Parintins is located in the Amazon jungle, at the edge of the Amazon River, about 300km by air and about 420km by boat from Manaus City. The town was founded in 1793 and has today about 90 thousand habitants. The place is famous of its main attraction, the folkloric show “Bumba meu Boi”. It is a kind of Carnival that happens every year, normally the last entire weekend in June. This spectacle lasts for 3 days and every night there is a colorful (blue & red) show with lots of adornments, music and dance. The event is inside a special designed stadium, which has a format of a bull head. The demand is very high for this festivity and there are limited to 35 thousand spectators, watching about 10 thousand of participants that present this show.

There are just a few hotels and guest houses in the town and as the place almost double the number of habitants during this event, it comes quite chaotic. There are much more people than the town can support so the hotels are full booked long time before the event and the prices burst all limits, the place comes unreasonable expensive. An option is to joy a chartered cruiser from Manaus, which serves as means of transport and accommodation at the same time.

To go there by air takes about 1hour and by a regular regional boat it takes about 18 hours (Manaus/Parintins) and about 24hours (Parintins/Manaus), as the cruise has to go against the current Amazon River on the way back to Manaus. It exists also faster river boats that may take about 8 hours. To go by air is without doubts the most convenient way of travel. The faster river boats has similar comfort to a coach and to go by the regional river cruisers, people has to sleep in hammocks.

Buying a “seat” in a regional cruiser boat, one can choose to stay at the 2nd class (more noisy close to the engine), the 1st class (more quite upper floor) or in a “camarote” (a private cabin for two). The travelers have to bring their own hammock (not included in the price) and in the cabin there are two beds with clothes (no private bathroom). It is also possible to charter private yachts and cruiser ships of different standards, all depending on the requester’s desires and travel budget. NOTE: During special events in Parintins, the regional cruisers are often overbooked (more passengers than allowed on board), suffer delays and have higher rates of stealing & other criminal actions, whereof Packtours doesn’t recommend travels by these regular cruisers.

The climate is defined at tropical humid with an average temperature varying between 24ºC and 31ºC during the year. Locally they call the period from December to May for winter as it is the rain period with lower temperature, but still warm and humid. From June to November is considered as summer, with very hot (can reach temperatures of 40ºC in the sun), sunny and less rainy weather. During this summer and “dry season” the water level decrease and it appears some river beaches that people enjoy during summer. Near to Paratins there is a small mountain range with the highest peak of 152m above sea level and the town itself is situated 50m above sea level.