If You Only Have A Day In Manaus, Brazil

Cruise Travel, June, 2001 by Norman Sklarewitz

This fascinating inland port, 1,000 miles up the Amazon River, offers historical perspective of the 19th century rubber boom

Veteran cruise passengers know that every port has its own personality and look. Just the same, one thing almost all have in common is that they are on a major body of water--the Mediterranean or Caribbean seas, the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, for example. There is, however, one major exception--Manaus, Brazil.

While regularly visited by major cruise ships, the port of Manaus is nearly 1,000 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. To reach it, ships on Atlantic cruises pause near the Brazilian coastal city of Macada at the Santana Pilot Station. There they take on an Amazon River pilot, enter the Northern Brenes Narrows, and proceed on their way up the mighty Amazon River on what is the most spectacular river excursion in the world of cruising.

That's because not only is the 3,900-mile-long Amazon River the second largest waterway in the world (after the Nile), but it also has no obstructions--waterfalls or shallow rapids--so the Amazon is navigable. And the city of Manaus, deep within the great Amazon rain forest, is its major port and tourist destination.

In the coming months, it will receive a host of major cruise liners. These include Seabourn Cruise Line's 208-passenger Seabourn Pride; Royal Olympic Cruises' 840-passenger Olympic Voyager; Crystal Cruises' 940-passenger Crystal Harmony; Orient Lines' 848-passenger Marco Polo; Cunard's 677-passenger Caronia; Princess Cruises' 1,200-passenger Royal Princess; Clipper Cruise Line's 122-passenger Clipper Adventurer; and Radisson Seven Seas Cruises' 490-passenger Seven Seas Navigator.

On all of these cruises, Manaus is the turn-around point. Arriving passengers usually have one day ashore before they debark and head for the Manaus International Airport for their flights home. After boarding their cruise liners, new passengers also have a day to tour the city. However, cruise line passengers eager to have more of an Amazon River experience than is possible in just a matter of hours have several options.

In addition to an overnight shore excursion, two- and three-day stays, pre- or post-cruise, are available at the unique Ariau Tower Amazon Hotel. This is an eco-tourism-oriented complex located some 36 miles north of Manaus on the Rio Negro, one of the major tributaries that joins with the Rio Solimoes (as the "mother" Amazon is called in these parts) just below Manaus. This "meeting of the waters" mark is, in fact, one of the natural attractions visitors are taken by power boat to see. Here the distinctly different colors of the almost black Rio Negro (darkly tinted with steeped vegetation) and the lighter brown, silty Amazon are clearly demarked, not mixing together for miles.

Another quite different option taken by other passengers is to stay at the luxury 601-room Tropical Hotel in Manaus for a night or two, again pre- or post-cruise. Spread over 111 acres, the Tropical boasts all the recreational and dining facilities of a five-star hotel. In addition, its winding paths through a verdant forest and a zoo, well-stocked with animals resident in the Amazon rain forest, give visitors at least an introduction to the wilds all around Manaus.

Still, the majority of cruise passengers on Amazon River itineraries will spend only a day in Manaus. It turns out that there are ample sights and activities to occupy one's time. Shore excursions not only include the usual city tour, but also trips by riverboat and dugout canoe into the jungle itself. Among the activities are spotting crocodiles and visiting a "river people" village.

As is so often the case with foreign ports, a full appreciation of what they are requires a bit of historical background. That is particularly important with Manaus, for it had a spectacular rise and a disastrous fall, all within a relatively short period of time, and really not all that long ago. Plus some of the very structures and facilities, including the actual dock where today's cruise ships tie up, are products of the city's colorful history.

The eminent historian E. Bradford Burns described Manaus in 1850 as nothing more than "... a small collection of mud huts." Given its inland isolation, that was no surprise. After all, Brazil's economy in that period depended heavily on the production of coffee, sugar, beef, and nuts. Those products all moved to overseas markets from points along the Atlantic coast.

But a dramatic change was taking place. In the U.S., Charles Goodyear discovered a process to vulcanize rubber. This meant that when so processed, the strange white substance that oozed from cuts in the bark of the robber tree no longer grew sticky and unusable in heat or, conversely, brittle in the cold.

A variety of uses for rubber suddenly developed, and with it an exploding demand for the product. Cultivation wasn't necessary, either. Countless acres of rubber trees grew naturally in the forests within the Amazon Basin, there for the taking.