Amazonas, Brazil

Type of trip: Nature

Length: 4 days
Date of the trip: December 2014

Home base: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Flight itinerary: Rio de Janeiro - Manaus - Rio de Janeiro

Highlights

Amazonia is a large rainforest which covers 5.5 million square kilometres and is shared by 9 countries with majority being in Brazil. It represents over half of the world's remaining rainforests.

One, I am sure, needs years to explore this region properly but we wanted to get a feeling of what it is like and as such we have chosen a relatively short stay.  But for us four days were really quite perfect.  We ended up doing plenty of cool things (all organised by our hotel - see information below):

• We went on a boat for a night safari and saw a few snakes (including rainbow boa on the picture below) and other animals.  This whole experience was quite mystical.  

• We went piranha fishing and got quite a few of them.  The boat driver took most of them but one was cooked for us and it was pretty tasty.  The kids loved it!

• We hiked in the rainforest exploring flora and fauna.  The spider below is apparently not dangerous, you will only get unconscious for a couple of hours if it bites you.  

• We saw and touched pink dolphins which I must admit are not the prettiest creatures I have ever seen but they were very friendly and cute.  

• We swam in Rio Negro which was a bit spooky as the water is so rich in minerals that you can't see beyond a few centimetres and you don't really know what is lurking next to you.  (Warning: one of my kids who doesn't ever get any allergies got very strong rush after swimming in Rio Negro, must be some mineral that did it. All cleared after a coupe of days with no treatments, but worth knowing especially if your kids are sensitive to things). 
• And on the last day we went on a boat trip to see the sunrise over River Negro which was beautiful.  

All in all this was a great trip although we only got a glimpse of this huge region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest

Logistics

Getting to Amazonas from Rio de Janeiro is pretty straight forward.  There are plenty of flights to Manaus.  After that it really depends on where you stay and therefore, how much you will have to travel by road.  The hotel we stayed was 160 km from Manaus so it took us a bit over two hours to get there.  The road was pretty good most of the way.  

On the way back, our flight was in the afternoon so we had four or five hours to spare in Manaus and we went to visit Teatro de Amazonas. It is beautiful inside and outside and really good to visit. They do guided English tours every couple of hours. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Theatre

Accommodation

Choosing a place to stay was not easy.  There are plenty of simple places but it is pretty hard to understand what each of the lodges offers and their level of comfort.  Having looked for hours, I have chosen Anavilhanas Lodge which was listed as one of the top 10 places to stay in Brazil by the National Geographic (although a couple of years ago).  We were not disappointed.  In summary:

• The rooms and beds were nice, clean and comfortable.  The room had a covered terrace with a hammock.  
• The trips organised by the hotel were excellent.  The guides were nice and knowledgeable.  Well... apart from one called Krishna who seemed to be only interested in selling extra tours in Manaus which by the sound of it him and his mate are running.  
• The food was not great.  Was OK but really not great.  We were not left hungry but the food could be improved a lot.  
• There is a nice little pool which the kids enjoyed playing in.  

It is worth noting that Anavilhanas archipelago is located on Rio Negro. It is as I noted above very rich of minerals and as such mosquitoes don't really breed there, so despite my expectations, there were not too many annoying insects apart from the time when we went hiking. You really needed plenty of mosquito spray then and the hotel provided gaiters to protect against other creatures which I prefer not to be thinking about but we didn't encounter any... 

http://www.anavilhanaslodge.com/wordpress/

Food

Manaus - Tambaqui de Banda. After our tour of the Teatro de Amazonas we went to a place just around the corner which serves tambaqui, local fish. I tend to prefer sea fish as find river fish a bit smelly, but this fish was great.  And it is huge. We had ribs (in addition to all kinds of other parts of this fish as we over ordered against the waiter's advice) and they were good and huge... Anyway, the food was really good in this place, so I would highly recommend it. 

http://www.tambaquidebanda.com.br/

Other options
One other thing that is probably worth seeing in Manaus which we didn't end up doing as we really didn't have much time plus had a feeling that it was a bit too touristy is the meeting of waters, i.e. the confluence between the Rio Negro, a river with dark (almost black) water, and the sandy coloured Amazon River or Rio Solimoes. For 6 km, the two rivers's water run side by side without mixing. It is probably worth seeing if you have time.