Manaus,
State of Amazonas,
Brazil
Monday, January 5, 2009
There's no evidence to be seen in Manaus of it's wealthy past. During the boom of the rubber trees Manaus was a wealthy city with glorious houses and lives steeped in absolute luxury, to the extent where not only did they import French food & furniture, they also sent their washing to be laundered in France deeming everything French as the best. Now the buildings are in a sorry state of neglect and disrepair and the main attraction is the Teatro Amazonia which still retains it's Italian grandeur as it was refurbished about ten years ago (although we never actually saw it for ourselves, we'll take the book of lies word on this one and other photos we've seen). With a far from friendly welcome at the hostel and a make your own bed, return the linen, towels and key to reception upon check-out, it's definitely 'you get what you pay for' and no service with no smile. An incredibly hot and humid oppressive heat keeps us close to the fan which sounds like it will take off any minute but provides some much needed air flow, that and it keeps the family of mossies moving. As it's Sunday and not even the locals can tell us what is open we managed to stumble across a family run burger bar followed by an ice-cream parlor where you pay by the kilo. We finished up with re-packing our bags to withstand lots of rain for the next 7 nights in the Amazon.
After 7 nights in the Amazon we returned to Manaus needing to desperately get some washing done and plan the next phase in our adventures - where to after Brazil???? As we were heading out to the Pantanal the following day we spent the afternoon catching up with civilization before joining John & Eric, two Americans we met in the Amazon, for dinner at a local Churrascaria (bbq). A superb night with some great Caipirinha's (the cocktail of Brazil) and a roof terrace to relax it was a great note to end our stop-over in Manaus.
