Parintins, Brazil - Amazon River Town and Home of the Boi Bumba Festival

Parintins is a small town of about 80,000 people on the Amazon River in Brazil, about 350 miles from Manaus. The village is 200 years old and has a rich Indian heritage. Each June, Parintins hosts the famous Boi Bumba Festival, and tens of thousands of visitors pour into the town for the week-long party. Many festival-goers even sleep in hammocks on the boats that carried them to Parintins.

The Boi Bumba is really a friendly competition that started between two Parintins' families prior to 1920. The legend involves a young woman, her husband, a bull, and a happy ending. The Boi Bumba Festival involves a lot of music, dancing, costumes, and huge animal floats. It's all great fun, and we had a special "out of season" sample of the Boi Bumba when we visited Parintins from the Seven Seas Mariner cruise ship.