Snow Angels of the Caribbean

Yes, it is November 

After sailing north from Devil’s Island with a stop in Bridgetown for a spot of shopping at Cricket Legends of Barbados, we arrived in Martinique for a day of snorkeling. 

It didn’t disappoint when we dropped anchor at the snorkelling location - azure waters were lapping up on a quiet beach scattered with colourful fishing boats lying to one side on the sand.  The tropical rainforest that swept up the mountainous hillsides beyond the beach was green in the extreme, providing a picture perfect contrast to the bright blue water. 

Into the water we go ...

Taking a break from observing the underwater world we floated on our backs with our arms and legs outstretched relishing the warmth.  

The thought of winter weather at home made us feel like Caribbean snow angels (pardon the oxymoron) as we bobbed in the salty water.

The Bat Cave

Moving on to the next snorkeling location we jumped into deeper water and swam into "the bat cave".

Creepy though it sounds, we were amazed at the noise coming from the darker alcoves within the cave.

Occasionally an errant bat relocated itself amongst the masses with much flapping and squabbling.  The bats didn’t seem particularly bothered by our presence.  Meanwhile, underwater, shoals of Sergeant Major fish darted to the right and left of us, the sun catching their beautiful silver, black and yellow markings in the shimmering water.

The Baths

And then it was on to the British Virgin Islands and a stop at Virgin Gorda - the Naked Virgin.  So named by Columbus because he thought the Island’s outline appeared to resemble a naked woman lying on her side.  Obviously a sailor who had spent way too much time at sea. 

Today the focus of our attention was The Baths and it didn’t disappoint. 

Walking through the rock formations

The golden sand was lapped energetically by a strong tide that crashed over haphazardly shaped rocks and boulders.  The water was heavenly.  We clambered through the narrow gaps between the massive boulders until we reached Devil’s Cave and watched in awe as the tide swept into tunnels and grottoes created by the rock formations.

A snow angel

Daylight poked through here and there. The sun created a momentary sparkle on the water before it disappeared into the dark recesses of the tidal pools.  Knee deep in water, we hauled ourselves over the rocks with the aid of a rope that had been attached to the rock face.  The trek continued, up and down, in and out of the rocks until we reached another beach area, equally as attractive as the first.

Another snow angel

And then it was on to our final port of call in the Dominican Republic.  A small group of us enjoyed a catamaran ride to Catalina Island for snorkelling.

The water was deep and the waves a little too strong to really enjoy the underworld today and once the seawater made its way into my snorkel it was time to jump back on board the cat.

"I am SO happy" she kept saying

Its amazing how a good rum punch can alter the mood of things.  Sitting in the forward netting of the catamaran with the waves lapping below and full sail above, many stories were shared of our last three weeks together on our journey to the Amazon. 

The islands and many beach breaks going to and from the Amazon had provided the perfect contrast on our trip.  But now the time had come to go home and be real snow angels.

The Ghosts of Devil’s Island

Six miles off the coast of French Guiana lie three islands, one being the notorious Devil’s Island.  Two other islands make up the group.  What they have in common is the fact that all three islands served as Napoleon’s penal colony for close to a hundred years.

Unwelcoming shores

A passing shower

Sounds from the tropical undergrowth and the crashing surf provided a dramatic backdrop for our walk in the oppressive heat, briefly interrupted by a tropical downpour.


We took refuge under the eaves of a decaying building as the skies darkened and heavy raindrops began to fall, unevenly at first and then in torrents.  After a few minutes the sun’s rays attempted to restore what had been a bright morning, peeking through the palms and creating a silvery glow over the newly formed pools of water and decaying foliage strewn across the path.  

Sun breaks through the canopy

As we walked the pathway around the perimeter of Ile de Royale, one of three islands in the group, we noticed the many rocks and stones that had been carefully placed to pave the way.  Handiwork of the island’s unwilling residents.

With a little help from Hollywood ("Papillion"), it wasn’t difficult to imagine what life must have been like for the guests of the French Government interned on Devil’s Island.

Making a meal of it

We continued our walk, amused by a chicken who pecked his way enthusiastically at the white meat from within a fallen coconut.  He applied his claws with precision to position the shell, every last shred of coconut would be consumed.

Taking a sweaty break

Leafcutter ants worked in armies, transporting their quarry back to the nest. Sandpiper-like birds hunted on the rocks, retreating deftly as the incoming waves crashed on the beach bringing fresh foraging opportunities.

Grooming the rocks

The trail narrowed and became more challenging particularly when we came face to face with a fallen tree blocking the path.  Carefully be clambered over its trunk and through its branches until we returned to the spot where our walk had begun.

The cells

Just Pretending

Our attention turned to the various buildings on the island, the purpose of which was unclear in many cases. The French language signage was oblique at best in its explanations but when we came upon the decaying prison complex its purpose could not be mistaken.  

Visions of scenes from Papillion came to mind as we walked through the crumbling cell blocks with their rusting barred windows.  

True or false in reality, I exhaled a silent cheer as I had a mental imagine of Steve McQueen successfully leaving the island on the seventh wave using his contraption of coconut shells and palm leaves to float to freedom.

Steamy, Rhythmic Parintins

Sea Scout salutes in welcome

What better way to end our time in Brazil than by visiting Parintins, a vibrant town on the forested island group of Tupinambarana, our final stop on the Amazon River before turning out to sea and north to Devil’s Island in French Guyana.

We were welcomed by the town’s sea scouts, who directed us, smiled broadly and saluted importantly as they posed for photographs. 

The humidity hit like us like a brick as we stepped ashore.

Colourful kiosks

The townspeople had set up kiosks near the harbour with beautiful hand-crafted jewellery, wooden boxes and showy feathered headdresses.

The latter was significant.

Decorated buildings showcasing
the annual Boi Bumba festival 

During the summer months Parintins hosts a spectacular Boi Bumba festival and the town becomes a magnet for surrounding communities as far away as Manaus, 420 kilometres away. 

The festival is rooted in an 86 year rivalry between two groups - the Garantido and the Caprichoso - and this rivalry is intense.

The Boi Bumba Stadium

The costumes are exotic and showy, with the event taking place in a 35,000 seat stadium, a rival to Rio’s Carnival - a Boi Bumbadrome perhaps?

Despite the intense heat and humidity we managed to see all the sites - thanks to the enterprising pedicab drivers who waited at the pier with their covered conveyances.  Our driver drove us all through town, past the local school whose blue-uniformed students waved as we passed. 

Colourful Churchyard

On to the Cathedral Nossa Senhora de Carmo and its impressive churchyard.  I mention this with care.  Despite being a final resting place, each tomb is brightly decorated with real and artificial flowers, giving it a feeling of Carnival.  The dead are certainly not forgotten.

Parintins Pedicab

We felt sorry for our cyclist though.  He was a small man.  At times we felt as though we should have helped him push his load up the many inclines of Parintins, although we did cling together a little tightly on the downhill as the rickety pedicab lurched and shuddered over the town‘s open storm drains. 

Nevertheless, passing decorated homes and businesses, it was clear Parintins is a vibrant town that revolves around the annual Boi Bumba festival.

Preparing for a mini Boi Bumba Show

And what a pleasure to at least imagine being part of the parade in June when the throngs bedecked in skimpy costumes adorned with colourful feathers, move rhythmically through the streets, the feathers providing at least some relief from the relentless Brazilian humidity.

Muddy Waters - Negro and Solimoes Cocktail

Sentinel in the marshland

Leaving Manaus we made our way into Lake January by motorized canoe from the Negro river.

Egret makes an elegant landing

We were fortunate because water levels had been so low the previous month that access would have been impossible had it not been for recent heavy rains.

The early rains had provided just enough water in the channels for us to observe bird life as we traversed the marshy shoreline.

Tipsy house

Houses built on crude wooden booms sat drunkenly in the shallow waters, in anticipation of the heavy inflows to come.

The rainy season was not far off.

Even though it was not the best season in which to view them, we admired some remaining giant water lilies in the lake - Victoria Amazonica.

Victoria Amazonica

The plants have huge leaves measuring up to six feet across in some cases.

The leaves are also extremely thin and lightweight, floating delicately like a canopy on the water.

Comparing the waters

Heading south on the Rio Negro, we had another opportunity to view the meeting of the waters. 

This particular meeting is significant because the point at which the lighter waters of the Rio Negro meets the muddy waters of the Solimoes marks the official starting point of the Amazon River.


The water from each river runs side by side for several miles before merging - velocity, temperature and pH levels the reason for the phenomenon.

Returning to Manaus all manner of colourful boats swayed lazily up and down in the water, many slung with hammocks for passengers making overnight trips up or down river.  

Manaus fishing boats

Fishers compared notes over the day’s catch, congregating noisily in the nearby fish market.

And then we had a chance sighting of the beautiful pink Amazon dolphin - several were playing in the water near the fishers.  While it was only a brief glimpse, their pink bodies contrasted dramatically with the river water.

And then they were gone.

Teatro Amazonas - Culture in the Jungle

Teatro Amazonas

You know it's there but until you are standing in front of it, its hard to believe your eyes.  

Manaus’s Teatro Amazonas with its golden dome was constructed at the height of the rubber boom in 1882.  

Golden dome sparkles in the sun

This remote town in the middle of the continent was at one time the richest city in the world, sophisticated and cultured. The city is reputed to have had electricity long before many European cities, with street lighting and tram lines.

No expense was spared to make the Opera House, the city's centrepiece, the grandest in the New World. Wrought iron staircases were brought from England, intricate chandeliers from France, marble and Murano glass from Italy.

Inlaid wood flooring in the auditorium

While the floors were fashioned from Brazilian wood, the wood was sent to Europe to be carved and polished.

Standing in the Porte Cochere we allowed our imaginations to run wild briefly as we visualized the horse drawn carriages arriving with Manaus’s wealthy residents, elegantly dressed for a performance at the Opera House.

What a life it must have been for the privileged, that is, until Manaus lost its monopoly on rubber production.

Gilded balconies

When the rubber boom collapsed, Manaus's opulent times came to an abrupt end. The Opera House fell into disrepair and languished. The auditorium was used for storage. Football is said to have been played on the stage!

Over the years many attempts were made to restore the building to its former splendour but it wasn’t until 1990 when work was finally completed.

The royal box

The region’s Governor is reputed to have set aside a substantial amount of money to equip a professional orchestra, choir and ballet school, all this despite the glaring need for infrastructure improvements within the City itself.

Intricate ceilings and chandeliers

We wondered what today's residents of Manaus thought about it all.

There was no way of telling as people rushed this way and that, going about their daily business.

Manaus: City of Past Glories

The good ship "Lima"

Other than a moderate swarm of bees that had taken up residence on the underside of one of the sun loungers, we had arrived in Manaus unscathed from a profusion of insect visitors on our 900 mile cruise up the Amazon River.  The interlopers generally came by night and it was imperative to leave veranda lights off during the evening hours to avoid a deluge of exotica clinging to the windowpanes in the morning.

Stilted houses highlight the Amazon's
low water levels in November

The manufacturing, oil refining and fishing centre of Manaus has an intriguing history - colonized by the Portuguese in the 1600s, its heyday came when the commercial value of latex was discovered and the era of the rubber barons was born. Opulent buildings were constructed with materials imported from the far reaches of the empires of the various colonial powers who arrived in force to take advantage of the economic boom.

Unfortunately the rubber resource was not well managed - trees were planted too close together and the plantations eventually floundered.  Seedlings were smuggled by the British and taken to Kew Gardens in London and eventually transplanted in what is now Singapore and Malaysia where labour and transportation costs were more attractive. We have it on good authority that the 11 original descendant trees stand in Singapore's Botanical Gardens.

After a period of excess and opulence Manaus’s good times were coming to an end and the eventual discovery of synthetic rubber provided the final nail in its coffin.  The rubber boom was over.

Crumbling facades of a glorious past

The fine old buildings of Manaus’s boom times are still evident, notably the famous Opera House.  Many though have been reduced to crumbling facades, some softened by creeping ivy that over the years has used rusting window and door decorations as support.


Wandering through Manaus's main streets we negotiated the disintegrating infrastructure of uneven sidewalks and gaping potholes.  Street vendors occupied either side of the narrow roadways selling everything from fast food to racy underwear while loud music bellowed, horns honked and vehicles belched their emissions.  

Busy street market

In the midst of it all stood the cathedral.  Nearby, a massive paper mache Father Christmas occupied a street corner.   Seasonal music blasted from within its hollow structure, competing with all the street noise. The humidity was palpable despite a healthy breeze and overcast skies.  Santa's heavy red suit and its fur trimmings felt completely out of place.

Fruit drink stand selling
highly caffeinated Guarana 

We negotiated the busy streets, darting between cars, buses and scooters, eventually taking refuge in a vestige from our youth when we lived in the UK - a C+A store. The store’s air conditioning provided welcome relief while our eyebrows raised at the sight of more risque underwear ... there did seem to be a high proportion of undergarments in the store compared to other merchandise on sale!

Tourist police armed with serious weaponry watched the proceedings while military and civil police watched them.  All this was being observed by a kettle of vultures hovering overhead, circling in search of fish abandoned on the shoreline by receding water levels.  The rainy season was about to begin and the stilted buildings and floating docks would soon be put to the test.

No matter, we had plenty of time another day to visit the opulent Opera House with its marble edifice, intricate paintings and chandeliers of Murano glass, all echoing Manaus’s glorious past.

Amazing Amazonas

A chatty Toucan

To say the Amazon rainforest is big doesn’t do it justice.  Two-thirds the size of the United States, the forest stretches over nine South American countries, the largest portion within Brazil.  The Amazon basin provides the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth and the Amazon River, fed by countless tributaries on its journey from its source in Peru not that far from Machu Picchu to the Atlantic Ocean stretches over a meandering 4000 miles.

The river enters the Atlantic in a massive, fast-flowing estuary - its muddy waters colouring the ocean up to 150 miles beyond the Amazon’s mouth.  During the rainy season vast areas of the rainforest are flooded - the difference in water levels between wet and dry seasons can equal the height of an eight storey building.

A posing Macaw

The Amazon Basin is home to 200 indigenous tribes, over 300 species of mammal, countless species of insects, thousands of freshwater fish, tens of thousands of trees and other plant species.  The more well known animal residents include the jaguar, tapir, sloth, vampire bat, macaw, toucan, leafcutter ant, horned frog, caiman, monkeys, anaconda and the dreaded piranha.  How flora and fauna coexist is truly fascinating - for instance the bromeliad holds water in its overlapping leaves providing a micro ecosystem for insects and tiny frogs. 

Who'll blink first

We had come to this area of natural wonder with little knowledge other than the threat to the rainforest’s future.

Our first experience was the rushing torrent of fresh water racing to the sea, the riverbanks barely visible in the distance. 

"Meeting of the Waters"

After several days cruising up river we reached Santarem, located at the junction of the Tapajos and Amazon rivers.  

Here we experienced a phenomenon caused by temperature, pH levels and velocity:  the meeting of the waters where the blue Rio Tapajos flows side by side with the chocolate coloured Amazon for several miles before blending. 

Flesh eating Pirhana Fish

It was exceedingly hot and the skies darkened quickly producing a thunderous downpour that freshened the air, at least for a while.  Entering Maica Lake we observed life along the riverbank and the fishers who were out in force.  A wonderfully camouflaged iguana made its way down from a tree that hung over the water’s edge.  Landing on the course vegetation below, a tethered horse showed its disdain for the interloper and stamped its hooves.  Meanwhile we extended fishing line and bait in the hopes of snaring a pirhana.  We were successful and surprised by the translucent beauty of the pirhana’s markings - that is until our guide opened its mouth to reveal menacing looking triangular-shaped teeth.  Our observation complete, the pirhana was quickly returned to the water.

Dolphin played in the river, although it was hard to tell whether it was the elusive pink dolphin or the more common grey dolphin.

Enquiring eyes

The next day we called in at the fishing village of Boca da Valeria, home to the Caboclos, descendants of Portuguese settlers who have intermarried with indigenous Indians.  The village is located at the junction of the Valeria River as it enters the Amazon.

Shock of colour

The local children were out in force and the humidity was crushing as we stepped ashore.  The villagers had congregated for our arrival, setting up kiosks with arts and crafts, inviting us into their homes while introducing us to some of the rainforest’s residents. 

The toucan in particular seemed to enjoy the attention.  His yellow, black and orange markings - and startling blue eyes - larger than life.

South To The Islands

Gustavia, St. Barts

You couldn’t pick three Caribbean nations more distinct from one another than St. Barts, St. Lucia and Trinidad.  All three have long histories stemming from the influences of the colonizing powers of the day - France, Britain and Spain - but each has gone its own way.

St. Barts, a  French department with its red-roofed, ocean front homes, expensive shops and busy air strip.  St. Lucia, an island of contrasts with a struggling economy that depends heavily on tourism.  The island is strikingly beautiful with its beaches, mountains, sweeping valleys and rain forest - the holy grail being the Pitons in Soufriere.  And Trinidad - rich in oil and gas, with Port of Spain serving as the retail and administrative centre of the island.

We had been blessed with sunshine throughout our island hopping.  On St Barts we drove around the island enjoying the pretty coastline, returning to Gustavia for a leisurely walk along the waterfront, past expensive yachts and closed storefronts. 


It was Sunday and apparently our potential contribution to the local economy was not particularly sought.  We ended our walk at Shell Beach - an attractive cove with millions of shells forming the beachfront.

Castries, St. Lucia

St. Lucia proved to be a somewhat different experience - vendors offered their wares but didn’t seem to mind if we declined.  Instead they pointed out landmarks and asked us where we were from.

St. Lucia fishing village

The drive from Castries to the rain forest followed a narrow winding road, taking us through fishing villages and banana plantations.  The banana crop has fallen on hard times but some entrepreneur has developed a banana ketchup which has quite a following.  

The Pitons

The Pitons of Soufriere are simply spectacular with the added attraction of a nearby volcano that hasn’t erupted in 300 years.  The smell of sulphur  pervades with the changing breezes.  Water and mud bubble ferociously in the volcanic pools as steam rises from the core.

A perfect day in St. Lucia ended with a catamaran trip from Soufriere back to Castries. A warm tropical downpour cooled the air for a while.

A brief downpour in Soufriere

The island of Trinidad is green and mountainous.  A winding drive from Port of Spain north through the rain forest to Maracas Beach provided a golden opportunity to run into the ocean and jump through the waves. 

Maracas Beach, Trinidad

The force of the waves was unsteadying but the sound of the ocean magic.  As one wave ebbed, the sound of crashing ocean was replaced by a chorus of singing birds.

Shark and Bake with all the fixings

The golden sands felt like silk underfoot and before our return to Port of Spain we partook of the local Trinbagonian delicacy - shark and bake - deep fried shark meat on a bun topped with a multitude of toppings - we tried tamarind and garlic sauce with cilantro. The vendor of choice across from the beach - per the locals - Richard's Shark and Bake Shack.


Returning to Port of Spain it was evident that Trinidad’s passion for cricket is alive and well with large grounds in the centre of town. The site is well positioned for cricket enthusiasts at the British Consulate too - the top floor of the Consular building apparently overlooks the grounds.

We had come south to the islands and would now head further south to Brazil and the mouth of the Amazon River.