From our weekend at Iguazu Falls, we flew to Manaus,capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state. Brazil is a huge country so it took us two flights and all day to cover the ~2,600 km. Incredibly uncomfortable flights too, since LATAM Airlines’ features the smallest seat pitch of any commercial airline worldwide at just 28 inches.
We had a few hours to look around the city after checking into our hotel. It’s not all that attractive, although the Opera House, a few nice buildings from the rubber boom era, and a couple of attractive plazas are in the downtown area. And a fine birthday dinner at a restaurant on the main square improved our opinion of Manaus.
The city did look somewhat nicer the next morning when the sun was out for our walk down to the Mercado Municipal Adolpho Lisboa and over to the port area. At the port we caught a glimpse of the ship Grand Amazon Expedition that we boarded later that afternoon. As we posted in Amazon Cruise (ver 2.0), we chose this small expedition style ship in order to see the Amazon up close rather than from the deck of a huge cruise ship. It was a great choice! We don’t want to write a full-on review of this Iberostar all-inclusive, floating hotel, but can say that:
- The cabin was small, but had private balcony, minibar, great A/C and was serviced twice a day.
- The food ranged from OK to great. It was mostly buffet style but catered to the varied tastes of the ~120 passengers. The a la carte captain’s dinners were a nice touch. The two all-inclusive bars were great of course.
- The folk shows and educational lectures about the Amazon also varied from just so-so to excellent.
- The included expeditions (up to three per day) done by 16-20 passenger flat bottomed tenders were simply amazing.
Rather than give a day by day description of the 8-10 tours that we took on the 4-night Rio Negro part of our tour, we’ll let our photos of the Amazon do the talking. But we will mention that we English speakers aboard who had a dedicated boat and guide were fortunate enough to have a guide with 27 years’ experience and an encyclopedic knowledge of the rain forest. Presumably, the Portuguese and Spanish speakers were equally well served.
In our photos below there are shots from jungle treks, night cruises, visits to native villages, and fauna including caimans, enormous spiders, monkeys, and the Amazon’s famous pink dolphins. Our images also include several shots of the ship, and shipboard events.
The final shot from the Rio Negro segment of our cruise is one of the “Meeting of the Waters” just downstream of Manaus. Here, the black water of the Rio Negro meets the muddy brown Solimoes River and the currents run parallel for miles before finally mixing. After viewing the somewhat underwhelming “meeting” at 6:00 am, we returned to Manaus for our turnaround day before the second segment of the cruise.
See our pictures of the Rio Negro portion of our Amazon cruise on Flicker: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720332351643
Visit our Uruguay and the Amazon page to see all of our posts from our first trip of 2026!