Lazy days in the jungle capital Manaus

In the 4 days crossing the Amazon, the biggest town we encountered was Sao Sebastio (Amazonas), with a population of 11,697 plus some military police and a dumb drug smuggler. So, although we knew Manaus would be a bit bigger, we hadn't reckoned that it would have 2.5 million inhabitants in the metro area. The first reaction from all of us seeing it from the Rio Negro, is "wow its huge ", and when we land, we observe that like elsewhere in the continent the city is a mix of decaying and abandoned historic buildings, new high rise offices, slums, and neatly separated a pleasant and booming middle class residential area.

The town was once the centre of global rubber production, but now it's the centre of mobile phone production in Latam. (I am sure based on my pharma experience that the government used big sticks and a few carrots to onshore the production) . The town is growing at incredible speed, having had only 1 million inhabitants 30 years ago, but as always, the spoils are very unevenly spread.

We have decided to spend 4 of our 5 days here in a jungle refuge 20km outside town, on a tributory of the rio negro, so called because the water is literally black.

It's an eco place and you need special gymnastic skills for the toilet. You pee in one, then you spring to another one if you do a crap. The crap has to be covered with 3 cups of sawdust, and the paper deposited in a bin. The owner advised that if you only need a pee, go pee in the jungle, but look down to check for snakes.

After the boat food, which I assume is inspired somewhat by prison food, we enjoy the delicious cooking here.

The kids spent most of the day studying, and Flo supervising the same, whilst I caught up on exciting stuff, like VAT declarations and mortgage payments.Læs mere