Water shortages in the heat
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2007
1
16
22
Trip End
Sep 14, 2007
Manaus, Brazil
Friday, August 31, 2007
Brazil has become ludicrously expensive since my first visit five years ago. The real has strengthened against just about every currency as the manufacturing sector has boomed. Brazil has little need to import products now, it is largely self sufficient, and as a result it has become an expensive place for a meagre backpacker such as myself.
After a hair-raising bus journey at breakneck speeds through the suburbs of this enormous jungle metropolis, I finally arrived in downtown Manaus, at the dead of night in a dead part of town. I stopped a man in a suit and asked him directions to my hostel.
"Erm, I don't know, I'm not actually from here, I'm from Sao Paolo, but I'll walk you to the main square so you are better orientated". I knew my way from the main square, so I thanked him and got to the hostel.
I arrived at the hostel, run by an aussie expat (they really do get everywhere), and headed out for some Brazilian steak. I hadn't had a good bit of beef since I left Argentina, and was feeling the withdrawal symptoms. I gorged myself with mountains of delicious meat at the local Rodizio (all-you-can-eat buffets where they come round with different cuts on skewers), a little expensive but I hadn't eaten since breakfast.
The following day I headed out to reacquaint myself with this fascinating and bustling city. Manaus was a backwater until the rubber boom of the late nineteenth century when it became one of the wealthiest cities in the world, importing the latest fashion accessories from Europe all the way up the river, buying a corrugated iron market house from Gustave Eiffel's Paris exhibition of 1889, and even building their own enormous, elegant opera house.
Manaus today is a slightly shabby looking, frenetic junglopolis surviving off trade and tourism. However there are still some beautiful parts such as the pedestrianised main square which the opera house towers over, surrounded by Portuguese colonial buildings that are now bars and street cafes: a refreshing place to sit and relax in the oppressive heat and humidity. The port area itself, although very run-down, seems to be slowly being spruced up, with a few bars overlooking the floating port, the beautiful river boats, and the huge, dirty looking Rio Negro (Manaus is not actually on the Amazon proper, it sits 10 kilometres upstream from where the black looking Rio Negro converges with the siltier light brown of the Amazon - an amazing sight as the two colours do not mix, creating a two-tone river for several miles).
Having been hampered by banking problems for the first two days, it was time to head up towards Boa Vista and onto Guyana. The flight home had now been booked - under two weeks left!
