A Desert in the Amazon

At the end of July, we had a team from New Life Christian Church in Morton IL visit us. Our purpose for this trip: construct a new church building in Canp – a key city a good distance from Santarém. It was also the first time I had a good friend from college visit me down here in Brazil, Jason Duke!

As always, you can click any of these pictures to enter slideshow mode and see them larger. Use your arrow keys to navigate.

From the top deck of the line boat, Joaquim and Dad overlook Santarém

We left Santarém via line boat, or the public transportation of the Amazon Basin. It’s like taking a very slow bus on the water. Make sure to bring your own hammock, so you have somewhere to relax! It’s around a six hour ride down river to Monte Alegre (or “Joyful Hill”). We went right over the wedding of the waters where the blue Tapajós and brown Amazon rivers meet.

The chocolate brown Amazon meets the Carribean cool Tapajós

It was a beautiful trip to see the Amazon, with a number of rainbows appearing and a spectacular sunset over the Amazon River. We arrived in Monte Alegre at nightfall, and the city looked angelic as the sun had already set behind it.