Amazon and back

Manaus comes as a bit of a shock if, like us, you think of the Amazon just as jungle. Built on the back of the rubber boom it reinvented itself as a free zone when the rubber market collapsed and is now known as the Amazon Hong Kong. Its a massive, bussling, exciting city. Full of surprises

Its got some wonderful buildings including a truly beautiful Opera House, every part except the floors, imported from Europe

Amazon beach

There is only one road in from Boa Vista so if you want to get out you fly or go by boat down the Amazon.

In Boa Vista I said to Marilyn this is our last change to go to Guyana but she was insistent that she wanted to see Manaus and then onto Belem by boat. However, when she saw the boats and the hammocks she was convinced that a 5 day trip in the rainy season was probably not a good idea.

We were a bit stuck but then we met Jimmy.

There are guys like Jimmy all over the Americas. They make money but chatting up tourists on the street and persuading them to go to tour agencies and hotels which give the Jimmys a commission. They are basically con men but sometimes can be useful.

Jimmy comes from Guyana and had answers to all our worries about getting to Guyana and persuaded us that we should really go. He even found a dodgy, but successful, way for us to change Reals into Dollars. Jimmy spent the whole morning with us, took a big tip and then 'happened' to meet us outside of our hotel and said lets go for a drink. He and Marilyn then got pissed on Caipirinhas and of course we picked up the bill

So we decide to go to Guyana after all. The only problem we had to retrace our steps to Boa Vista. Another 16 hours by bus

First we took a tour to see the meeting of the waters. Where two mighty rivers meet to form the Amazon proper. One is white the other brown. It takes 11km before they mingle.

We also saw giant Victoria Lilys.

The boat then travelled 3 hours up river so we could take a canoe into the jungle and go to a native village where there was an anaconda. Hooray at last I was going to see one

But the boat was so slow that by the time we got there there was only time for a quick bite to eat and then back on the boat for another 3 hours downstream. If we had stayed we would have missed our 9 pm bus to Boa Vista

At Boa Vista it is another 2 hours to the border, check out with the federal police, a canoe across the river and into Guyana. When we bought the bus ticket to the border the girl said do you really want to go and showed us a Guyana newspaper. A gang had just shot up a second town in two weeks. Raided a police station and killed 15 people as they escaped in the police land rover. Worrying but we just couldn't face going back on that bus to Manaus