Brazil 2005

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

We went up at 7.00 hrs and had breakfast at 8.00 hrs. Some parrots kept ourselves company. They were sitting on the chairs and even on the table in order to get some food of us.

Then it was time to say goodbye to the rain forest. Now we should return to the civilization!

Everything was packed and we went down to the beach. Since there had been some rain two days ago, the water level had increased again so now the river boats could come closer to the lodge and we didn't have to take the long way through the jungle again.

We went on board and had a nice boat trip back to Manaus. The weather was beautiful! The sun was shining from the blue sky. It was very warm, 33 degrees. One hour later we left the boats and took a bus for a sightseeing tour through Manaus. It was very interesting. But even here it was depressing to see poverty and wealth so close to each other...

We went to the beautiful opera house of Manaus. We went inside, listened to a choir and enjoyed the atmosphere. The little road around the opera house is built of a mixture of asphalt and rubber - a smart solution in order to deaden noise and avoid to disturb a show.

The sightseeing tour continued to a large and quite ugly market hall. But it was interesting to see. Almost everything was sold there. Fish and meat (not really very appetizing), fruits and vegetables, other groceries, spices and a lot of trash.

We left the market hall again and had a look at some other shops. They have a very strange assortment! There is trash among groceries, electronic products, shoes, curtains, clothes, etc. in one and the same shop, which is just 15 or 20 m² big and with shelves up to the roof!

It had started raining again and we were glad that the bus came again to pick us up and drive us to the hotel. It rained a lot and within short time the streets were under water.

We stayed at the Tropical Manaus Hotel, which is a very nice hotel. It is quite big, but does not have many floors, so we had to walk quite a bit until we came to our room. Our room was placed near one of the pools and that's perfect!

After we've checked in we got a welcome drink and then we had lunch.

There was a nice girl working at the restaurant. But her english was quite bad. She could hardly understand what we said. She was smiling all the time and did not say much more than yes or no.

Here's a nice and funny dialogue (no joke!):
Inge: I've seen a brewery quite close to this hotel.
The girl (with a smile on her face): yes
Inge: Do you have beer from this brewery here?
The girl (with a smile on her face): yes
Inge: Could I please get one?
The girl (with a big smile on her face): no
Inge: No?
The girl: (still smiling): no.

Well, Inge got beer, but it was no beer from Manaus, it was not even Brazilian beer, but who cares! The girl's smile was so cute!

After lunch (I wondered how we managed to order it :-) we went to the room. Our luggage had arrived as well. So now we just changed clothes and went down to the pool! It was a very nice pool with many beautiful flowers and trees and a nice and large waterfall! There were even some bassins with fish and water turtles and very nice water flowers.

It was great and we enjoyed bathing, relaxing and slurping Caipirinha.

Then we took a walk around the shops, which were right at the hotel and bought some small things.

We had a nice dinner (buffet of course) in the restaurant near the pool.

We spent the rest of the evening at the pool. Nobody was there and it was really nice. In the darkness the pool was even nicer with all the mystical lights. We had a midnight bath and then we went to the room because it was time to get some sleep.

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