Pico do Jaraguá

After a few days of actual travelling you begin to realise the things you need to have to hand on a daily basis and how to have them organised in as few clear zip bags as possible. So on getting up at 5am this morning. I decided to have a major overhaul of my packing strategy. Though, all my cruise clothes were already in a large zip lock vacuum bag at the bottom of my case, never to be seen again, partly because they aren't really travelling clothes but mainly because after 2 weeks on the boat they don't fit anymore.

As we headed to the airport I recalled that when doing my research on Sao Paulo it came across as just a very large city that didn't seem to have that much for a tourist to see or do. But now I feel we could have spent another 2 or 3 days here. You can judge how many tourists a place gets by the number of shops you can buy a fridge magnet in. So by that measure, Sao Paulo doesn't get too many tourists at all.

Manaus is a much bigger city than I expected and very developed. Once checked in, we spent the afternoon wandering around the downtown area. Not a place geared up for tourists so it was interesting to see the locals going about their everyday lives. We headed down to the waterfront thinking that it might be a little more geared to tourism. We arrived expecting a sort of San Francisco pier 39 vibe but the reality was more like Tilbury Docks.

The square outside the Teatro Amazonas did have a handful of restaurant/bars, so we ate in one and had a nightcap in another with a live band playing outside. They had about 20 outdoor tables and we were the only foreigners.Read more