Wednesday
23 March
Horribly
early start. My wakeup call, scheduled for 0415 was over 10 minutes early. As I
checked out, having settled the bill last night, the receptionist told me I had a
credit of 14 Real. It's not much money but on principle I wanted it either in
cash or credited to my card. That took about 5 minutes to sort out, then got
taxi to the "Internacional" airport which is further away than the
domestic airport. 100 Real for taxi which wasn't bad considering it was quite a
long trip. Long wait to check-in but I
had loads of time. After checking in found the cafe in the departure lounge and
ordered a coffee and a "Club" sandwich which turned out to be ham and
cheese. Not brilliant but adequate.
Slept
most of the flight. Arrived in Manaus about 1030 local time which is one hour
behind Rio. Taxi from the airport was 75. Seringal Hotel is great, quite small
but big comfortable room with huge bed and able to get into room straight away.
Very friendly manager who tried to sell me tour with Iguana Tours but wanted to
check them out first. The hotel is just a block from the main square and the
adjacent Opera House, Manaus's main claim to fame, at least in England. Found
out that the next tour in English was at 1pm and booked that for 10 Reals. Then
went off in search of a coffee and a bite to eat. Found a café and ordered a
coffee and pointed to a something made of fila pastry that looked like an apple
strudel but which turned out to be filled with just more pastry. Back at the
opera house, the formal name is “Teatro Amazonas”, our guide explained the
background to building it when Manaus was at the height of its rubber boom and
the rubber barons were fabulously wealthy. Little did they realise that the
seedlings of their destruction, and that of Manaus’s economic boom, had already
been planted in far off Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. The rest, as they say, is
history
The
opera house was state-of-the-art at the time and was built using the finest
materials, mostly imported from Europe, the exception being the timber, of which
they had plenty. After it opened it was the place to be and be seen, and
opera companies were brought from Europe to perform at enormous cost.
Apparently it was the first building in Brazil to be lit by electricity. I thoroughly
enjoyed the informative and well-presented tour and looked at the box office
for a possible performance but they only had a play in Portuguese.
 |
| Teatro Amazonas |
 |
| Teatro Amazonas |
From
there, went for a walk round the city which has some pleasant squares and some
attractive late 19th and early 20th century buildings,
many of which are well preserved and cared for, but they tend to be isolated by
later, ugly concrete structures so that its claim to be yet another “Paris of
the …”, in this case Amazon, doesn’t stand up. Like Buenos Aires, the old
photos show an elegant city which has long since gone. Down at the river front
there are dozens of river boats tied up and agents along the quay side
advertise their destinations. The idea of travelling up the Amazon by boat
still appeals but I think the reality of being stuck on one for several days
with nothing to do would soon pall.
 |
| Palace of Justice |
 |
| Praca Sao Sebastiao, Square in front of Teatro Amazonas |
 |
| Praca Sao Sebastiao |
 |
| Central Market |
 |
| River Boats |
 |
| More River Boats |
In the evening went for a meal at Bar do Armando in the main square, in front of the opera house, close to the hotel,
which looked very popular, where I had a rather meagre meal of grilled fish and
rice. Came to the conclusion that most of the people were there for the drinks
and the atmosphere rather than the food. Found another restaurant across the
square where I had a dessert of flambéed banana and ice cream which was
delicious but a little overpowering.
Thursday
24th March
After
checking on Trip Advisor, Iguana Tours, suggested by the hotel manager, seemed
as good as any of the others, with mostly excellent to good reviews and a few
bad ones. Their office is just round the corner and the guy there did an
excellent sales pitch; he obviously learnt all the tricks, but the tour ticked
all the boxes and so I booked to go next morning for 500 Reals, after failing
to negotiate any real discount.
Back
at the hotel, arranged to stay for a night when I return from the tour and
started looking at flights from Manaus to Quito. Manaus is a big city of 2
million people; Quito is the capital city of a country that borders Brazil;
there must be direct flights. No. Amazingly, the cheapest I found goes via
Barcelona! There are direct flights to Lima in Peru but they cost more than a
flight to Quito via Lima. The least absurd and extortionate flights go via
Panama City so decided to do that and have a couple of days stopover. Booked
direct with Copa Airlines since Expedia, Skyscanner and all the rest were
either more expensive or didn’t offer the route at all.
In
the evening had dinner at another restaurant on the square, Amazonas, where the
Arapaima filet in white sauce ostensibly with Brazil nuts, but I am sure they were almonds, was much better than last night.
No comments:
Post a Comment