November 5 - 12:39PM - Hostel Manaus

One of the main objectives of the trip has been accomplished. We have seen the Amazon River. We also booked a boat trip that will take us up the river for three days and two nights that leaves tomorrow morning. With that accomplished earlier in the day we walked through downtown Manaus toward the river. The heat and humidity is crazy! It’s like being in a sauna and your arms and legs can almost feel the resistance in the air as they cut through the moisture when you walk.

So… Walked downtown, looked at all the people and definitely noticed that they look more Native American looking here than the strong African influenced population of Salvador. Manaus looks like you would expect a jungle port town to look. The buildings are old and cracked from the heat and humidity. It is not exactly poor but everything looks well used. Streets are busy with people going to and from the port with goods and other stuff.

We came to the edge of the water and looked over the river and saw hundreds of boats and people unloading them. We walked out onto one of the piers and got a closer look at the guys unloading, sweating, carrying bushels of corn on their backs. They are the human equivalent of ants and basically keep the town and surrounding area functioning.

I forgot to describe the market which is what all of these guys are unloading boats for. Manaus is a major port for Amazon trade and there is a large market next to the river with tons of individual stalls selling fruit, fish, meat, grains, live chickens, etc. The market is basically a funnel for every product that can come out of the jungle and things come from as far as Columbia and Peru. I made some jungle purchases, a coconut, two of the largest avocados I have ever seen, softball size, and a tasty and new to me fruit, the fruit of the cashew nut. It is red, two inches long and has a single cashew nut stuck to one end. The locals tell me that if you eat the actual cashew on the end without first roasting it the acid inside the nut will put blisters on your lips. I did not eat the nut but I did eat the fruit. It was an interesting experience, very tasty. Eating it is like biting into a sponge soaked in water. Very juicy at first but then dry when you start chewing it because it is sour and acidy and the puckerishness of the tannins dries out your mouth. The juice does flow though and it is very sweet and floral flavored, kind of like the flavor if you eat a rose hip or something like that.



There are all kinds of different fruits down here. Full sized star fruits grow outside our hostel room and fall to the ground and are neglected like they are no big deal. The climate is so warm and tropical that you can grow almost anything and all of the fruit is excellent. Kevin and I are sitting back and sweating at a table in the central patio of Hostel Manaus looking at our fruits. We both just finished eating an avocado that we split. They’re so big that half fills you up and it’s tasty but I feel like a I just ate a stick of butter. This is the definition of too much of a good thing. That’s it for now.