As we neared the port of Manaus we passed the famous "meeting of the waters," where the dark, tannic Rio Negro meets the muddy light brown of the Rio Solimões. According to Brazilians, it is here that the river becomes The Amazon.
Though we departed from Santarem four hours late we'd obviously made up some time during the journey as we arrived almost right on time. This gave us a fair bit of time to have a look around the centre of town before heading to our Couchsurfing home. In this time we managed to see most of the prominent tourist attractions in Central Manaus:
The Teatro Amazonas, the Museums in the Palacate Provincial, the Igreja de Matriz and the Igreja Sao Sebastiao. All of these date from Manaus' golden age when it was a booming centre of the rubber trade. They were all constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings, having remained in use for their original functions or converted to museums have weathered the ages quite gracefully. But much of the rest of central Manaus is either filled with either dilapidated buildings from that same era or dilapidated buildings from more modern times. For all that it seemed like a lively place. Hardly surprising, given that it's one of Brazil's most rapidly growing cities.
Around noon we got in touch with our couchsurfing host Balark and made plans to head to his place in the early afternoon. This gave us plenty of time for lunch at a restaurant just around the corner from one of the museums.
We had a similar whole peixe assado (charcoal grilled fish) to the one we'd had on the beach at Alter do Chão. We'd already been told that it was 25 Reais, but I still didn't quite believe that a meal like this which, with all the side dishes could have fed four people, could really be so inexpensive. But lo, it actually was.
We took an Uber to Balark's place (for slightly less than two bus fares would have been!)
We found our way into the condo building and met Balark in his flat. He's about ten years older than me, and lives with his partner Tulio in a very comfy flat on the 11th floor of the building right near the highest point in the city.
Our stay with Balark and Tulio was longer than we'd expected to spend in Manaus, over five days, but was also in almost every way better than we'd expected.
We did, of course, manage to find some touristy-attractions in Manaus beyond what we saw on our first morning.
Many tourists use Manaus as a base for heading out into the Amazon forest. We'd already had our wild jungle experiences, but still had a couple more less remote ones in the immediate environs of the city.
The Bosque da Ciencia (forest of science) is a forested garden of maybe 1km by 500m not too far from Balark and Tulio's. Near the gate are tanks in which Brazilian aquatic mammals swim, including a giant river otter and several Peixe-Boi (the Portuguese name for manatees). Manatees are pretty tough to see in the wild. Big though they are, they often live in cloudy or muddy waters and just barely poke their noses above water when breathing or eating. Even the adults are absolutely adorable. But no doubt the rescued babies in smaller pools just barely visible from the public area of the gardens are even cuter.
Elsewhere in the garden were enclosures for some (big!) caimans. And throughout the woods other native animals roamed freely. We didn't spot any of the capybaras, but did catch sight of (another!) sloth. This one was an especially good sighting, as it was (not entirely surprisingly) asleep, and thus even trickier to spot than a very slow moving but awake example.
Another, much bigger "urban jungle" was the Reserve Florestal Adolpho Ducke. This is an area of 100 square kilometres of wild forest on the north edge of Manaus. Only the southern edge is open to the public, but it was still worth a visit, partly for the trails through the forest and the aquaria, butterfly and orchid houses scattered along them. And more especially for the observation tower that allowed you to climb up through the vertical layers of the forest, from ground level up past the understory and then up above the canopy, giving you a harpy-eagle's eye view out over the treetops stretching off to the horizon.
After our visit to the Reserve we found ourselves conveniently nearby the Cervejaria (brewery) Rio Negro. We'd seen their beer on supermarket shelves a couple of times, but trying it at the brewery bar (albeit with a more limited selection than at the shops) was definitely preferable, partly because not was way cheaper and partly because the delicate styles they make (we tried an okay pilsner and a very good hefeweizen) probably don't deal that well with being transported and sitting on shelves in a tropical climate.
Further eating and drinking out and about at the Mercado Central. The old market was housed in some very pretty prefabricated cast iron buildings (like the Ver o Peso in Belem, but tidied up and touristified even further). But the real action was at the much less attractive but much livelier new market next door (and the new banana market next door to that). Its stalls were piled high with fish straight out of the river, massive piles of Boa Vista watermelons, fresh-salty-funky cheese, limes (25 kilo bags for NZD10... Sometimes in NZ the wedge of lime garnishing your drink in a bar can cost 30 cents on its own!), pineapples, and lots of other fruits and veggies. We also had lunch at a market restaurant, which outdid our first one in Manaus by providing a whole grilled fish, beans rice, farinha (coarsely ground cassava flour) and diced tomatoes for 10 Reais. Under NZD4! Not quite as tasty as the first one, but I still ended up eating there twice (can definitely say that the Tucumari is meatier and tastier fish than the Pacu).
And of course in a town where the theatre is the main tourist attraction, one really ought to go to a show. Conveniently there was a free performance of Chapauzinho Vermelho (Little Red Riding Hood) on our second night in town. We took the bus to the square and arrived around 19:00, not long after dark. The square was buzzing, with a band setting up on an outdoor stage, crowds eating and drinking at the café bars surrounding it, a company of girl/boy scouts forming up in front of the theatre. And one street over there was a political rally going on, with supporters of Fernando Haddad making speeches, singing songs and waving flags and banners in advance of the second round of the presidential election just two days away.
With the crowd came the inevitable street vendors. I had a delicious grilled beef on a stick, while Sarah had freshly fried potato chips and beer.
Back at the theatre, meanwhile, everyone queued up in an orderly fashion and were duly admitted ten at a time. The inside of the theater was pretty cool. The ground floor of orchestra seating was surmounted by four more levels of private boxes, and covered bottom to top by painting, gilding and sculptural embellishment.
We'd little idea what to expect from the show, but it turned out to be great. Far better than I COULD have expected. Simple, but very clever staging used lights and shadows and a mobile metal frame containing only a mirrored glass door were used to fabulous effect. And though the narration was all in Portuguese and the story only roughly followed the traditional story, the acting and dance (especially by the very scary and dark-looking wolf) got the point across perfectly. The only small downside was the constant (and very loud) sniffling, snorting and grunting by the man a few seats over from us, but even this was more humorous than genuinely annoying.
As much as we enjoyed all of this, what really made our stay in Manaus was the time we spent with Balark and Tulio.
Every evening we'd sit and talk about a wide array of subjects. Languages. Habits and food and manners in NZ, Brazil and around the world. The waves of immigration to Brazil and how they'd affected the character of different parts of the country. The differences in the areas of the Amazon region and changes over time (Balark was born and raised in Manaus. And while Tulio was originally from Minas Gerais, he'd spent several years of military service upriver near the Peru-Colombia-Brazil border). They also had practical advice for our onward travels, about where to stop on the way up the river and how to get the best price on boat tickets.
And it wasn't even just them that adopted us. On Saturday night we prepared dinner for our two hosts as well as Balark's mother, Vera and ex-wife, Lucia. It was the eve of the election and thus illegal to sell alcohol after the early evening, so going out to the square near the Teatro for wine and pizza was out. Instead we prepared a Mexican(ish) dinner: Mexican lasagna (I'm still amused/embarassed by how when I first prepared this I thought I was the first one in the world to have done so) with three salsa/salads: tomato, corn and avocado. Plus, of course, drinks in the form of Micheladas (lager with tomato juice, lime, ice, chili sauce and some sort of salty, umami element).
And to return the favour (or, more likely just to be nice), Vera invited us to her birthday party the following day.
Vera was a lively lady for her 78 years. She lived in the building across from her son on the second floor, so shortly after we'd walked out our front door we were beckoned upstairs by the waiting whanau.
When we arrived we were greeted in traditional Brazilian fashion with kisses on the cheeks and hugs. Soon after we had glasses of beer set down in front of us and all of the relatives who spoke any English took a turn with us (with a couple of exceptions... The teenage boy who was too cool/shy and Vera's brother who spoke less English than we did Portuguese but chatted with and entertained us all afternoon).
During one conversation with one of Balark's cousins we learned that she'd moved into a townhouse that regularly ha sloths (and iguanas) appear in the woods across the street. She told us about how excited she got when she saw them after moving in, and how her family quickly tired of being pulled out of bed in the early morning to see (another bloody!) sloth. I think that in similar circumstances Sarah would suffer a similar fate.
And of course we had election results to talk about. The presidential results wouldn't be shown until the final of Brazil's four time zones had voted, but there was plenty of discussion about the gubernatorial results and speculation on the presidential one. And though there was a wide array of opinions about a tremendously polarising election, everyone seemed to get on just fine. (Spoiler alert for those who haven't paid much attention to Brazilian politics... Jair Bolsonaro won a convincing victory. My first inclination would be to decry this as the election of a true neo-fascist. But then Bolsonaro had saved his strongest invictive for homosexuals, and at least one of our thoughtful, openly gay hosts had voted for him. So there are clearly things about Brazilian politics that I don't understand at all).
And of course with a birthday party comes food. I'd spent the morning watching Tulio prepare side dishes (stir fried kale with garlic and orange slices) to go with the main dish that he'd cooked earlier. Feijoada. If Brazil has a national dish, this is it.
Black bean stew with meat, meat and more meat. I'd tried it before, but Tulio's was clearly the champion. It tasted like a stew made of liquified bacon with chunks of more and more bacon inside it. More porky still than the Maniçoba I'd eaten in Belem.
Back at home we spent one more relaxed night. Sarah and I sat out on the balcony for much of it, watching (more hearing, actually) fireworks celebrating a local religious festival and the election results.
Back inside we had an (entirely unnecessary) dinner of leftovers from the previous night while we said our goodbyes to Balark and Tulio.
The next morning we saw Tulio briefly before we headed down to the port. Ignoring his advice we'd decided that we'd stop in the town of Tefé on our way upriver. Balark had made a joke about how in Portuguese Tefé was a pun on Tem Fé (have faith), because that was what was required to live there. As it turned out, that (and more) is what was what would be required to make our plan work. We made inquiry after inquiry with the (thankfully very helpful and friendly) ladies at the port's official ticket office. There seemed to be no easy way to stop anywhere on our journey to Tabatinga. The boats to Tabatinga didn't stop anywhere until after Tefé and no other boats from Manaus went any further than Tefé. (We later learned that we could've gone from Manaus to Tefé, caught a "local" boat from Tefé to Jutai, then caught a Tabatinga boat in Jutai, but this was all hindsight).
So in the end we took the easy option. There was a boat headed straight to Tabatinga in port. True, it didn't leave til noon the next day, but what with our planning and failing and toing and froing it was barely 24 hours til departure. And we could hang our hammocks up straight away, and get all of our supply shopping done.
So we had one last lazy, relaxing afternoon and morning in Manaus. I popped by the market to buy watermelon and cheese and bread and pineapples. And I wandered up and down the stationary district nearby and picked up a pack of coloured pencils for Sarah and a bottle of Cachaça. The next morning Sarah took her turn and collected a notebook to draw in and a second bottle of cachaça (this was to be a week long trip, with no stops at all for the first three days!)
Then on Tuesday at ten past noon, pretty much right on schedule, the Fenix II gave three big toots of her horn and we were off, bound for Tabatinga, some 1700km upriver at the triple border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
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