Today at 10AM we are officially away from the Amazon river and in the Ocean so water can be made again. Everyone is happy.
At 5pm the laundry room became available. Almost instantly the washers were all full and shortly thereafter the dryers were all full. They stayed that way the rest of the day and will remain in use all day tomorrow too. Minimal fighting over the machines except there were unfriendly feelings towards the person that used & started 3 of the 4 washers just before the laundry room officially opened.
We exited the Amazon river and headed north. I’m not sure why we went north again before heading south- my guess is to get to cleaner water so we could once again make water.
We have crossed the equator three times- once north to south to enter Amazon river; once south to north exiting the Amazon river and the last time (for now) north to south to continue to our next stop along the coast of Brazil.
There is a ceremony that occurs to initiate all the folks that crossed the equator via sea for the first time. I decided to participate before I realized it involved kissing a fish and an ice water dunk. I did get a certificate tho. There were probably 20-30 folks that participated.
One item I forgot to mention about the time in the Amazon that a couple of different tours mentioned: Fordlandia. Henry Ford needed lots of rubber to make his cars. The rubber was needed for the tires and belts in the car as well as for the equipment in the factory. He decided to make a town in Brazil that was filled with workers to work in the rubber tree orchard he planted. This town was build near Santerim. It was to be a model town- nice houses, roads, cinemas, swimming pools and stores. Unfortunately the rubber trees did not do well in his orchard. The local parasites & diseases almost immediately killed off all the trees and the town never lived up to it’s promise and became a ghost town.
