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After dropping off our bags, we negotiated with our cab driver, who was going back to the airport anyways, to take us to the zoo, which is just pass the airport. 20 minutes later, we arrived at a very run-down zoo - that cost $1.20pp to get in. It turns out the zoo is a military operations training facility - where the military keeps animals they have captured (hopefully some of which were endagering humans??). The cages were way too small for their captors and none of the animals looked that happy (but I'm sure most wild captive animals in a zoo aren't).
On our way out of the zoo, we once again had to negotiate with our cab driver to take us to Punta Negro - and the Tropical Manaus hotel, a famous touristy hotel in Manaus (it seems all taxi prices can be brought down by ~1/3). There, we had a few of the local drinks, saw their mini-zoo (monkeys/mccaws/parrots), and took a stroll to the beach. This is def. the high-rollers hotel - there were yachts parked out front of the hotel on the Amazon. The beach was pretty wide, but not that long at all - it looked like a fun beach that could easily get overcrowded given the popular destination, and the 600 room hotel next door. We began searching for restaurants, and after a series of tiny street vendors, we decided to head back to the hotel for a "safe" meal. After searching a few restaurants, we found a smaller cafe that had good food, just not the decor to match the hotel - thus a lot lower prices. We grabbed a cab back to our hotel - and called it a night at 9:30 pm - I'm not sure what this is in "real" time, compared to when we slept - but I know with 1.5 hours of sleep last night - we're very tired. We're excited to rest up for our Amazon jungle experience! Day 46 - Iguassu Falls < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 48 - Amazon Jungle © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
We awoke at 4:45 am this morning - fun. We arrived at the airport about 5:50 am for our 6:50 am flight. Unfortunately, the flight to Manaus was through Sao Paulo - a major hub for TAM airlines (Brazilian airline). It was unfortunate because it was a Airbus 320 = 168 passengers in front of us trying to get on too! We waited in line for 50 minutes to check-in - dangerously close to our flight time. Luckily, we made it (and our baggage too). I'm sorry to say I didn't get a photo of our early morning adventure. Our nice captain flew our Airbus 320 at about 1000 feet off the ground around 230 mph to give us a stunning view of the falls!!! It was beautiful, but my camera was by my feet and we didn't have a window seat (sorry! :). Then - the pilot did a 180 and gave the left hand side of the cabin a view (incredible!). It was beautiful at 7:15 in the morning - perfect lighting to view the falls.
In Sao Paulo, we picked up our bags and got on our flight to Manaus. The Varig airlines counter person was sooo nice - just so friendly and welcoming us to Brazil over and over - telling us the must sees. It was funny, and good to get such a warm greeting. He told us we were in business class, even though we had an economy ticket, and we weren't sure if we just misheard him. When we got our tickets - it said economy, so we thought we just misunderstood. We boarded and found our seat up front in a MD11 (huge plane). Nice!! Although we didn't get business class treatment (they only have one class of service for domestic flights), we did get a spatious seat on the plane (nice treat - given we didn't have any sleep and this was a 3.5 hour flight!). 
Our flight to Manaus took us across two timezones - and brought us very close to the equator. It's warm here!! About 90 degrees - but feels like 105 with the intense humidity. When we landed, the first person that approached us happened to be from the Eco Resort that Frommer's recommends - so we were ok with chatting with him. After about 40 minutes of discussion, we negotiated a 4 day/3 night jungle excursion into the Amazon! If you know me at all, you know I like to understand the risks of any dangerous activity - so of course I asked what was the worst incident in the last year (during the jungle sleep where you don't sleep in the lodge, but in the jungle). He looked me in the face, and frowned, and he said that an American was killed by a Jaguar last week. I said ok - looked at Jaimie - and then he started laughing!! Not a funny joke (no one was killed). 
From the airport, we took a cab to a hotel the tour guide knew of that was relatively inexpensive but in a safe neighborhood downtown. There was a huge misunderstanding here - as he told us a hotel that I had seen advertised on the Net with good reviews, but when we got there, it was a different hotel. He said he called the hotel we discussed, and they wanted double the price that he said they originally wanted (supposedly he had called this hotel in front of us, and they told him the "wrong" price). Not sure exactly what happened, but we told him we didn't want this hotel - we thought we were going to the original hotel, but then ended up at another hotel less expensive then the first we arrived at. We checked the room and it looked ok, so we just took it. We were only going to be there for one night, and it was only going to cost us $35 for the night.
We walked around the zoo and saw our favorite - jaguars We also saw spider monkeys, macaws, eagles, hawks, parrots, caymans (similar to a croc - but mostly smaller), turtles, and a few other local animals. Beautiful animals, with the zoo being guarded by the military with machine guns. Just unfortunate that they don't have more money to spend for the animals and the facilities. We did go by the vet area, where you could tell the 2 military people there love the animals, they were playing with a younger leopard (?).