Manaus

Manaus is a city of over a million people almost 800 miles up the Amazon in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. It’s 300 ft above sea level, our ship has been sailing uphill as we go up the river. We spent a day and a half in Manaus, arriving Friday just before noon and leaving Sunday morning at 8:00 am.

We originally were scheduled to arrive in Manaus early Friday morning. But the water level is low in the river because it is the end of the dry season and there were some sandbars between Santarém and Manaus that the ship was only allowed to cross during the daytime. So we went that far and waited for daylight. The ship has two river pilots on board when on the river and they know and follow the local regulations.

Just 10 miles from Manaus is where the Rio Negro and Amazon rivers meet. The Amazon is very muddy from its long journey here. The Rio Negro is black and more acidic from the rainforest runoff. This prevents mosquitoes from breeding in it’s waters. Manaus is on the Rio Negro. The waters don’t mix right away, so there is a well defined line between the two waters.

Originally the ship was supposed to dock in Manaus, but the floating dock had sunk. It was re-floated, but not repaired enough for our large cruise ship to dock with it. Our captain came ashore and looked at the state of the dock and thought he could have docked there, but the authorities didn’t let him. So this became a tender port. The delay compressed all the ship shore excursions into the afternoon, causing even more demand on the tenders. Several of the tours started out on boats, but they couldn’t dock with the ship, so they took up dock space at the shoreside tender dock, leaving room for only one tender at a time to unload. Our tour left two hours and 15 minutes late, and was already daylight challenged. So our rainforest walk was shortened.

This rainforest walk talked about living in the forest.

The larger animals mostly come out at night, so hunting was done by setting either a snare which caught the animals, or a tripwire crossbow. They showed us simple examples that were not big or powerful.

Or a trip wire that fired a crossbow.

Our guide saw this tarantula as he was walking.

Always more morning insects.

The second day went smoothly. We had a tour of a floating village and the surrounding area. Then went back out to see the meeting of the waters between the Amazon and Rio Negro.

There were numerous birds in the area.

The Amazon giant lily pad (Victoria Amazonia) is the largest lily pad in the world. It blooms at night for two days in a row, the first night is white, the second is a pale pink or purple.

Manaus doesn’t have lots of tourists, so they don’t have a full purpose-built infrastructure. We used this ferry boat with plastic lawn chairs for part of this tour. This boat is normally used for multi-day trips up and down the river. You bring your hammock and hang it on the hooks provided in the ceiling. There is a very small kitchen at the back on the first level. This ferry makes 3-5 day trips up and down the river.

Coming back to Manaus, we passed a number of floating gas stations. This makes sense as there is no way to drive to Manaus, you either fly or take a boat in.

We stayed on shore after our tour the second day and tried to walk around and see the Opera house and cathedrals. We were able to see the outside, but Brazil played soccer in the world cup at 3pm that day and it was being treated like a half day off, with many local businesses closing so they could watch the game. Brazil ended up losing to Cameroon 3 to 1, which didn’t dampen the party afterwards as much as we thought it might. It also rained late in the afternoon.

They did have the area around the opera house decorated for Christmas. I find it numerous that they use the reindeer here in a place were the record low is 53 F, and the average temperature is 82 F.

The ship is also putting up decorations. The kitchen has been hard at work for several days working on this gingerbread village in the central atrium.

This is the turn around point for the cruise, the ship now returns to the Atlantic Ocean with two more stops.