Manaus is the capital of the largest Brazilian State, the Amazon, located on the confluence of the Negro and Solimões Rivers, just before the two rivers meet and take on the name of the Amazon.
In the mid 19th Century, driven by the development of the automobile industry creating a boom in the rubber exploitation, Manaus, which until that point had only been a village, is changed forever. The expansion of the city was momentous. Capital, arriving from Europe, flowed into the city, and Manaus developed an infrastructure. Its most prosperous inhabitants lived there in luxury, however unstable, an incredible contrast to the extraordinarily miserable daily life of the “Seringueros” most of whom had fled the crisis of the Northeast.
It is even said that the wealthiest rubber barons used to send their laundry to Paris…

After 50 years of euphoria, the Indonesian and Malaysian rubber exploitation supplanted the Amazonian one, creating a severe depression in the city.
Finally, in 1950, a governmental measure gives the area the status of free zone, and Manaus regained the economic dynamism placing it today among the first nationally (it is today the third industrial pole of the country, behind Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte).
Manaus offers the visitors a contrasted face. A true concrete island in the heart of the jungle, it conserves numerous monuments witness of its sumptuous past.
The famous Teatro Amazonas, emblematic vestige of the fleeting but glorious rubber époque, inaugurated by Caruso in 1896, has regained its activity not too long ago, after many decades past in silence and dust. It is full, 2 to 3 times a week and every year during the Lyric Art festival attracting the biggest names of the Opera.
Close by, near the floating market, the municipal market has spilled over the limits of the Eiffel style building constructed to shelter it in the beginning of the 20th Century.
It is the un-avoidable meeting ground for one and a half millions people, living in the forest, and visiting Manaus to sell the products of nature (manioc, fish, handicraft…) and buy the necessary products to life in the jungle.
This immense popular area vibrates with animation starting with the first light of day, when, in the smells of tropical fruits, the fishermen deliver, on their backs, thousands of fish of all size and all colors that nature generously offers them in the waterways around the city.

Pick up and transfer to the hotel (usually before noon).
At 14:00 meeting at the hotel with our English-speaking guide for a guided visit of the town.
The capital of this immense territory is a town like others, except for its geographical situation (it is located in the heart of the Amazon) giving it a unique style: the atmosphere is tropical, saturated with humidity, and from the beach of Ponta Negra or from the floating pier, we are astounded by the size of Río Negro (Black River), running peacefully, as far as the eye can see. A few miles lower, it mixes its water with those of Río Solimoes to form, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, the Amazon River.
Our stroll takes us to the Opera, which ceiling represents the Eiffel tower seen from the ground (closed on Mondays). Then visit of the floating pier built by English engineers at the beginning of the 20th century, a real technological feat for the time.
Finally, mandatory stop at the market, where we may desire to be left to ourselves, early in the morning, to attend the ballet of the Dockers discharging fruits, vegetable, but especially impressive fish … Return to the hotel at the end of the day.
Entrance fee included. Meals not included. Night in hotel.

The town of Presidente Figueiredo is located 67 miles to the North of Manaus, on the (asphalted) road linking the Amazon to Roraima and to Venezuela.
Presidente Figueiredo is famous for its countless waterfalls, each more beautiful than the previous, and for its caverns.
Here is a simple 1-day program starting from Manaus.

Departure from the hotel at 08:30 with our English-speaking guide. The day include the excursion to the beautiful waterfall of "Santuário" and to the cavern of "Maroaga" if weather allows, the cave being located deep in the forest and the way there being slippery and dangerous if wet.
Lunch (not included) in a restaurant in town, and then visit of the waterfall of "Iracema" and of its caves (in some of them hides the beautiful "rock rooster", a prized bird by ornithologists).
Return to Manaus in the late afternoon.
Meals not included. Night in a hotel.

* Evening review of Brazilian chants and dances / Thursday evenings only
Our guide picks us up at 20:30 (start of the show at 21:00, end at 22:30).
Comfortably settled in the show room of the superb hotel Tropical *****, on the shores of Río Negro, we attend a musical review allowing us a comprehensive insight of the rhythms and traditional dances of the entire country.
About twenty dancers in costumes sweep us along with them in the frenetic rhythms of the capoeira, forró or samba for an hour and a half of a high-level show.
Included: English-speaking guide / entrance / round-trip transportation / show
Not included: drinks

* Evening churrascaria
Our guide picks us up at 19:30 for our dinner at Toro Loco, one of the best restaurants in the city, where we can taste grilled meats in the Brazilian fashion, the famous "churrasco".
After the meal, we can take some time to enjoy the breeze coming from Río Negro during a nocturnal stroll on the beach of Ponta Negra.
Depending on the season, we may get lucky and witness a boi-bumba demonstration.
Emblematic of the Amazonian culture, the boi-bumba originated from the rivalry opposing, a long time ago, two cattle-breeder families about their respective cows (boi).
This disagreement has taken over the years a collective dimension, and has become part of the folklore.
Each year (last weekend in June), the boi-bumba is celebrated during the Parintins festival, a small island on the Amazon where come hundreds of thousands of people (making it the second Brazilian popular manifestation after the Carnival).
Each one, choose for life, to be part of one of these two groups: CAPRICHOSO or GARANTIDO.
The first are recognizable by their blue costumes, the seconds by red ones, and their rivalry is not violent.
During 3 days and 3 nights, inventive parades follow one another in the "bumbodrome" of Parintins.
In a debauchery of confetti and decibels, an Amazonian fresco is presented during which traditional and ancestral figures are summoned, as well as others, more modern.
Thus, after the show of an immense allegory of Pope Jean Paul II, appears the float taking the “page” (cacique / sorcerer of the Amazonian tribes) surrounded by dancers in a trance and accompanied by a plaster cow wearing the color of its clan.
The crowd is fascinated, the music becomes loader; it is the apex of the ceremony.
When the jury gives its verdict, while half of the attendants scream of happiness, the losers promise to return, stronger, the following year.