Experiencing the Rainforest

A trip into the rainforest is an obvious must.

The Meeting of the Waters is quite a sight. Just outside of Manaus, the jet black Rio Negro meets up with the sandy brown Rio Solimoes and, due to a number of factors, including differences in speed and temperature, the two run side by side for several miles before mixing to become the Amazon River.

Even if you're traveling on a budget, try and spend at least one night at the Hotel Tropical: a world-class resort with a mini-zoo, orchid garden, shopping mall, and a wonderful pool area. It's an attraction in and of itself.

Finally, see if you can get to one of the local villages. It will give you a glimpse of how the inhabitants of the region live, and a chance to buy handcrafts.

Quick Tips:

There are a number of ways to experience the rainforest. You can hire a guide to take you on a camping trip, go on an organized tour, or stay at a jungle lodge. Whatever option best suits you, make sure you do some research and ensure that you are going with a reputable company.

The Rio Negro is a pleasant place to stay, and many of the jungle lodges are located there. Many insects, including mosquitoes, cannot live there due to the high acidity of the water, so it's much less "buggy" than the Amazon River itself. (Nonetheless, it's not bug-free, so bring some repellant with you.)

Read Pamela Bloom's book, The Amazon, before you go. Some of the info is a bit outdated (the book came out in 1995), but it's still an excellent resource.

Best Way To Get Around:

Taxis can get you around Manaus.

Many of the jungle tours leave from the pier at the Hotel Tropical.

The rooms can vary depending on which wing of the hotel you're in, the rooms in the newer additions have much more modern decor. The rooms themselves are nice but unspectacular. The older rooms have much more charm with hardwood floors and mahogany furniture. The newer rooms have less character, but the air conditioning in these rooms seems to work better!

The hotel is a wonderful place. The mini-zoo will give you a sneak preview of what you may see on your jungle tour. An on-site travel agency with English-speaking staff can arrange yours for you. The pool area, surrounded by gardens with giant turtles and lily-pads, is gorgeous. The price of the rooms does include a breakfast buffet consisting of an impressive array of fruits, breads, juices in addition to eggs, cereal and the other usual suspects. The walkway over the pool area is a great place to watch the sunset on a clear night. The shopping mall outside the store has about a dozen stores or so, with places to buy essentials such as bottled water and film, and souveneirs as well. A large, sprawling complex, it can be difficult to find your way around the Tropical at times, but there are signs to mark the way and the friendly staff members are always willing to help.

Overall, the place is well worth the price.

The website is here: Tropical

Though they may seem pretty rustic to those accustomed to Sheratons, Hiltons and the like, the rooms are at the Ariau are pretty impressive considering the location. Most rooms are equipped with refrigerators and bathrooms showers, and two of the towers have air-conditioning (WELL worth the extra US$25 per night). There are a few special suites with luxuries such as TVs, but they are much more expensive and, given how little time you spend awake in your room, they aren't worth the extra money.

Ariau is an amazing place: a sprawling complex of towers connected by walkways built entirely at the treetop canopy level. You'll see plenty of wildlife here. In fact, animals make themselves quite comfortable. Don't be surprised to find a monkey attempting to make off with your drink or a parrot nipping playfully at your feet.

There are three small pools to cool off in, an observatory, an air-conditioned meditation pyramid (it's too bizarre to describe, words cannot do it justice, you have to see it for yourself), a bar, a cyber-cafe(!), and a few stores where you can buy anything from souveneirs to drinks to gemstones.

Meals are served at set times in the dining area, a circular room filled with long picnic tables that has a very summer camp feel to it. It's not gourmet cuisine, but they do a pretty good job all things considered. Meals are included in the price, but drinks you have to pay for.

At the beginning of your stay, you are assigned a guide. Guides are assigned groups according to language. Guides will take you an various canoe trips including pirhana fishing, jungle trek nighttime alligator spotting, village, flooded forest, and early-morning sunrise. They're all excellent, bring plenty of film, and be sure to watch for river dolphins leaping out of the water in your canoe travels.

Located at the Hotel Tropical, Karu offers a buffet of local cuisine nightly for 32 real per person (not including drinks).

Included in the buffet are an array of salads, meats, fruits, vegetables and desserts. They tend to vary in quality, but the good stuff is really, really good. The BBQed meats, in particular, were outstanding.

The more adventurous an eater you are, the more you're likely to enjoy it. Quail eggs, wild boar and alligator stew were some of the LESS unusual items available.

The atmosphere is nothing special, although they do have live music on some nights. Sometimes it's a single person who sings and plays the guitar, but on other nights, they have a what they call an Indian Folk Show. There's nothing traditional about it, it's an over-the-top stage show that is part Vegas and part Miami Sound Machine, but amusing nonetheless.

You could eat here every night you stay at the Tropical and not get bored.

A few kilometers outside of Manaus, the jet black Rio Negro meets up with the sandy Brown Rio Solimoes. The two rivers run side by side for several miles before mixing together to form the Amazon River.

There are a few different ways to get a look at the Meeting of the Waters, you can go on a group boat tour, go on a helicopter tour, or you can hire a private guide. I went on a boat tour and thoroughly enjoyed it, I was able to dip my hand in and feel the temperature difference as we crossed from one to the other. I'd skip the helicopter rides, they are very expensive, and you're likely to get an aerial view of it as you fly into or out of Manaus if you are doing so during daylight hours.

I arranged my tour through Fontur, the on-site travel agency at the Hotel Tropical. They are reasonably priced and quite pleasant to work with. The agents speak English, as do many of the guides. We took an afternoon tour that went to the meeting of the waters and a couple of local homes and villages. At one place, they showed us an anaconda they had caught in the morning, casually noting that the impressive creature was only a baby. At another local shop, several small children carrying animals approached us and offered to let us photograph them with the understanding that a small fee was involved. We were happy to oblige them as they were quite charming, however I could not help but feel sorry for their pets, particularly the helpless sloth that stared resignedly at the ground while its young owner carried it around as though it were a teddy bear.

Our guide was outstanding, exceptionally friendly and knowledgable about the region.

I'm sure there are cheaper tours available (we paid about 90 real per person), but if you're staying at the Tropical anyway, the quality and convenience of using Fontur is well worth the price.

If you stay at Ariau, you're likely to be offered the option to see one of the local tribes perform a traditional dance ritual one night. It costs 35 real per person.

They take you by canoe to a large, empty hut lined with benches on either side. Your guide explains the significance of the ritual, then the tribe members (5 men, 5 women) begin the dance. The men play flutes and wear bracelets on their ankles that rattle as they stomp, so it's really quite musical.

During a break, you get the opportunity to eat with the tribe members (they had cooked manioc bread and an alligator they had killed for us), and pose for pictures with them. For the finale, they pull audience members "onstage" to join them. Afterwards, there is the obligatory chance to buy handicrafts.

Overall it was a good experience, and I was glad I did it. I was a little uncomfortable with the way it was presented; it was as though I was being shown wildlife as opposed to people. I'm not sure how they feel about so many strangers coming to see them perform, but I appreciated the opportunity to eat and dance with them for an evening.