Manaus: Part One - "Welcome to the Jungle..........."

I am of the belief that travelling to Brazil and not going to see the Amazon, both the river and the forest, would be a crime, so I made sure to tack on an extra few days to fly to Manaus, the capital of the Amazonus region. We had an early start from Rio de Janeiro and a 4 hour flight to reach hot & humid Manaus, and we were standing in the lobby of our hotel before 11am, which was too early as our rooms would not be ready until 2pm. As it turned out, the rooms were ready early but we killed some time eating breakfast and hanging out at the pool. We had decided that the rest of the day would be turned over to rest and relaxation, to make up in some small way for the unreasonably early departure from Rio. As it was, Fiona and I laid around for a while before taking a walk to the nearby shopping centre to confirm what we had already thought, which was shopping centres are so generic these days, we could have been anywhere in the world...!! Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to have a bright, modern and generic ‘mall’ right on our doorstep, especially as it was air conditioned to about the same temperature as a fridge, and we even  spotted some sit-down restaurants off the food court that we used for a spot of dinner later in the day.

Our plan for our time in Manaus was to book up some tours, either a couple of single day tours or a multi-day jungle adventure tour, and I had done some serious research and found a couple of highly regarded tour operators, so next morning we went into town to check them out. We got a taxi to the famous Amazonian Theatre, a full sized Opera House built in 1896 by the rubber barons of the day, as part of their ambition to build a ‘Paris-in-the-Jungle’. The building is a very imposing one and must have been quite a sight back then when it was surrounded by jungle, but with the encroachment of modernity, it now sits in the middle of a bustling city of 2 million people. We sat in the cafe and had a little breakfast before going of a guided tour of this majestic old building, which is still used regularly, with its own film and theatre festival and a full opera season. It was as impressive from the inside as it was from the outside, and it was unfortunate that there was nothing scheduled to be performed there during the 5 days we had in Manaus, as it would have been great to attend something. I came away wondering how much it must have cost to cart all the Italian Marble, Venetian glass and gold plating, 1500kms up the Amazon river to build such an edifice, there must have been some serious money in rubber towards the end of the 19^th century.

The tour operators I wanted to check out were just down the road from the theatre, so we trooped down there in the 30 degree heat, to see what they could offer us, luckily they had air conditioning....! We chatted with a very nice guy about a handful of options, and instead of us making a decision there and then, we decided to go and have lunch to talk over the various possibilities. We found an awesome restaurant with seats outside, with a commanding view of the Amazonia Theatre, where I enjoyed a very delicious local ‘Tambqui’ fish dish, which as usual was probably big enough for all 3 of us. By the time we finished lunch and had made our minds up on what tours we wanted to do, it was really hot, and I mean hot, and we made our way back to the tour operator via any shop with air conditioning we could find. We had decided to do 2 single day tours, the first one the following day, Tuesday, was a jungle trek into the forest about

120kms north of Manaus to see some caves and waterfalls. The second tour we wanted was a full day on the Amazon River which included a whole variety of different experiences, which we wanted to do on the Thursday but we would have to wait to see if there was availability. This would give us a day off in between to chill out and lounge by the pool, and another relaxation day on Friday, before we left very early on Saturday morning to start the trip home. We went back to the hotel and met up on the roof just before sunset for our new tradition of watching the sun go down with a few bears in our hands. An Amazonian sunset did not disappoint.

Next morning we were up bright and early for our pick up at the hotel and our day of jungle hiking. We met Christine, the girl we had booked the tours with, who was leading the tour and proceed to head out to pick up another group, a very nice family from Sao Paulo. The 120km drive was quite long, and I was looking forward to stretching my legs when we got out of the bus, linked up with our local barefooted guide, Clemenza, and made ready to enter the forest in my hiking boots and long-sleeve t-shirt. We went through the usual instructions about the dangers of the forest, about brushing up against things, about biting insects and slippery paths, and made our way out of the direct sunlight into the seemingly cool shade of the forest. I soon realised that while it was significantly cooler under the

shade of the canopy, it was also a darn sight more humid in there to, and everything was dripping with water. We travelled in for about 20 minutes with the guides pointing out interesting flora and fauna before we came to the top of a slope, and were told to tread very carefully as it was very slippery. Within about 2 minutes of starting down the slope, I became the first casualty of the day as my boot slipped on some muddy leaves, and I fell and landed on a tree root using my arse as cushion.... Ouch..! I was not too worried about the fall, I was more worried about the legions of biting ants that were all over the place. Christina had taken great delight in telling us about an ant variety whose name translated into the ’24-hour ant’, because the bite was extremely painful and lasted for 24 hours. I sure as heck did not wasn’t a stream of them walking up the leg of my shorts on their way to my crutch as I sat on the path, so I was up and scrabbling down the slippery path before you could say ‘ants-in-your-pants’.  

We eventually arrived at a shallow river that ran at the bottom of the slope, which came out of an impressive cave in the side of a 50 foot escarpment. We soon had our shoes and socks off and we were wading into the cave that had been sculpted out of the sandstone over many thousands of years, on the slightly prickly gravel of the river bed. As we moved into the cave and light faded, Clemenza put on her touch and we progressed even further into the cave system, stopping only to point out the bat colonies that made the cave roof their home. Once we were deep enough inside the torch was turned off and it was of course absolutely pitch black, it was only then could you occasionally feel the bats flying around our heads, creepy..... We retraced our tracks back to the cave entrance and then proceeded to continue to wade along the river under the cliff face, over boulders and between trees, until we came to a spot where a waterfall pouring off the top of the cliff into a

series of small pools had created a natural amphitheatre. Spectacular....  At this point I pretty much soaked to the skin from sweat and the waterfall and was feeling pretty tired, so I was glad that we stayed at this spot for a while to enjoy the cool water and paddle about the pools. I should have realised then that in order to get back to the starting point of the hike would involve a long slow climb, but for some reason I just imagined we would climb up from the river and be back at the bus. Boy was I wrong.... It was a long slow slog uphill in blistering humidity, so much so I started sweating in places that I didn’t know I had places...!! I decided that if barefoot was good enough for the guide then it was good enough for me, and I proceeded up the track like ‘George-of-the-Jungle’. Look at me I thought, a scruffy headed boy from a

council estate in Kent, walking barefoot in the Amazon jungle, who would have guessed...? This did not last long as I soon discovered the joy of the biting ants, fortunately not the ’24-hour variety’, but painful none the less, and I soon stopped to put my boots on again. We walked for what seemed like hours, (probably not more than one), and I imagined that at the top of each rise the forest would open up and I would see the bus, but the forest seemed to go on forever. Eventually we did resurface on the road and I was glad to finally see the bus and it’s welcoming air conditioning, as I was very overheated and completely knackered. Funnily enough, neither Fiona nor Yates seemed as tired as I was, but this was all soon forgotten as we headed off for a late lunch and a fist full of beers.

The remainder of the afternoon was taken up visiting another much more ferocious set of waterfalls that must have tumbled about 100 feet down a series of ledges and troughs, before turning into a deep river in which people could swim if they were so inclined. I was far too tired to do any swimming but both Fiona & Yates took the opportunity to splash about in the cool and fast moving water, whilst I watched from the sensible comfort of a plastic garden chair.  It was about 5pm when we hit the road to get back to Manaus and I think everyone was satisfyingly fatigued with the days activities, which had been a lot of fun, if maybe a bit tiring for this old man.  We were back at the hotel around 7pm where we freshened up before planning to head out for some food. It was only then, when I came out of the shower, that Fiona spotted the enormous great bruise on my arse from my fall on the slippery path earlier in the day, I had not even felt it, which was quite amazing considering both the colour and size...! At this point my body waved a white flag and I surrendered to the comfort of room service and a warm bed to nurse my injuries and get some well earned rest.

Wednesday 23^rd July was scheduled to be a rest day for us all, but it was also Fiona’s Birthday, and therefore we had a birthday breakfast in the hotel before doing a little wandering and shopping in the local area. Yates had very kindly brought a small cake and some candles, and between us we lured Fiona on to the roof on the pretence of watching the sunset, and surprised her with a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’, cake and beer. What else could a girl want...? We also then proceeded to go out for a slap up meal at a fancy

fish restaurant nearby, where we enjoyed cocktails, some fine food, a bottle of Argentinian Chardonnay, and rounded off nicely with some port and more cake back in the hotel.  Happy Birthday darling...............

In part 2, our day trip up the River Amazon .....