My arrival to the city wasn’t without its challenges, as I spent all my cash in Rio. This forced me to either use an ATM or find a money exchange – but the experience with ATMs so far is that they show me the finger 4 out of 5 times, and the airport only had 4 of them… The money exchange was closed; I am pretty sure that the employees were eaten by an anaconda on the bus to work. So this left me in a state of true suchatourism – and the solution was to find a taxi that eats my card and pay the premium for this 21st century service. I started to get on well with the taxi drivers here, although my Portuguese is still in its infancy – I know two words, “Cristiano” and “Ronaldo”, but I hardly get to use them. I tried Spanish once, with a driver who was really nice, I even showed him a family photo after he described his entire family tree. He asked me about my travels, and I wanted to answer that I travel the world for three months, but the word “month” eluded me. To save the situation, I wanted to round the numbers a bit and say I travel the world for ten weeks, but I didn’t remember “week” either. I remembered “day” though, but no chance for 92, so I decided to kill the conversation with an apologetic smile. I found it difficult with English in Rio, too, but here, it is impossible to use – certainly not a tourist destination. I don’t know why, I dreamed to come here for long, as this is where Rio Negro and Rio Solimoes meet to form the Amazon. I found Manaus to be smoky and interesting, and have seen only three tourists, although one of those turned out to be a mirror. The sights could be done quickly, for example the theatre:

Or the Ponta Negra, which is a sandy beach on the shore of Rio Negro, with the impressive Rio Negro bridge in the background:

Besides these, I managed to get to the Science Grove, a remarkable patch of forest in the middle of the city where injured animals are being treated before they are let back to the buses. Very interesting descriptions for everything, but only in Portuguese, except one that explains why they didn’t bother with the others:

Portuguese text: “Please don’t throw paper on the ground”. Close, but no cookie…

I have seen an electric eel, caimans, manatees and a lake, but I only managed to make a photo of some:

I like Manaus, and I haven’t even stepped through the gate…