Manaus - back in Brazil

As we were running out of time (because of a date with a friend in Fortaleza) we decided to take a plane from Tabatinga to Manaus. There is only one Airline flying on this route so we didn't have a choice: Azul Linhas Aéreas it was! The Airport in Tabatinga is not more than a little house that opens twice a day when those two planes arrive and half an hour later leave again. I don't have to say that the plane fitted perfectly to the airport: a little propeller-driven plane where the baggage was somehow stored between the cockpit and the passenger cabin.

After two hours flying over the lush green of the rainforest and shortly before our scheduled arrival the pilot informed us that we had to wait a little bit for our landing as the runway lights in Manaus didn't work. After 15 min he told us, that they don't know when they can fix the problem with the lights and that we can't wait any longer otherwise we'd run out of petrol before we make it to the next airport. So we continued to Santarém (right trough a thunderstorm with a nice view of a thousand lightnings outside…).
One and a half hours later we arrived in Santarém, where they refueled the plane and without even getting off, we took off again and after another 2 hours we finally landed safe in Manaus.

In Manaus two things were especially impressive: the harbor with it's fish market and the famous Teatro Amazon, the opera house, but see for yourself...

Porto de Manaus

Teatro Amazonas

Statue on the square in front of the opera house

Ceiling - the view you would have if you were under Paris' Eiffel Tower looking up

This loge is reserved for the Govenor of the Amazonas and his family, no one else is allowed in there

Those Masks were imported from Italy

Painting of the first brazilian opera

San Martín de Amacayacu - a Ticuna community

More by accident that actually planned we ended up staying with José, a Ticuna, and his wife Heike in his community of San Martín de Amacayacu. The Ticuna are indigenous people of Brazil, Colombia and Peru and they are the most numerous tribe in the Amazon.

To get to San Martín we took the Rápido (a fast motorboat) from Leticia up the Amazon river. After two hours - at the" intersection" of the Amazon and the Amacayacu river - we jumped off the Rápido into the boat of Lorenzo, Josés brother, who came to pick us up. Right in this moment a bunch of pink river dolphins started playing around us - it was magical, it was like the dolphins were welcoming us to most amazing days of our journey in the middle of the amazonian rainforest.

Josés family was great and showed us around in the community, his grandma Doña Mercedes explained us how to weave a basket, his younger brother Robinson took us for a 8 hours day and night (!) walk through virgin rainforest and every day before sunset we watched the daily soccer game in front of the school house. If it wasn't for the already booked flight to Manaus and the mosquitos that were eating us alive I think we would have stayed!

House in San Martín de Amacayacu

Traveling upstream with the Rápido

Peru

On the Amacayacu river with Lorenzo

Daily soccer game in San Martín

Better off with rubber boots!

Learning how to weave a typical ticuna basket...

... from Doña Mercedes

José and Doña Mercedes

Teamwork

Traditional Ticuna mask used in spiritual rituals

Paddles

Relaxing

Speacial bamboo cane used for hunting with poisonous arrows

Port of San Martín

Rini, a little Ticuna sunshine

Local catholic church - missionaries were busy in this part of the world...

In the middle of the night in the somewhere in the rainforest

Without Robinson we would probably still be there looking for the way back

On a canoe tour with José

Berries and a spear - what else do you need for fishing?!

Never without my rubber boots! :)

Paddling through the rainforest

View of San Martín