Before I start with Manaus, yesterday we visited a tiny isolated village along the river called Boca Da Valeria. There are thousands of these along the river, and every time we pass one everyone runs out and waves at us. The people that live here are called ribeirinhos or river dwellers and they live off the resources of the rainforest and the river. There were only a dozen or so modest wooden homes in the town, and a tiny school. There wasn't a lot to see here, but this was the real Brazil, nothing designed to entertain tourists here. You could tell that the boat had passed through this town quite a few times before, they all had monkeys and birds, and there was even a capybara, the worlds largest rodent ready for us. The reason
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