Manaus: In the heart of the (concrete?) jungle :-)

Manaus just takes your breath away. It is a urban concrete jungle like any other city, with shopping malls, luxury hotels and global brands but just take a river taxi across the Rio Negro and the sounds of nature become louder than the sounds of the city. Of course you won´t see any wild anacondas or panthers here, but still you get an impression of what the 'selva', the amazon rainforest can be like.

Today we took a bus to the CISG zoo, a kind of zoo operated by the Brazilian army. It consists mainly of animals rescued (or supposedly rescued) by soldiers during their training in the jungle. We where not sure what to expect so decided to sacrifice a morning for it. Actually, it´s kind of sad. The cages are pretty small and don´t seem very animals friendly. Also the animals themselves look pretty sad. As one friend put it, the crocodiles don't even have a tail and the anaconda sits in a wheelchair. Well, we saw a 5m long anaconda but to be honest the species most worth seeing in the CISG are of the human kind, specias militar brasileiro ;-)

Later on we went to the market Mercado Municipal Adolfo Lisboa, a copy of Les Halles in Parism, where I bought fresh `barbosa` (aloe vera) for my various cuts and bruises. The market area is very lively, you can buy about everything here, dead or alive and even have your hair cut right on the street. One of my favourites, as usual, was the market toilet. It is very cosy and well equipped and it is stated that the 50 centavos entrance includes use of soap and towel. Its definately worth a visit.

After visiting the market we got kind of kidnapped by a guide who took us by boat over the Rio Negro to the Janaury reserve. There he showed us the huge sapahuma tree, which the indians used as a kind of `phone` by beating a branch to it and making a kind of signal that travelled for miles. He also wanted to show us the crocodile `Bau`, which lives in an enclosure in the wood, but `Bau` seemed to be asleep, lazy or dead - he didn`t come out. Before going back to Manaus we had to pay another 5 Reals to see an ageing anaconda... Even though this was kind of a typical tourist thing it was quite nice, especially the ride in the small boat over the huge Rio Negro.