Finished a nine hour day of travel last night. Descending into Manaus for landing was very pretty. It was dark outside and looking down I could see the lights of the city sparkling and flashing like fireflies. I don’t know why they were doing this, trees, air currents? Whatever, it seemed almost magical. We stepped out of the airport and into a very humid Manaus in the Brazilian state of Amazonia. My backpack actually felt moist as I picked it up off of the baggage carousel. It is around 90 degrees here and the humidity makes it feel like being in a sauna. Because we got into town late, after 11:00PM, most of the town was shut down but Kevin and I walked around to check things out and found an open air patio restaurant. We sat down to eat. I have to mention that the streets here have a much safer feeling than Salvador’s did. We probably wouldn’t think of walking around deserted streets after midnight back there but here in Manaus there are no shady characters roaming the streets and it feels alright. I can confirm this feeling with the fact that we didn’t get mugged. That’s always positive. The town is semi urban, multistory buildings but it has a jungle feel to it, big trees line the streets and the street lights fight to push back the darkness of a thousand miles of jungle on all sides of the city.
Anyways, we ordered a few beers at the restaurant, pointed at a random menu item and ended up with a very tasty dish of small pieces of steak grilled with bell peppers, onions and tomatoes plus farofa on the side. The best meal I’ve had so far. Also checked out the outside of the famous Teatro Amazonas, an opera house built in the jungle in the 1890’s by European rubber barons. I was impressed by it because it is cool to think about the crazy things you can do with enough money and also because it was featured in Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo. We’re going try to come back during the day.
Right now we are sitting in the very recommendable Hostel Manaus looking into Amazon River tours. We’ll see what happens. This hostel is good because, first of all, it is not a dorm, second, the rooms have AC and third, they sell beer. I do have to say however that it isn’t that clean, not bad just not spotless like Thailand hostels were and I am feeling like hostels in Brazil are not for the faint of heart. We are not faint. I’m low on energy from an average of four hours of sleep per night so I think I’ll let Kevin do the talking today.
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