Quality Natal Hotel

After finishing the adventure in Mamiraua we had to stay one night in Tefe before we took the fast boat to MAnaus.
The city was not special and nobody was in the street from 19...but we still had a look arround.

The next day a fast boat in the amazon took us to Manaus back.

... not indigenas simply small villages in the amazon). All visits were done with local guides and biologist which is the perfect combination.
We have seen different monkeys, lots of caimans, lots of birds, sloths etc Every morning we wake up with sounds of monkeys and went to sleep with the noise of caimans (they are arround our floating room). To observe bird we were with local guides and traditional canoes (just to avoid noise)
We also visited ...

... was often smoked as a cigar type thing. We ate barbequed grubs buried in coconut seeds, and palm heart from one of the trees. Ceciliano and Herman made us bracelets from the bark of a particular tree, and crowns from the fronds of a type of palm. They also cut us spears from another type of tree. It was brilliant, but by the time we got back we were knackered and hot, and so went for a swim in the river to cool ...

... the river system, to a more remote part of the jungle. Once our guides had found somewhere suitable looking we set up camp. After an hour or so we had our hammocks up, covered by mosquito nets, under a palm leaf roof! We ate dinner at dusk surrounded by mosquitos, and headed straight to bed after at only 7pm, after seeing what might have been quite a dangerous snake when we were brushing our teeth!

Once we were in our hammocks, Herman told us some ...

... I.e. not eating all the monkeys, turtles and selling all the caimans skins). We then had around an hour to shower and relax before lunch, followed by a long siesta. During the heat of the day the animals all hibernate so there's no much happening till after 3.30pm. The afternoons we either enjoyed canoeing down the river which is so peaceful it's an ideal way to enjoy and spot wildlife - except when it's raining and it seemed to like down pouring a lot in the late afternoons. Otherwise ...

... The sounds really make an impression: the loud splashes of the enormous Picarucu fish (largest freshwater fish in world - up to 3 meters) which regularly have to leap out of the water to get oxygen in the dry season, the haunting cries of the howler monkeys (which sound like a combination of a howling gale and noises of dynosaurs fighting in a horror movie), the incredible variety of bird calls, the scratches, squeeks and russles of the ...

I have been dreaming of visiting the Amazon jungle for so long that it did not quite feel real when we booked our 4 day trip. We decided on a tour company that worked in the area of Juma lake as it is meant to be replete with wildlife. We decided on Iguana tours and got really lucky as our guide, Alan, was very knowledgeable on everything including the birds. We were taken from the hotel to the port in a old Volksie minibus. They are everywhere in Manaus, every tour operator ...

... spreading our **** around underneath us, but morning gave way to mid-day with more and more people arriving. Then we stopped at another embarkation point that evening, and more people came on board, each with their hammocks, bags, goods, and children. (Since there are virtually no roads in the Amazon, the rivers are the means to travel). The hammocks became more and more crammed in and intertwined until, by that night, I had ...

... store. As it turns out, our worries were unnecessary as we had two delicious meals on the boat. For anybody who likes nature and wildlife, we highly recommend a visit to the Uakari Floating Lodge at the Mamiraua Sustainable Development Reserve. The reserve is unique in that local river communities continue to live and work on the land while the environment is preserved. We stayed in the ...

... me off, as if he already knows what I am going to say, but then when I ask him if he knows what I am talking about he says no. I don´t understand why he can´t wait until the end of the sentence to give the agreeable comment. I don´t know if this makes sense to you guys, but it is really annoying. Most people will wait until you finish a sentence and then say `uh huh´ but he does it while you´re talking. Anyways, it drives me crazy ...