Blogs from Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, South America - page 9

So as I mentioned, we came back from the jungle and after a bite to eat and watching TV with the folks, we had another exhausting bath on the beautiful moonlit beach before climbing into bed (our hammocks above the cliff). To describe the house a little better, it was actually a wooden cabin like most simple homes in the amazon, with a clean cement floor, partitioned into a kitchen, Regi’s room, his sisters’ room, and the parents’ room. The kitchen had no furniture, just a couple shelves and a stove, and the freshly washed plates would be in a large plastic bowl on the floor, as most things were, making it complicated for me to cook, so I usually left it up to Regi or whoever. Regi had just one dresser, and his hammock ... read more

PART 2 - THE JUNGLE POSADA Off we went on the boat to see the “meeting of the waters” where the black Rio Negro, meets the yellow Soa lemoines to form the great river Amazonas. The tour guide only spoke Portuguese and the tourists only English, so as usual I became the official translator- dammit!! I say that these discounts are well deserved!!! It would be too cumbersome to describe all the tourists, but most of them, lovely faces from lovely places, except this one carra de cannon- a girl that couldn’t stop frowning and looking at me with distain- she finally blurted out she was jealous because I spoke 5 languages, and she only spoke 4... my god- get a grip girl! Who the hell cares... It was because I was obviously speaking Portuguese most ... read more

I knew that someway somehow I would get the full Amazonian experience, but I had never planned or imagined the adventure that was to come… PART 1 - THE CITY So after having to change buses twice on my overnight “direct” bus from Boa Vista, I finally arrived in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon; the ancient port city of Manaus, founded about 350 years ago, with its 2 million people scattered randomly in an ill-designed sprawl. Carlos my couch surfing host wasn’t there, which worried me a little but not much. I called him and luckily he was just around the corner. It was a cool 34 degrees in Manaus, which was unusually cold for there, and I suppose an improvement to the 38 in Boa Vista. In the heat of mid morning we made ... read more

Its that time of year again - holiday time and my next adventure involves travelling round Brazil with a couple of side trips to Paraguay and Argentina thrown in. The main areas I will be visiting are the Amazon rainforest near Manaus, then Iguassu Falls, Rio then chilling out on the tropical Island of Ihla Grande. Not sure how often I will be able to update the blog, if not possible during the trip itself will have to complete retrospectively when I get back. My first destination is Manaus in the heart of the Amazon, to get there I flew with Lufthansa via Frankfurt and taking into account the 5 hour stopover this took approx 24 hours to get from Manchester (UK) to Sao Paulo. I then immediately took another flight to Manaus, in total this ... read more

Manaus has put the smile back on our faces :-) There's not much to do in the city itself but it's pretty cool anyway. All around the city is the reason for being here - the Amazon jungle. We're on a 3 day, 2 night trip, and it's awesome !!! It's interesting as soon as you leave the dock in Manaus, two rivers that come from different directions, are different colours (one is black the other a kind of milky coffee light brown), different temperatures, and flow at different speeds join in front of the city, because they're so different they flow side by side and don't mix for a few km's, it's a weird sight. After speedboat, mininbus - a VW combi - the surfer type van (seems they still make them here), and another ... read more