Manaus – Day One
Today, at just before noon, we arrived at our furthest point upriver; the capital city of the Amazonas region on the River Negra, Manaus.
It took us a while for the ship to get settled in to the quayside, and receive clearance from the local authorities, though; once again, we had to wait for a crane to assist in manouvering our gangway into position from its place on the front of the ship. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be moved again until tomorrow as we have an overnight stop here.
After lunch, Tracey and I headed down the gangway to the quayside to escort one of the afternoon tours, titled ‘Manaus – Capital of Amazonas’, which is basically an on-the-bus-off-the-bus tour of the city; not our favourite kind, but we were happy to help out considering that we’ve also been given one of our favourite tours tomorrow.
The first stop for my coach was the municipal market, where we were given 30 minutes free time to browse and, presumeably, spend money. The market itself is a wrought iron structure, built from iron transported from Liverpool. Its stalls are mostly of the craft variety, but there is a meat and fish section incorporated too. It was a long 30 minutes…
Once we’d finally verified numbers and got everyone on the coach, we drove through the city’s busy streets, many of which are turned over entirely to bustling market stalls, and finished up at Manaus’ most famous building; the Opera House, where we spent about an hour and a half. Here, our guide, who was very thorough with his explanations (probably a little too thorough if the borded faces of some of the passengers were to go by) led us inside, and sat us down in the theatre’s historic auditorium, to tell us everything he knew about the building, when it was built, why it was built, and how they overcame the problems of overheating in the auditorium, when it was full. The Opera House also features an ornate ballroom with a balcony overlooking the square and an impressive Lego version of itself (one of my favourite bits of the tour, if I’m honest).
Our final stop was at an Indian museum.
If city tours are my least favourite type of tour, then museum stops are generally my least favourite part of any city tour, and this one was no exception. As our guide rattled on and on about goodness knows what, I hung back, out in the balcony hallway, hoping to find some free wi-fi (and failed).
With the tour drawing mercifully to an end, one or two passengers asked me when they were going to get their free bottle of water. This was news to me; I double-checked the write-up for the tour, and was surprised to discover that, sure enough, there was supposed to be a free bottle for everyone. To his credit, when I took it up with the guide, who admitted that it was news to him also, he contacted his bosses on his phone and managed to rustle up bottles for everyone from within the museum (Phew! Disaster averted).
Not the greatest of tours, then, although it is always a pleasure to see insidwe the Opera House, which is a truly remarkable, and quite beautiful building, both inside and out. It was also interesting to see how parts of the city have changed and been improved since we first visited Manaus.
In the evening, some folks headed off to the Opera House for a jazz show while others went off on the cayman spotting tour. After dinner, we headed back out to the quayside and caught the 24-hour shuttle bus to the terminal building, which is a little way off from the quay where the Magellan is parked (and no-one is allowed to wander around by theselves) to make use of the free wi-fi. It isn’t very good, and fluctuates wildly according to how many people are sat around with phones, tablets and laptops, making doing anything online a frustratingly slow process (but hey… it’s free…).
After battling with the wi-fi for about an hour and a half, we headed back to the ship and retired for the evening… tomorrow (another day in Manaus) is going to be a long day…
