Brazil – Sao Paulo, Amazonas & Manaus

Sao Paulo

My stay in Sao Paulo was only a short one but it was enjoyable. I stayed at a lovely hostel called Viva Hostel Design ( vivahostel.com.br ) in Villa Madalena. This hostel gave some very good directions to find it’s location; they have a kitchen area to cook if you want, a lovely social area and good breakfast offered in the morning. The dorm rooms have pods to sleep in with lights and socket to charge.

When I arrived, I met a cool group of Aussies and we all decided to go out on the town. Unfortunately it was a Monday and the town was pretty dead but it was still good. There were a few bars which were busy. There was a good feeling to this area of Sao Paulo. It seems most other nights this area of Sao Paulo is usually buzzing.

The following day I headed out on a free walking tour. It wasn’t as good as I expected but we did get shown Batman Alley which is where a lot of good graffiti is displayed. The artists in this alley are amazing.

We were also taken down the party street and shown all the best bars and told about the way they party.

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Amazonas

I organised my tour of the Amazon with Gero Tours (www.amazongerotours.com). They picked me up from the airport in Manaus when I flew in at 00.45a.m. and I left that morning for my 3 day/2 night trip to the Amazon. We first went to the port to go and see the meeting of the waters. It was really heavily raining, so we had to wait a while for the rains to stop. Once on the boat, we headed out to the meeting of the waters. It doesn’t look like much until you understand more about what is happening. It just looks like a line in the water with two different colours. However to understand that the two rivers, Amazon and Negro, flow together for 70 kilo without mixing is amazing. The Amazon flows at 7 kilo per hour and The Negro flows at 2 kilo per hour.

We continued on our journey to the Amazon with a few changes of transportation until we arrived at the lodge. The lodge had a central building where the food was served, a bar at the front near the water, private buildings for accommodation, including one at the back which was my shared room of hammocks with an en-suite bathroom. This was the cheapest accommodation at 170 Brazilian Real per day.

Once we had arrived, we met our guide Kennedy, had lunch and then headed out on the boat to see what wildlife we could see. We were successful in seeing Monkeys, sloths, hawks as well as grey and pink dolphins (yes they do exist but are very rare). Not only did we see the dolphins but we ended up being surrounded by them as they played in the water. Once we had realised that they had moved on, we also headed back to the lodge, enjoying the sunset over the water as we went. It was sooo peaceful!

After a great dinner, I played cards with my new friends (Thomas from Norway, Daniela from Italy and Christian and Yasmin from Germany) while drinking one of the local drinks, Caipirinha (which can be a very potent drink if you are served it from the bar at this lodge. You really get your money’s worth!!) Then it was bed time. Yippee hammocks!!!!

 

The following morning we had breakfast and then headed out to a local house to see how the 2nd generation live. 1st generation live on a reserve deep inside the jungle and outsiders need a special license to visit;2nd generation mostly live off the land. They grow fruit trees etc. and if they need anything else, they sell the fruit for money or trade items. Kennedy showed us how to climb the trees to collect the Acae fruit, which needs to be specially treated before being eaten because they have parasites in them. He showed us our favourite breakfast juice fruit, called Cupuacu. Kennedy also pointed out, and a few of us tried, a plant which will numb your mouth.

At three in the afternoon, we headed out to the jungle to stay the night. On the way, the guide stopped at one of the shops to pick up some cachaca for the night (this is the local liqueur which goes in Caipirinhas. The journey was not the easiest as we got stuck a few times in reeds that had grown over the water. After a bit of rocking and dragging, we got the boat out again. We arrived at our camp site and immediately put up the tarpaulin above the sleeping area and then strung up the hammocks and mosquito nets underneath. The fire was started and the chicken was put over the fire by being wedged between two sticks. Yasmin did us the honour of preparing the Caipirinhas. She really knew what she was doing and her drinks were better than the Brazilians’. The lime ones are the best ones but after one round, we ran out of limes and had to make do with pineapple Caipirinhas.

That night was amazing, sleeping in the peaceful jungle although i wish i hadn’t stayed under the tarpaulin like everyone else. In the open would have been better. The morning brought us a lovely breakfast and an hours hike in the jungle, in which Kennedy showed us how to survive in the jungle: which plant-life we could eat or get water from, which plants you should stay away from, and which plants can be used for medicine.

On the way back to the lodge, we saw Iguana’s doing their belly flop into the water, as well as a group of Howler Monkeys. Just before the lodge was swimming time as that was part of the day the caimens wouldn’t be out. Unfortunately this was the end of my Amazon experience and after lunch I made my way back to Manaus.

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Manaus

After arriving back at the office, we bumped into Gero (the boss of the Amazon Gero Tours). He offered me a free lift back to the airport that evening and also invited myself, as well as Jerry and Lillian, to his house in the evening for his birthday party. Before that time came though we went to the opera house to have a tour (for R$20), which unfortunately I didn’t find very good.

Luckily we went to a free show at the opera house at 8 p.m. It is a free show that the locals go to too, so we had to start lining up at 7 p.m. so we could get a seat. That night there was a dance show on representing Brazilian culture. It was quite good except for a few slip-ups from some of the dancers.

At 9 p.m. we were taken to Gero’s house and were greeted wonderfully by his wife, family and friends.They were all very hospitable and couldn’t do enough for us. Their house, neighbours and neighbourhood are very nice. Gero also helped me set up my tour in the Pantanal for the next day.