Back to Brazil!!!

So after the awful debacle that was Venezuela we eventually made it to Brazil. We literally cheered with happiness as we crossed the border we were so happy to be there! Back in Brazil..where it all started all those months ago. First stop, to break up the long bus journeys, was Boa Vista. Boa Vista was great. We decided as we´d had such an awful last week, to splash out on a lovely expensive hotel with air con. It was the best feeling to take off the clothes I´d been wearing for about 3 days and have a long shower..oh to be clean!! I then decided to treat myself to a much needed pedicure! It was a great day and we could´nt stop smiling! We ended the day with some yummy Brazillian food including a big bowl of Acai I´d been craving since we last left Brazil! Acai is a deep purple vitamin rish berry from the Amazon and is said the be quite addictive. My favourite way to have it is frozen like a sorbet in a bowl with fruit and granola...mmmn!

So after our day of R & R we got back on the bus for another 12 hours journey to Manaus. Unfortunately the only bus company that did the journey to Manaus was Eucatur! So despite vowing never to get on another Eucatur bus ever again, we said some prayers and got on. Luckily we arrived safely, with no crashes and no death, in Manaus late that evening.

Manaus is the Amazon's largest city, described as "an incongruous pocket of urbanity in the middle of the jungle". We planned to spend about 4 days in the city to chill out, plan our time in Brazil and eat lots of lovely food! It was really nice to spend more than 2 days somewhere and we stayed in a fab hostel with Wi-Fi in our room and a great big breakfast every morning! Oh we love Brazil! We spent a lot of or time updating the blog and uploading photos, but we also managed to get out and see some cool sights! We walked around the city and found some beautiful old buildings including the Teatro Amazonas opened in 1896, and nearby palaces. We spent a fun morning with lots of manatees at the Bosque Da Cienca, a 13 hectare plot of forest within the city. The highlight is the manatee pool with underwater glass windows. The reclusive creatures, known as peixeboi (cow fish) in Portuguese, are pretty much imposible to see in the wild in the Amazon river, so it was brilliant to watch them in their tank! We also saw a giant river otter, some turtles and a pretty toucan in the trees! Oh and I got stung by a bee and it really hurt.

Another massive highlight of Manaus was Churrascaria Buffalo. A churrascaria is basically an up-market all you can eat restaurant including lots of different types of dishes, a huge salad bar and men that bring you freshly grilled meat from skewers to your table. Amazing! We visited one of these Brazillian institutions before and left feeling so ill after eating just way too much...it was not pleasant. Basically you have a little wheel at the end of your table which you can turn to the green YES position or the red NO position. If the wheel is on YES the men with the meat will come to your table. Simple! It's quite difficult to say no though when the meat looks as good as it does! So you end up eating far too much! So this time we decided to be sensible and try to say "no" to some of the meat coming round. This time there was a special something else on the menu of all you can eat too....sushi!! So we decided to have a sushi course to begin with (ok we had maybe 2 sushi courses to begin with...actually Chris had 3 sushi courses to begin with!) it was fantastic, we hadn't had sushi for over a week and we were in desperate need of some!

So 23 salmon nigiri later, we decided to start on the meat course! We felt a bit wrong just having meat so we added some salad to our plates too. And the meat was good...really good! It was great to have some picanha again, our beef cut of choice from our month or so in Brazil at the beginning. We got through a lot of meat and decided to call it a day an hour or so later. But then they came around with dessert! And we can't say no to dessert..especially when it is fresh strawberries and cream! So we each had a bowl and it was delicious! Chris then decided to have one more bowl, which is quite unlike him...not being a massive fan of sweet things..but as it's all you can eat for a set price he thought why not?! So, full up to the brim we got the cheque and got ready to leave. It was then that we noticed it was a little more expensive than we had thought it would be. Oh dear. They charge for desserts..and Chris had 2!!! Hahaha! It was very funny! Well worth it too!

The main reason we were in Manaus (apart from the sushi and all you can eat meat) was to see the famous Amazon! Most people start or end their trip in the Amazon in Manaus and ours was just beginning. We decided against the normal jungle trip where you see some monkeys, pink dolphins, aligators and fish for piranhas as we had already done this type of trip twice, once in the Amazon basin in Bolivia and also in the Pantanal in Brazil. Both trips had been so successful and we'd seen so much wildlife that we decided to make our way down the Amazon river to a place called Santerem, where we could do a hike in the jungle and see some big trees and also visit a few beautiful beaches. The only way to get anywhere in the Amazon is by boat, so we booked ourselves onto a 2 day passenger boat to Santerem.

The boat trip was great! We got there about 5 hours early to secure a hammock spot and we got a good spot on the middle deck. As the 5 hours passed by before we set off, about a hundred other people set their hammocks up around us, below us and pretty much on top of us! It was a fab sight..so many colourful hammocks! And luckily not too uncomfortable with so many people around us!

We had a very relaxed 2 days aboard the boat making our way down the huge Amazon river, the views were beautiful and the sunsets around 5pm were spectacular.