A city of over 1 million people, a city which came to greatness during the 1800’s Rubber Boom in Brazil, but today shows its age - remnants of once grandiose architecture are now crumbling in ruins. One Manaus’ highlights is its opera house, built in the 1800's by rich rubber merchants who wanted to entertain and show off their wealth by building an ornate European style opera house in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

 

As it was located in walking distance from our ship, we set out to have a look. On the way, we encountered a street filled with market stalls selling everything from remote controls to shoes to fried plantains. I've seen busy markets before, but nothing like this.

 

 

 

 

The streets were filled with music and shoppers galore, all in from the surrounding villages to do some Christmas shopping. It was loud, crowded, and every stall had a man with a microphone. Even though I don't speak Portuguese I could tell he was hocking his plastic, made-in-china, fake Nikes.

 

It seemed that every woman in Manaus, no matter what size shape or age, has managed to stuff herself into a dress which was 2 sizes to small. I give them credit for achieving the optimum ratio of a minimum amount of fabric to maximum amount of cleavage. There was one store selling these dresses for about the equivalent of $12US and the feeding frenzy of women on this bin of dresses was like a pack of piranha on a wounded fish.

 

I hate looking like a tourist, but in my long sleeved shirt, buttoned to the top button to keep my pale New England skin from getting a burn. And we were the only ones...the ship I'm on has less than 700 people, so even the other passengers weren't to be seen around. In this labyrinth of activity (armed only with a very poor map from the ship) we couldn’t quite find our way. Eventually, after admitting defeat and asking directions from a group of military police, we found it.

 

 

The opera house was beautifully decked out for the Christmas holiday!

 

 

 

 

 

Last year I toured the Estates Theatre in Prague (where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni), and the interior was very similar. Furnishings, art, just about everything was brought in from Europe – and showed the decadence of those rubber merchants. Opera patrons arrived by horse drawn carriages and legend has it that while waiting during the performance, the horses were given champagne to drink. Who knows if that’s really true – but it is a great visual, and illustrates the opulence of the time.

 

 

The chandeliers were even made of Murano glass, imported from Venice.

 

The opera house was lovely, but I have to say that I've been all over the world and seen lots of buildings, big, ornate, you name it. For me the love of travel comes from that trip through the market...the warm, friendly military police who pieced together enough broken English between the 3 of them to give us directions, and a man on the street selling interesting looking pastry, who after I took a photo of it showed me an article featuring him in the local newspaper.

 

On our walk back to the ship, after waiting half an hour in line at the ATM, the sunny skies turned suddenly and a torrential rain started...lasted for about 1/2 hour and now less than an hour later, the sun came out again.

 

The fantastic part about this trip was that after a long, hot day walking through the city (it was 40C / 104F), I went back to the ship, watched "The Hangover" in the ship’s lounge and later had a great 5 course dinner with French wine. This trip was the perfect combination of 2 extremes!