We went up at 4 o’clock and after a quick breakfast it was just to pack together everything and say goodbye to Iguaçu. Now we should go on to Amazonas.

At 6.50 hrs we took the flight från Iguaçu. I don’t really remember if we took the flight via São Paulo or Brasil or both, but at approx. 12.00 hrs we arrived in Manaus in Amazonas. We took a bus to the harbour. On the way to the harbour we saw a lot of vultures.

We spent the next five hours on a boat on Rio Negro and we even made a side trip to the Rio Amazonas.

The boat trip was very interesting. We passed nice parts of the town of Manaus but even the slums. There are a lot of shipyards along the river. We even saw a lot of floating homes and floating petrol stations.

The side trip to the Rio Amazonas was also very interesting. Both rivers (Rio Amazonas and Rio Negro) run together but nevertheless, it is possible to see a clear border between them. Because of different ph-values the light brown water of Rio Amazonas is not mixed with the black water of the Rio Amazonas. The ph-value of the Rio Negro is 4,7 and the ph-value of the Rio Amazonas is neutral. The Rio Negro’s flow speed is approx. 2 km per hour and there are 700 species of fish. The Rio Amazonas’ flow speed is approx 5 – 7 km per hour and there are approx. 2.000 species of fish.

The water level was quite low but the guide told us that the level will go up 10 (!) meters in March/April.

Back on the Rio Negro, where we even saw some pink-coloured dolphins, we continued the boat trip, left the city and entered the rain forest. The weather is changing very fast here. We had sunshine for quite some hours and it was very hot. Suddenly the sky became darker and darker, almost black! And it started to rain very hard! Well, quite typical for the rain forest. A thunderstorm started and we saw the flashes all over the sky. It was kind of creepy to be on a boat in this thunderstorm.

Since it has been very dry in Amazonas during the last months, some side rivers were dry so we could not reach the jungle lodge with the big boat. We had to change and went on board of smaller river boats. They are very nice. But not even the smaller boats could reach the lodge, which is placed at the side river Tarumã so we had to walk a bit. Now we understood, why we only should have some packing for two days in backpacks! It would have been impossible to take the big suitcases through the jungle.

We still had the thunderstorm, but it was raining a little bit less now. The temperature had decreased as well. Now it was “only” around 28 degrees but the humidity was very high.

Finally we reached the lodge (Amazon Eco Park Lodge)! We had a welcome drink (Caipirinha – what else?) and we got the keys for our cottages.

Amazon Eco Park Lodge is a very nice place in the rain forest with nice, small cottages in the jungle and the restaurant and bar were located in nice bamboo buildings (no walls, just a roof).