About Santarem

500 miles up the Amazon, American Confederates fleeing the Civil War originally settled in Santarem: even today, O’Malley and Higgins are common surnames!

Today it’s a city of some 150,000 inhabitants, with a bustling harbour full of riverboats and ancient dugout canoes. Around the port, you’ll see huge cargoes of rubber being loaded for export. This is the foundation of the local economy.

Further upstream, you’ll glide through virgin rain forest, enlivened by the calls of monkeys and the songs of exotic birds.