Where the Waters Meet (Manaus)

Member Name: JohnCleese

Product:	Manaus
Date:	20/08/08 (179 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: better than English summer, better than English food, pink dolphins

Disadvantages: worse than English roads, worse than English queues

Last week I have been in Manuas on the business trip. Not the first place that comes to mind when you say Brazil. All my friends were asking about Copacabana, Rio, Sao Paulo, Maracana... I had to disappoint them and say that I haven't enjoyed those attractions (if I exclude 2 hours wait to check in on the next flight at the Sao Paulo airport).

I have to say that I was not so happy knowing that I'll go in the middle of Amazon rainforest, that will spend almost 24h on the way there, that will take quite a few jabs and antimalaria tabs and then spend just a less than a week there without much free time. But since I passed that first obstacle of not so long but very slow queue at the check-in desk in Sao Paulo I have started enjoying Brazil more and more.

Manaus is a capital of Amazonia state and most fascinating thing for me was that there are no roads to the city. It is surrounded by 300-400 miles of Amazon rainforest so it is impossible to build a road. The only way to come to Manaus is by boat or by plane. The city lays on the Rio Negro (black river) just 7 miles from the point where this river meets the Solimoes river to form the Amazon river. These are two huge rivers, I would say 2 miles wide each - and that's just the beginning of the biggest river in the world - Amazon river. (The Nile is apparently a slightly longer river, but the Amazon is the river with the greatest quantity of water.) As the place is just 2-3 degrees south of equator it has 25-30C temperature all the year with humidity of 80-90%. There are two months of rainy season when hard rain falls every day for at least 2-3 hours. It is Decembar/January period.

The city has been established in 1669 and had its golden age in 19th century when latex was traded from nearby rubber plants. There is an Opera house and Mercado Adolfo Lisboa, a miniature copy of the demolished Halles de Paris, built by Gustav Eiffel which are witnesses of a rich era of Manaus. Now there are around 2 million people living in Manaus. The movie Fitzcarraldo was made in the areas around the city.

This is the place where most of the tourist trips to Amazon jungle start so tourist industry is developed as well as telecom and electronics business as it is a trade free zone. You can arrange multi day tours to rainforest, fishing on Amazon river, camel riding (sorry about camel riding - just checking whether you still keep an attention to what you read...)

For the first few days I had no much time for other things but business and my impressions about Brazil and Manaus were mostly through the excellent food. They are famous for their grilled meet. There are plenty of fruits on offer, everything fresh, sweet with many exotic things to taste. I was most impressed with pineapple as it is much sweeter from the ones we eat here. Rivers are rich source of various fishes (including piranhas).

I had a time for a short trip by boat and it was really quite an amazing trip for me. First we saw 'Meeting of the waters'. Rio Negro and Solimoes river are flowing together into Amazon for miles without any mixing of the waters. One river is black and another has muddy colour but because of different densities and speeds they don't mix for quite a long time. You can see distinct line between them. At the same point we saw few dolphins (yes, dolphins in the sweet waters!) which were not very close but were very friendly. The place is known for pink dolphins but we haven't seen them. Then we stopped at few points to make few steps through the jungle, to see famous Amazon water lilies (some of water lilies are so big and strong that man can stand on them - not that I tried as there were few caimans sleeping around them), to see native people showing of Amazon monkeys, snakes and huge Amazon fishes for tourists. Although very touristy it is amazing to see people living in the boathouses where, I would say, there is no need for money. They just catch fishes, pick fruits and swim in the river all day.

On the river we saw huge ocean ships. This is the last point where ocean liners can come on their 1000 miles trip from Atlantic upstream Amazon. I was curious to know how common people travel and I was told that people put their car on ferry, travel 3 days to the closest road and then it takes 4 days by car to Sao Paulo. I would stick to the plane though.
Another big impression was about green areas in the town. In other cities you would see a small park with few trees but not in Manaus. Even if you have a small park greenery is so rich and overgrown that you think it is a small jungle.

I'll stop here before I start talking about nice girls and hot nightlife scene as there won't be an end to this story. If you ask me would I like to go to Rio, Sao Paulo or Manuas next time you know what I would say...
And now for something completely different...

Summary: An amazing place to see