Boca de Valeria

		April 23, 2005 - Leaving Manaus, we sailed down the Amazon for a day. Both banks were low with a wall of jungle. A day downstream, we came to a raised area that marked where the Valeria river ended into the Amazon. This is the site of Boca de Valeria. Boca means mouth and Valeria refers to the tributary, the Valeria river that is one of the Amazon feeder rivers.
A dugout canoe. I think these kids learn to paddle before they learn to walk. Every canoe has a bowl to bail.	Several boats tied up under the stern of the ship. Most of the people were just hanging out and staying cool.	The first thing we saw was the villagers paddling out in small boats. We ended up with a small floatilla resting in the shade under our stern.
The mouth of the Valeria river.	The village is on the left bank.	I rode into the village on one of the ships boats. This is the rainy season, so the river comes right up to the village. In the dry season, all this would be exposed. Apparently, the ship had left supplies to rebuild the dock on its trip north. The supplies had been used for other purposes (repairing the roof on the school and church). Thus, before we were allowed ashore crew went ahead and rebuild the dock. Then they had to move the dock because it was still too shallow for the ships tender to be brought in to dock.
Two outlying houses. Even the higher one is on stilts.	There are only about 75 people living in the village, so even limiting us to 200 passangers ashore a time, we swamped the village. All normal activity stopped, and it resulted in something like a holiday.
Houses built on stilts. The large white boat on the right is one of the ships boats, with the dock behind it. The building with the blue stripe at the base is the school, and the church is to its left, partially hidden behind the tree.	Their boat dock. The low structures in front provide shelter for the boats. I don't know what they are used for the dry season. The building in the middle of the picture is a bar.	These two pictures show most of the village. Prior pictures of the Amazon, showed houses built on logs. Here you see the other primary way of building - on stilts. Their idea of a dock is logs laid on onto another. Of course with all the mud and river movement, this was not sufficient for the tourists.
The boat dock seen from the village.	The view down the main walk of the village.	Almost everything is based on the river. The people are very good at dealing with the river in all its different stages. Up the slope a little there are chicken and goat pens.

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