A couple of weeks ago, The Boss (for those who were not paying attention, that's my girlfriend's name) and I went to the Amazon for the weekend. For the weekend! The Amazon is not exactly around the corner, even if you are already in Brazil - nor a particularly small venue, for that matter - so people usually don't bother hopping on a plane to spend 40-something hours there. But that's exactly what we did.
Of course I tried to reason with The Boss. I argued that we would spend more time on transit than actually there. I even went on Google maps to show her how freaking huge and far away the Amazon was, but to no avail.
The woman loves to travel and was on a mission. She might be leaving the country for good soon, so lately she added a sense of urgency to her tourism, as if she needs to see whatever is left in Brazil before moving on. And, because she is on the road more often than that George Clooney character from Up in the Air and practically lives in hotels, she racks up miles like crazy, meaning the trip would cost about $3.99 for both of us - breakfast included.
There was one catch, though: the Amazon had actually been my idea all along and I wanted to spend a full week there, maybe even two. I wanted to take a cruise down those rivers, see the wildlife, breath some fresh air and get bitten by prehistoric bugs - you know, the full experience. But The Boss couldn't take that kind of time off work, so, as hard as it is to argue against dirt cheap trips to exotic locations, I had been putting up a fight and negotiations had been stalled for a few months.
Still, The Boss is not one to dishonor her own title and wouldn't let my pretentious veto spoil her "weekend on the jungle" for much longer. Thus, in a rather cunning fashion, she booked the trip behind my back and waited until we were out and I was drunk to break the news. It was genius, really. In my intoxicated state I totally forgot to get mad and, by failing to object in a timely manner, I also forfeited my right to keep blocking the proposal. We were going to Manaus and there was nothing I could do about it (and, after discovering my flight back included a 5-hour stopover in São Paulo, it's not like I didn't try).
Since I was deliberately kept out of the loop during preparations, I would be once again travelling in the dark. The only instructions I received were to take a shot for yellow fever and to buy a gallon of insect repellent; then to meet The Boss at the airport on Friday night at 0700 hours. I was also informed that we would be returning on separate flights on Sunday afternoon, so I would suffer the 10-hour journey back alone. And that was it, end of briefing.
Furthermore, because I had also forgotten to do my pre-travel research (i.e. check maps, distances and things to do at our destination), all I knew about Manaus was what they taught me in school, which only added to my overall sense of blindness.
That's not to say I didn't know anything. I knew, for instance, that Manaus is the capital city of the state of Amazonas, smacked in the middle of the rain forest, right where the rivers Negro and Solimões merge to form the Amazon river (well, technically the Solimões is the Amazon, but it only gets that name after absorbing the Negro). I knew that, late in the XIX century, the boom of the latex extraction industry brought about a golden age for the city, of which the Teatro Amazonas is the most impressive reminder. I also knew that, later on, at some point during the XX century, the national government, trying to foster development in northern Brazil, turned the area into a tax-free industrial zone. Last but not least, I remember my grandma telling me that there were no mosquitoes in Manaus, which had something to do with the water in the Rio Negro.
Nevertheless, despite what was clearly an in-depth previous knowledge of the city, I was totally surprised by what I saw - and in a good way.
First and foremost, Manaus is massive. It has a population of about 2 million people, a figure truly remarkable, considering that the city is mostly unreachable by land. It is also staggering large, spreading out, towards the jungle, for miles and miles and miles. But then again, I suppose they don't really have problems with lack of space around those parts, something that can be inferred from the fact that there are not many buildings that go over 4 stories.
It is also a relatively modern city, not at all what you would expect of a town isolated by the world's largest forest. The streets are wide and, by and large, pretty well-kept. McDonald's is there, as are most luxury hotel chains and roughly one quarter of the total Japanese population (more on that below). Due to its strategic location and the development policies in place, and being the river the most obvious choice for transportation, Manaus also boasts a pretty relevant and well-equipped port, able to handle a considerable traffic that includes full-sized tankers. On a sad note, however, grandma was dead wrong about the mosquitoes in there. Whatever beef they had with the dark waters of the river seems to be in the past and I'd say they are quite comfortable in Manaus these days.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Evidently, we didn't get to see any of that on Friday night. In fact, when we arrived in Manaus it was almost midnight and there wasn't much to do besides taking a ridiculously overpriced cab ride to the hotel.
The hotel, in this case, was the Novotel Manaus, which was located at the industrial district. Industrial. Anyone who has ever gone anywhere, ever, knows that this is never a good sign, but we were confident that the fine folks of Novotel wouldn't have randomly set camp in a dodgy part of town. And we were right, or at least partially right. I couldn't see anything industrial or fishy about our surroundings and there were a lot of hotels in the immediate vicinity. We were, however, pretty fucking far away from the city center (thus adding the ridiculously to our overpriced taxi fare), and other hotels were all I could see in the immediate vicinity.
I had bigger problems, though. First, my dinner had been some foul-tasting airline cracker and a tiny glass of warm soda, so I was starving. Second, it was almost 1am and The Boss had ambitious plans for the next day: I just knew that, given the extremely short nature of our trip, she would try to do as much as humanly possible on Saturday, even if it cost me my feet. So it was important that I hit the sheets a.s.a.p. in order get as much sleep as I could, but I was too hungry. And the longer it took me sleep, the hungrier I got, which, in turn, made it even harder to sleep. I was doomed, trapped in a misery loop.
It wasn't easy waking up the following morning. In addition to my late-night struggles, it was pouring down outside and my religion does not allow me to get up on weekends before noon when it's raining. But breakfast was included in the price and we needed a decent meal before heading out, so The Boss kicked me out of bed at 6:45am.
When I finally managed to get dressed and drag myself to the lobby, we found the strangest breakfast buffet ever waiting for us. Sure, they had the traditional choices: juices, fruits, cake and bread; two or three types of cereal; coffee, milk and hot chocolate; scrambled eggs and sausages; and even a few exotic Amazon fruits for those who woke up feeling a little more adventurous. But then they had stuff like Piranha soup, rice, cup noodles and chopped beef, as well an entire table filled with Japanese food (no sushi, though).
While we attempted to make sense of this weird, brunch-like menu, we noticed that we were the only two non-Asian people in the entire restaurant. It was mind boggling, I felt for a moment like I was in another country. Granted, we were at a hotel and I half-expected to see more foreigners than Brazilians visiting the Amazon anyway (not really our first choice for tourism), but I wasn't ready for anything like that.
Later on I recalled some alarmist e-mails I received, the kind everybody gets once in a while, claiming that international forces were plotting to take the Amazon away from Brazil. At the time I dismissed those as internet nonsense, but now I'm not so sure. I know that there's much interest in the bio-potential of the rain forest. I even recall a real case of foreigners getting cute with its natural resources, when a Japanese - them again! - corporation decided to register Cupuaçu as a trademark. (Now, Cupuaçu is the name of a fucking fruit and has been used for as long as there have been people in the Amazon, you can't just come from across the planet have dibs on that. Sorry.) We sent those fools packing, but still. First they went after the fruit, now they are messing with breakfast, while their numbers keep growing. What comes next? Lunch? Dinner? Or, God forbid, our deep-fried snacks? Is nothing else sacred?
In any case, as politically engaged as I may sound now, nothing even remotely close to that crossed my mind during our meal. In my half-awake condition, I was infinitely more concerned with our upcoming activities than with the geopolitical ramifications of breakfast. We had booked a boat trip to the famous Meeting of the Waters, the spot down the river where the Solimões and the Negro converge, but still had a few minutes to kill before our transfer arrived, so I decided to find a comfortable couch in the lobby and sleep some more.
The Boss, on the other hand, was a little more anxious, bordering on cranky. The grand appeal of this tour is that the rivers have very distinct colors and run side-to-side, on the same riverbed, for nearly 16 kilometers without mixing. But, with the torrential downpour outside, she feared the whole thing would get stirred up and the only meeting of waters we would get to see was the one between the rain and the river.
Her anxiety increased as time passed and we could see no signs our ride, so she decided we should call and confirm the pick-up. However, since I was the one who made the reservation (my one task other than buying insect repellent) and I had forgotten to write the number down, I would have find a computer and access my e-mail in order to get it... all of it seemed like a lot of work and I really really wanted the extra 5 minutes of shuteye. By then, The Boss was fed up with my laziness and had definitely crossed the border on to Crankytown, meaning I was headed for trouble.
I knew I was on thin ice, so I did the only thing I could to prevent the worst: I furiously pretended to be asleep. Deep down I think I knew how unlikely it was that she would get bored and leave, or that she would even believe I was really sleeping, but perhaps I was hoping my own tranquility would sooth her somehow. Well, it didn't. But thankfully, a thoughtful hotel clerk saw the gathering storm from the main desk and intervened, saying he had the number and offering to make the call.
Much to our (my) surprise, the good man was promptly informed that there was no pick-up scheduled to pass by our hotel that day, at least not from that agency. I actually thought about suggesting we retreat to our room, finish sleeping and then find something else to do, but I could see the foam forming on the corner of The Boss' mouth and realized that it would be a bad idea (she had crazy eyes, man, and they were pointed right at me!). So, instead, I kept quiet and began wondering about my fate: even though I could swear on my life that I really made the damn reservation (Patricia! I spoke to a woman named Patricia!) and it wasn't my fault at all, I knew it would be my head and my ass nonetheless.
That was when the super concierge saved my life for the second time in as many minutes. Since we didn't pay anything up front for our so-called reservation, he suggested we simply join a different group, as there were several of them doing the exact same tour that morning. In fact, he said, there was one of those that had just left the hotel and could still be reached, and he could check if there was room for us, if we were interested. That we were and, within minutes, the kind soul put us on our way to the Manaus port. Whew!
So, against all odds, everything just fine again. The Boss was happy and smiling, my head was still firmly attached to my body - thanks to the adrenaline rush, wide awake too - and even the rain was finally clearing. Things were definitely looking up.
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