The Mother of the Gods

Today we arrived in Manaus, whose name comes from the natives' word meaning 'mother of the gods'. Manaus is about 1,000 miles up the Amazon and it is a city of 2 million people. It seems strange to find a city of this size in the middle of nowhere. Just as elsewhere along the Amazon, the river plays a major role in the life here. As you can see from the photo below, hundreds of boats crowd the waterfront at any given time. Rather than a bus or train terminal, there's a boat terminal.

Bill and I took a tour today on 2 different kinds of boats. I'll tell about the first one. We left from the dock on a double decker boat, the kind that is used widely for transport of people from village to village along the river like the boats pictured above. After passing bustling industrial areas we soon came to scattered villages, some of which were made up entirely of floating houses like those in the photo below.

After passing those, we stopped into a village that had homes built on stilts similar to the ones we saw yesterday in Boca da Valeria. We peeked into one and saw a decorated Christmas tree.

What Cindy forgot to mention about Manaus is that it is located at the junction of the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers. The city grew because of the rubber trade in the area. At one time it was the richest city in the world. The Rio Negro waters are almost black in color and the Amazon is a muddy brown. The water in the two rivers are different temperatures and flow at different speeds. This causes the water to stay separate for several miles after they merge into one. The following photo shows the meeting of the waters and you can see how they do not mix right away.

On our tour we went to a floating restaurant for lunch. It was really neat. They had six different buildings attached to each other to make a restaurant and gift shop on the river. After lunch we switched boats. We went from the big commuter boat to a 12 person motorized canoe. This way we could get back some of the smaller tributaries and see a lot of wild life. Also I had my trusty one dollar bills out so when the kids came up with their pets I could get some good photos. The first photo is Cindy holding a sloth. It seems half of the kids have these things for pets.

As we were cruising down some of the smaller tributaries in the canoe the kids would paddle out in their canoes with their pets for a photo op and to make a few bucks (when I was a kid I sold used golf balls for extra money). This kid is holding his pet boa. I can think of better things than a pet boa, how about a nice dog or cat! Other kids came out with birds, monkeys and small alligators.

Now we've got to get back to our cabin and finish packing for the trip home! ;(