Opera in the Middle of the Jungle

Amid the bustling city of Manaus (once the largest exporter of rubber in the world, I'm not sure if it still is) that is surrounded by rivers and jungles, lies a little bit of high-brow culture - the Teatros Amazonas - Manaus' famous opera house.

Opened in 1896, the theater was built with Italian and Scottish influence, and the only influence of Brazil is a rubber roadway outside the entrance so that late arriving carriages didn't make too much noise.  It's really pretty and we have an amazing view of it from our hotel room.

The opera house offers almost daily shows ranging from free to $R60 - plays, opera, orchestras - you name it, and Danielle and I were lucky enough to experience a free performance last night.  Plus it was a nice reprieve of cushioned chairs and air conditioning (as opposed to the wooden planks of the row boat we spent four days sitting on.)

How good can it be if it's free you ask?  Sooo amazing.  We saw the Amazon Philharmonic put on an hour and a half performance, playing Mozart and a bunch of other composers whose names I cannot spell off the top of my head.  Anyway, we might as well have been at Lincoln Center - it was that good.  And the conductor was cute...


Today after spending the morning at the open market buying random hand made crafts, we ventured to Parque do Mindu - what has got to be the crappiest park I've ever been to...


It starts off pretty nice - you think you are going to have a nice stroll in the woods with a pretty river rumbling through.  But this river is now a garbage dump, filled with trash, and surrounded by disgusting couches and broken TVs and emits a pungent smell.  The maps telling you where you are have large missing chunks, and the trail signs are broken or non-existant.


But...this park is also the home to an endangered species of primate called the pi-faced tamarin, and we were lucky enough to find a few.  They only live in areas of secondary forest, and cannot be found in other areas of primary jungle in the Amazon.  But if they are living in parks like this, no wonder they are endangered.


Overall I have had an amazing experience exploring 4 different states of Brazil.  Each state has its own distinct culture, and it was great having the opportunity to visit cities, rural areas and jungle!


Now if only we can get home!  I cannot wait to take a real shower and hit up a yoga class!  Unfortunately there seems to be a hurricaine in NC on its way up to NY that might interrupt our flight from Atlanta to NYC - but at least if we get stuck we wont't have to apologize for our crappy Portuguese!


Hope you enjoyed reading!
April

Me Tarzan, You Jane!

Yes everyone, my guide through the jungle's name was Tarzan, and he did actually refer to me as Jane at one point...

I made it out alive!  There was one point when we were camping out in the jungle that I thought I may be eaten by a jaguar or puma, but luckily we only heard them from afar. And yes - we did actually hear the cry of a black puma - while being woken up multiple times throughout the night by animals walking around our camp (don't worry - most likely they were only armadillos...I hope...) we heard a sound unlike anything else we had heard so far.  After waking up Tarzan for the 9 millionth time because of the animals (this was Danielle really, although I was definitely a bit freaked out, I was trying not to show it as much) he told us it was a puma.  Eek!

The Amazon is so amazing!  There are no roads at all - you have to take a boat everywhere through the different river estuaries, and are surrounded by jungle.  They even have a school boat instead of a school bus.  

So other than freaking out a bunch of times at the sound of crunching leaves, and trying to calm Danielle's fear of the many bugs we saw, hear is the lowdown:


Day 1:

• 3 1/2 hour trip into the jungle.  We indeed were in the middle of nowhere, and it was soooo amazing to feel like you are the only people on earth.  This trip consisted of an hour and fifteen minute boat ride across the meeting of the waters (black and white water meeting for the first time - you see the actual split in the water - very cool), an hour car ride through dirt roads in a VW van from like '72, and another hour and fifteen minutes through the channels of the amazon rain forest. 
• A quick swim in the river - yes I went in, and the piranha do NOT nibble at your toes.
• Dolphin watching - fresh water dolphin - both pink and gray!
• Piranha fishing - I caught about 3.  Their teeth are INSANE!
• Caimen hunting at night.   

Day 2:

• Paddling in the river at sunrise (so beautiful!) and bird watching.  Soooo many different birds - including toucan (totally kept thinking of Fruit Loops) and parrots.  Saw a fire eagle too.
• Monkeys jumping in trees.
• Hike in the morning through the jungle.  Saw mostly some cool looking bugs and lizards.
• In the afternoon headed to our campsite - about an hour ride from the lodge we were staying in - the middle of nowhere.  Set up our hammocks.  Yes we slept in hammocks with mosquitos nets, and definitely were out in the wild.
• Caught a fish for my dinner.
• Cooked dinner over the campfire. Tarzan is a good cook!
• Attempted to sleep, but didn't really.  Was counting down the hours until day light!

Day3:

• Morning bird watch.  Saw two tapirs eating breakfast.
• Breakfast over the campfire.
• Morning hike through the jungle to do some turantula hunting.  Found a lot.  Those things are  HUGE!
• Lunch by campfire.  Danielle and I actually started the fire on our own!
• Short afternoon hike to find some monkeys, but failed to do so.
• Packed up our campsite to head over to a local indigenous family's home, where we ate dinner and spent the night.  We might as well have been in the jungle, except this time we were woken up by the many farm animals roaming around.  We also toured their land where they have a pineapple plantation and various other trees...

Day 4:

• Sunrise bird watch.
• Breakfast with family.
• Visit to a rubber plantation, and made a condom...well a jungle condom...and it probably wouldn't do any good...
• Back to lodge to finally take a shower and use a real toilet!  Danielle and I were under the impression that we were going back to the lodge in between the camping and family's home, so did not bring an extra set of clothes = we were GROSS!
• Lunch.
• Three hour boat/car/boat ride back to Manaus.

So that's all folks.  I'll follow up with one last post soon.

Tchau!