Airlines Penta, Trav. 15 de Novembro 183 T93/3523-4004; Tavaj, corner of Rua Floriano Peixoto with Travessa S. Lemos T93/3523-1600.
Banks and exchange Changing cash is a problem in Santarém. None of the banks changes foreign currency. But there are HSBC and Banco do Brasil cash machines which take foreign plastic on Mendonça Furtado in the […]

You’ll find many of Santarém’s restaurants along the waterfront, but the city’s side streets are also a good hunting ground, as is the beach at Maracanã. As you’d expect, fish is the main cuisine. For delicious home-made ice cream using regional fruits, go to Nido on Mendonça Furtado between Assis Vasconcelos and 2 de […]

One thing definitely worth bearing in mind if you are swimming anywhere in the Amazon is that piranhas and stingrays (raia) are common. Piranhas are actually much less of a problem than you would expect. Forget any films you have seen; they don’t attack in shoals, prefer still water to currents and no death […]

Santarém is a busy port, serving river communities for over 300km around as well as operating long-distance services to Manaus and Belém. Boats to and from Manaus and Belém arrive and leave most days: the journey time is two to three days in either direction and the cost can vary, so it’s worth shopping […]

Thirty kilometres east of Santarém, more easily accessible by river than by road, is a nineteenth-century sugar plantation called Taperinha. In an excavation there in 1991, American archeologist Anna Roosevelt unearthed decorated pottery almost 10,000 years old – twice as old as the oldest ceramics found anywhere in the Americas. This suggests that the […]

Around 700km west of Belém – but closer to 800 as the river flows – SANTARÉM is the first significant stop on the journey up the Amazon, a small city of around 130,000 people, which still makes it the fourth largest in the Brazilian Amazon. Agreeable and rather laid-back, it feels more like a […]