There aren’t many reasons to come to Manaus if you are a traveller looking for adventure. It is a big city, home to over 2 million people who have lots of cars and vans living busy and congested lives a long way from the rest of Western civilisation.
It is hot and humid all year round, has very little in the way of architectural history apart from a few buildings that are the legacy of the Portuguese rule, and it is far off the beaten track so if you are here then it is probably to explore the Amazon.
One unexpected discovery was that Manaus is home to a professional football team called Amazonas FC that is only 6 years old. This is very unusual as most teams count their age in decades and centuries. Apparently, they were formed because Manaus had fallen off the Brazilian football map in recent years, despite it being a World Cup venue in 2014.
By sheer coincidence, they stayed in the Intercity Hotel on the same days as us. It is quite an interesting thing watching a professional football team building up to a game. Strict food consumption, then the team meeting in a conference room the night before and then just generally killing time before they departed for the stadium 2 hours before the game.
To be honest, it looked a very boring lifestyle, but then again, 9-5 in a factory or office is boring as well, but a lot less glamorous if they are selected to play, and they had a nice bus.
Manaus is in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest and is at the convergence of the two monster rivers that form the Amazon. Both rivers are significant in their own right, but when they combine, they create a huge waterway. The Rio Solimoes originate in the Peruvian Andes, whilst the Rio Negro originates in the Colombian jungle thousands of miles away. Everything going on in the city is related to these massive waterways which provide the most efficient transportation system through the surrounding jungle.
The convergence of the two rivers causes a natural phenomenon, “The Meeting of the Waters”, hardly original! The phenomenon is that the rivers converge but don’t mix, one is a dark brown, and the other is a light brown. So, there is a stream of dark water from the Rio Negro, which is slightly denser and colder than the water coming from the Rio Solimoes, which has a light brown coloured water.
We went out in a boat to see the effect, and you can put your hand in the light brown water which is one temperature and 10m away put your hand in the dark water and feel that it is colder.
Apart from the “Meeting of the Waters” we could not really find anything particularly interesting to do as we prepared for our jungle trek. We have seen plenty of old colonial buildings in our travels, so we restricted our activities to using the hotel pool before we headed off into the jungle on our adventure.
We did take time out to visit the Manaus shopping mall in search of some additional trekking supplies, but to be honest, it seems that the jungle trekking industry is not particularly prominent, but we did manage to find a couple of long sleeve tops to prepare of the trip.
We also discovered that Christmas comes early in the Amazon
Leave a Reply