Arrival: First Days in Manaus

After a long day of travel, we arrived in Manaus late in the evening. We could see the dim lights of the city flickering through the trees that surround the city in forests and jungle. After we landed and quickly breezed through immigration, we were greeted by Professor Gouvea and Professor Kassicieh and warmly welcomed to Manaus, the heart of the Amazon. High on adrenaline and slightly delirious from lack of sleep, we made our way to our hotel, the Go Inn. Our hotel was great and with a contemporary and European ambiance, a beautiful outdoor courtyard, and thank goodness, air conditioning!

After a warm shower and a good night's sleep, we set out to explore the city of Manaus. Our hotel was only a block from the downtown Plaza with a beautiful park, a traditional Catholic church, and a gorgeous opera house. The square was also surrounded by restaurants and small stores giving the plaza a charming feel. In the center of the plaza is a beautiful fountain with statues representing the lands of the world, and the floor is filled with a mosaic of stonework inspired by the 'meeting of the rivers,' where the Rio Negro from the north joins with the Amazon river.

After exploring the plaza, we strolling along downtown Manaus until we happened to find a street filled with open markets. The markets were bustling with people and vendors selling an array of artwork, beautiful beadwork, food, toys, clothes and so forth. The smell of barbecued meats and sweet fruits filled in the air, as people bartered for goods in the humid heat.

After purchasing a few souvenirs, we headed to the harbor for our first glimpse of the Rio Negro. The old port entrance, dating back to the years of Portugal's rule, still stands with a façade illustrating traditional Portuguese colonial architecture. The Rio Negro (Black River) was beautiful, but heavily polluted near the shoreline. The Rio Negro flows down to Manaus from the north, Venezuela and Colombia, and the black murky water give the illusion of being cold and deep, when in fact the water is lukewarm. The day was so humid and hot, I was very tempted to jump into the water!

To conclude our day, Professor Gouvea took us to a wonderful restaurant with traditional Brazilian cuisine. He and Dr. Montoya were only able to join us for a brief appetizer before heading to a meeting, and thus, we were left to our devices to order our meal. The difficulty of ordering with only an elementary understanding of Portuguese quickly became apparent. There were only a few items on the menu we could translate, and we didn’t even know how to ask for more menus. Alex, thus, resorted to pointing at the menu and holding up two fingers to indicate that we wanted two more menus. However, our waiter interpreted this gesture to mean that we wanted two dishes of the meal illustrated on the cover of the menu. Thus, you can imagine our surprises when two gigantic platters of chicken were served! We felt terrible for the misunderstanding, and learned our lesson to not point at menus in the future. After a few laughs, we went outside to enjoy the courtyard. Not bad for our first day. Tchau!