Nine Hundred Miles Up River!

V Cruisers,

It was great to get back to Manaus which is located just about 900 miles up the Amazon river. This city went through a boom era in the late19th and early 20th centuries, when it supplied 90% of the world’s rubber. Rubber barons who lived in the city owned vast plantations and recruited local tribesmen to tap the rubber. The rubber barons (which totaled about 100 families) became incredibly wealthy and maintained lavish lifestyles.

They hired European architects to build their homes as well as stunning municipal buildings, the most significant of which is the Opera House.

Those barons made a lot in a little time as Manaus’ rubber boom lasted only 25 years. Its decline was the result of a British businessman smuggling rubber tree seeds out of Brazil in1876 and subsequently transporting them to Malaysia, where they flourished.

This steep decline continued until the Brazilian government stepped in and created a free trade zone here and gave the city the right to produce light industry items. Which in turn gave rise to Manaus’ present-day light industry zone where most of Brazil’s motorcycles and TV sets are manufactured.

Though this freetrade status has been since revoked, the light industry zone still continues to flourish.

Dana and I had hoped for the chance to retrace our steps we took together here some 20+ years ago when she came with me for her first visit. We were able to get out and ventured a short ways on foot down the coast to hire a boat and guide to take us on our journey. We found a good boat with one who spoke decent English and at the right price. We quickly headed down the river to view the main attraction of the area – the meeting of the waters – where the Amazon and the Rio Negro rivers come together.

The Amazon is brown because of silt, whereas the Rio Negro is the color of Coca Cola due to its high acidity. There are more species of fish in the Amazon than the Atlantic Ocean, however, in the Rio Negro there are very few fish – though the Pirana grow much bigger there! The Amazon is cooler than the Rio Negro and travels just over two miles an hour faster!

If you took two glasses and filled them with water from each river in about two minutes the Amazon water will be clear except for about 20% silt which will have settled on the bottom, wheras the Rio Negro water will remain unchanged.

From there we thought we’d head back off the main river for a quick late lunch at a floating / souvenir market where we had eaten long ago and then continued some sightseeing by boat.

Our goal was to get back into the tributaries where it is very beautiful and the sounds of the jungle are amazing.

However, what I learned was that the region is entering the second year of a terrible drought and though this is the beginning of the new rainy season so far, the rains still haven’t come.

The dark / light line on the tree tells the story of the drought and how high the water should normally rise.

As a result we were unable to get back into the tributaries because the water of the river is so low. Instead, there was a place where we could leave the boat at a dock and walk back on a trail about 1/4 of a mile and observe a tributary by standing on an elevated pier which is normally not so evelvated under normal conditions.

Though it was not the experience we wanted it was very pretty back there and we saw lots of birds and there was even a large canaima (local species of an alligator) sunning himself right below us.

We returned to our boat and paused for a little pirania fishing. We each caught one but we forgot to take a photo of it. After a little more ride around we returned to the dock where I carried on to pay a visit to the Amazonas Opera House. I took the tour and admired its beauty, once again.

It’s just a spectacular building and really must have been something in its day! All in all it was great to get back there. The city was especially vibrant with it being Friday and a major Christmas shopping day for the locals.