Taj Mahal Hotel Manaus

... vicious! We were also treated to an impressive display from a load of grey dolphins who were also fishing near our boat which was amazing!

After dinner we went out caiman spotting in the dark for a couple of hours on the boat. After a number of failed attempts, Herman managed to catch a baby caiman to show us, but he only had half a tail! After that we settled in for our first night in the jungle in the relative luxury of our rustic lodge cabin

... we stopped by the boat to check it
out. It was a classic 3-deck Amazon River boat of about 90 feet in length. The cabin had two bunks and was reasonably clean. The steward agreed to allow us to stay inboard that night even though we weren't leaving until the next morning. With our passage secured and saved from
another night at the Hotel Ideal we were quite happy.

We spent the rest of the day walking around town securing ...

... Le Delta de l'Amazone
Nous proposons plusieurs programmes pour découvrir le delta. Ile de Marajó, Ile de Mexiana, Ville ...

... below.



02/08/09

W e woke up at 5:30 this morning, and hopped in a motor-boat, to go piranha(actually pronounced pee-rah-nya) fishing, and watch the sun come up. It was a gorgeous sun-rise, as was to be expected, and we did pretty well with the piranha, too. Lareina caught 4, though one was too small, and our guide caught 4. I had a ton of bites, but the sneaky *******s would just take my bait and run off. We zoomed our way back to the lodge ...

... jungle´s plant life, as well as play with some native creates -- a long-necked bird, a paca (spelling?), and a boa constrictor. All but the boa was somewhat domesticated. The place is setup quite nicely with a veranda-type open-sided bungalow that was circular so that all of our hammocks radiated from the center out. Thankfully the humidity and heat was much more mild this day, combined with the breeze from the lake, made for our most comfortable night ...

... animals native to the Amazonian region , (So no lions or tigers here!) the highlights were some very loud jaguars ( you could hear their growls from far away) , some very playful capuchin monkeys, some extremly large harpy eagles, and one very, very slow three toed sloth. , we both had a great time at the zoo , shame it was o hot that day , it was almost becoming unbearable, well over 34 degrees plus the humidity, after the zoo, we headed to the market near the riverfornt ...

... though.. I was hoping to see a Puma or Jaguar.. unfortunately our guide, Cobra, who has lived there all his life, has only ever had 3 or 4 sightings of them. He did say in the 1950´s his dad said that you couldn´t go walking by yourself because there were so many you´d most likely get attacked - so that´s pretty sad that the numbers have dwindled that much. On the last hike that we went on, the sky opened up and down poured for the next hour. It was the heaviest rain ...

... land. WE get on this boat excited to see the fall;s, well after the firs haft hour we were all trench, soaked to the Bone, and i have no Chang of close. OH! WELL!, I;m the edit for not lessoning. 3 hour;s latter we stop;d and hiked for 1 hour, be for we got to see the famous fall;s. Their ...

... edible. Just to find out that since it was Sunday, EVERYTHING was closed. ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. I swear! And I was just STARVING, feeling miserable, and walking all over the place, looking for something to eat but without luck. I ended up going back to my hotel, where I was told about a restaurant in 10 minutes walking distance. FINALLY. So I went there, gulped down two glasses of pure, tropical fruit juice which I have no idea what were, and a Coke Zero, along with a ...