting tea that smelled like cloves that was made from a liana vine and used for stomach problems. Pedro showed us a couple of ways to make fire, how to get fresh water from a different variety of liana vine, and even how to use palm leaves to make fun handicrafts such as headbands/bracelets and a cute grasshopper.

There were interesting termite nests on the sides of trees and beautiful fungi along the trails. We did not see any larger animals or birds, but they would hide when a troop of people trekked through the forest, so we were not surprised. We were shown how to create traps for various animals, however.


All in all, this was one of our favorite excursions. We saw a lot, learned a lot, but it was great to return to the air-conditioned boat for our trip back to the ship.