MANAUS: BRAZIL'S EXOTIC ZONE

BY JANET STEINBERG

Manaus is the premier port city put on the map by the landed aristocracy in the 1800s. At that time it was one of the richest cities in the world.

For many years Manaus, carved out of the very heart of the Amazonian wilderness, was a faded vision of the former center of the Brazilian rubber boom. It was said that the wealth of this city, deep in the heart of the Amazon, “dripped as sap from the rubber trees”.   Today, thanks to commerce and tourism, it is taking on a second life.

Grandest of all the relics of the past splendor of Manaus is the fabled Teatro do Amazona, the ornate, salmon-colored Opera House with its mesmerizing mosaic plaza, French crystal mirrors, and Italian marble and rare wood floors. The Great Enrico Caruso, Anna Pavlova, and Sarah Bernhardt were all said to have performed in that grand restored Opera House that opened in 1896 at a cost of $10 million.

MANAUS OPERA HOUSE

UP A HAZY RIVER: CRUISIN’ THE AMAZON

“Emotion has a name: Brazil.”  -Pele

                               

The Amazon River!  O Rio Mar!   The River Sea! The world's largest river, that fires the imagination of all who dare to dream, dominates the land and the people who come in contact with it.

The muddy and mysterious Amazon is a majestic presence. To those with an insatiable spirit of adventure, it is a strange mixture of primitive and civilized.  The Amazon is a kaleidoscope of mud huts and mini-highrises, dugout canoes and sleek ocean liners.  There are man-eating piranhas that you don't see and immense Vitoria Regia water lilies that you do.

A foray into the land of tribesmen called Waura and Kuikuro, this1000-mile voyage of discovery from the mouth of the world's mightiest river to the port city of Manaus (at the confluence of the Amazon and Rio Negro), was once virtually inaccessible to the leisure traveler.

Two popular port stops along the Amazon are Alter do Chao and Parantins.
 

WELCOME TO ALTER DO CHAO