Experience the best of Santarém

Santarém stands where the Tapajós flows into the Amazon, roughly midway between Belém and Manaus. Off the waterfront the two rivers run side by side for a stretch, the Tapajós clear and greenish-blue, the Amazon thick with brown sediment. A Jesuit mission of the seventeenth century grew into a river port, and the Tapajó people who gave the river its name are remembered in museums that show their finely modelled pottery.

Alter do Chão, a village some thirty kilometres to the west, has white river beaches and a curving sandbar on the Tapajós, a shore sometimes called the Caribbean of the Amazon. South of the city the Tapajós National Forest protects tall rainforest along the river. The river is also the main road, with passenger boats slung with hammocks that take days to reach Manaus or Belém.

River fish decide the menu: tucunaré, a peacock bass, grilled whole, and pirarucu and tambaqui served with manioc flour and rice. Tacacá, a hot tucupi-and-shrimp soup sharpened with jambu leaves that tingle the tongue, is sold from street stalls at dusk. The water rises from about January to June and falls afterwards, and low water uncovers the beaches.