p80-86 travel Brazil
9/28/06
1:28 PM
Page 85
Manaus, a city view from the balcony of the opera house.
We eagerly anticipated our stop at Anavilhanas, the world’s largest sweet water archipelago. In motorized canoes, (no life jackets) and definitely not for the faint of heart, we spent the day exploring the hundreds of islands, some inhabited, where the majesty, the overwhelming waterscapes and forests leave one truly amazed. The silence in this
part of the world is deafening when the canoe’s engine is turned off! Off in the distance we could see the outline of the largest treetop hotel in the world, The Ariau Amazon Towers. Built completely on stilts in the river, it attracts leaders from around the world (Jimmy Carter) and celebs (Susan Saradon) and many more, interested in ecology
and the uniqueness that is the Amazon River and the rain forest. On another day, the blinding white sandy beaches, exposed because the river was low, attracted ship guests to sun bathe, but it was really too hot. The local villagers, whole families in a tiny canoe, welcomed us with a variety of handicrafts. The water fluctuation of the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon, provided a great opportunity for a guided jungle walk where the incredible water fluctuations, evident in towering trees with water marks above 12 feet, were visible. Disappointing was the lack of sightings of indigenous jungle inhabitants, monkeys, sloths, birds, etc. We visited with natives who rely solely on the river for their needs, and marveled at the sheer expanse of flowing water and the density of the forests. Manaus, known as “Paris in the Jungle,” our final stop, is a colonial
The tender brings passengers from the Silver Cloud to the Village. September ~ October 2006
l The Boulevard
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