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On the way to the Meeting of the Waters, we drove through the heart of Manaus. Manaus is an intresting city - 1.5 million people in the middle of the Amazon rainforest - you have to wonder why. Manaus had tremendous growth in the late 19th century due to the export of rubber from the rubber tree. After the rubber trade was lost, the city fell off the face of the earth. In the mide 1960's, the govenor made a tax-free zone, which brought large industries to the city. We drove through the industrial zone where companys like Sony, Honda, Samsung, Philips, and more have manufacturing plants. The goods are then shipped out via the Amazon river, on oceanliners. They now pay taxes, but only a little - keeping industries in town for the long term. Another quick note about Manaus, is that it's connected to Columbia via the water - so there is quite a bit of drug trafficking here as well (and obviously a higher level of crime in some areas due to the trafficking).
We hung out for about 10 minutes at the meeting of the waters, as big tour boats came by packed with people - we enjoyed not having to deal with the crowds :). It was the high-life to have the boat and captain to ourselves - and this boat was a bit larger then yesterdays (had 5 rows of seats - so could fit about 15-20 people). We really appreciated having all of this scheduled in advance for us as part of the Amazonat package. Site seeing like this usually involves so much work and we were so exhausted - we were happy to just sit back and see the sites.
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A good night - but short sleep - we didn't really get to bed until past midnight, and had a 7am breakfast. We were definitely feeling exhausted from the past two days. We had a quick breakfast and said our goodbyes to the Eco-lodge at Amazonat. A taxi was waiting to take us to the docks in Manaus for a ride to the "Meeting of the Waters" - where the Solimoes River (from Peru)and Rio Negro (from Columbia) meet on the Amazon river. 
We had our own boat to run out to the Meeting of the waters - which was a 10 minute ride from the docks. The meeting of the waters is due to the Solimoes river being 3 degrees warmer and 6 km/h faster then the Rio Negro, so they don't mix for 16 km. The Solimoes is a light brown, while the Rio Negro is dark black - thus you see a distinct line where the rivers meet and continue on. We put our hands in the water as we passed the point where they meet - and you could feel the difference in temperature as we passed from the black to the brown waters.
We came back to the docks in Manaus, and our taxi driver took us back to the Airport. At the airport, we had lunch and were off to Rio de Janeiro. We learned on the flight to Manaus about the economy business class seats on Varig Airlines. Unfortunately, this time we were in row 40, but after everyone boarded, we snuck our way back up to business (we actually asked :)). It was nice to have the large seats to sleep, even though we only had it 2/3 of the way there (as we stopped in Brasilia, where the plane became full to Rio).
We got to Rio pretty late, and after negotiating 30% off our cab fare (although it was still $24), we were off to our Hotel - Mar Ipanema - on Ipanema beach. Along the way, we had beautiful lit up night views of the city and beach area. We were even able to see the Jesus Christ statue on top of the hill lit up. After settling in, we grabbed a very later dinner (10:30 pm - 12pm), and then headed back to the hotel. We tried to get wireless internet access, but after walking along the dark rooftop without success, gave in to the ridiculously priced hotel internet of 25 cents per minute!!! Unbelivable. Rio is starting to feel like the most expensive city yet!