March 26th-7th 2009
Leaving Belem
After just a night in Belem, Helen and I left out hotel, running with items from the breakfast table stuffed into a plastic bag and a man's arm flapping at us from the window, and hopped on a bus to the airport. A two hour flight took us to Manaus and another hot and cramped bus took us from the airport to the centre with locals telling us where to get off for our hostel (Brazilians have always been very friendly and helpful on buses).
Manaus
Manaus is the capital of the state of Amazonas with a population of some 1.7 million. It lies deep within the Amazon rain forest, two hours by plane form Belem (about 3 ½ days by boat on the Amazon) and an hour behind in time. Our purpose in going there was to organise a jungle trek about which we started to get very excited when we saw masses of trees and brown-coloured rivers from the plane window.
Preparation
We spent a good part of our arrival day researching different jungle trips and ended up booking a four day excursion with Iguana Tours who seemed to go deeper into the rain forest than other agencies and who organised visits to indigenous families. We then went and bought ponchos (cheaply made but at $13 a piece, not really a cheap price considering they were like bin liners) and reorganised our bags so as to have only the essentials for the tour with us.
