Cruising down the Amazon
Trip Start
Nov 24, 2005
1
25
Trip End
Nov 24, 2006
Belem,
Brazil
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
In the rubber boom days Manaus was referred to as the Paris of the Amazon due to the wealthy families that came to live there and who subsequently built grand houses, a stunning Opera House called Teatro Amazonas and a market place based on the Les Halles one in Paris. These days the city is a thriving, smoggy metropolis in the middle of the jungle and most of the old architectural delights are in disrepair due to poverty
01. Us on the flight from Guayaquil to Manaus
. Luckily the Teatro Amazonas has been restored and is quite beautiful. The Brazilians love their flag and if you look carefully at the dome of the Teatro you can see a mosaic of it! The market place was also semi restored and it was fascinating to wander around checking out the plethora of fruits, veges and fish that were being sold...there was one fish that was the size of, and looked like, a reef shark! There was a jazz festival held at the Teatro Amazonas while we were there, so one night we holed up at a street bar across from the Teatro and listened to Jazz, drank Antarctica beer (!) and ate these delicious skewers of grilled cheese (it tasted like Haloumi) that are sold by vendors and served with lime! Mmmmmm! Our next plan was to head to a city called Belem, on the Atlantic coast, by river boat. Boat is the main means of transport in this part of the world so the port located on the Rio Negro is an unforgettable hive of activity. As the river rises and falls twenty metres between seasons the dock is floating and there are people everywhere. You have to weave your way between hundreds of dock workers stacking the boats with produce, families getting ready to board boats to places like Tabatinga or Santarem and entrepreneurs standing under umbrellas trying to sell you boat tickets. We negotiated a deal for a boat leaving the next day. As we had all our bags and the surfboards, we decided to get the cheapest cabin instead of having to sleep in a hammock with our bags at our feet
02. The mighty Amazon
. As our boat turned out to be quite small this was a wise choice! Our friendly umbrella entrepreneur promised that by sunset the next day we would be at the meeting of the two rivers, where the "white" Solimoes River meets the "black" Rio Negro and they run alongside each other without mixing for a few miles.After breakfast the next day we headed to the dock excited about our boating adventure. Of course we arrived and were told that the boat wasn't ready yet! We waited on that dock for the next eight hours (luckily we could sit under an umbrella!) not knowing what was going on (as usual) and were repeatedly told soon, soon, tranquilo! He he! Needless to say by the time we boarded the boat it was sunset and when we reached the two rivers we couldn't make out any colour difference with our tiny petzel torches! He he! Luckily we have learnt to not be surprised or bothered when things don't work out as planned and decided that it meant we would have to come back another time to see the rivers meeting!
We settled into our cabin which was to be our home for the next four days. It was great despite the fact we were next to the bar which played two Samba CD's non stop from 7am until midnight at full volume! All part of the experience no doubt but we could have wrestled that CD player and thrown it over board after four days going to sleep and waking up to the same songs!
04. Katie in front of the Manaus Opera House
! The boat trip was a great experience and we spent our days reading or watching the scenery from the top deck. The jungle was very different to what we had seen in the Amazon in Bolivia and we were further away from the bank than we had been in the pampas but it was an interesting contrast. This area is inhabited by Indian descendants and there were settlements all along the banks. Most of the settlements had churches, indicating the spread of Christianity via missionaries, and every house was on stilts. It is tradition for these families to paddle out in their canoes and either catch 'care packages' that are thrown by people on board the boats or lasso the boat and come on board to sell their produce, like Acai or prawns. It was humbling to see these families risk losing their produce just to get on board and sell a little of it. Luckily there was only one close call but due to a young boy's agility his family canoe didn't fall under the river boat and he could sell his prawns.
The sunsets were magical and we met a lot of very interesting people over sunset beers. There was a charismatic Venezuelan who was starting up an eco tourist lodge in some of the oldest rainforest in the world, a fascinating sixty five year old French woman who had traveled everywhere and a Uruguayan man taking photos for a United Nations magazine, so we answered some questions on world peace and posed for a photo!
After four days messing about on the boat, we arrived in Belem and immediately decided to leave the next day. It is a city with a bad reputation and we were warned by the hostel that every third tourist gets mugged
05. Old manaus tram
! It did have a funny vibe but luckily we had a great day and night there! For breakfast we found a bakery that made delicious guava jam scrolls...mmmm! And at night we went out with some of the boat people and stumbled across a free Samba concert! It was fantastic! Pauley and I attempted to dance Samba style and even when it started pouring with rain everyone continued dancing so we had fun dancing in the rain together until the electricity went out! On the way home I found a street stall that was selling tacaca the local prawn soup that I wanted to try as it is a delicacy in the area. Turned out to be one of the strangest things we have both ever eaten and although we told the cooking ladies that it was lovely, once was enough! He he! Next day we bid the jungle farewell and hopped on the 35 hour bus ride to Fortaleza! See you there! 
