Wednesday, April 25, 2007
21 April, 07
We woke up and had some breakfast before leaving for the airport on the local bus. It took forever and we realized that it really is quite an ugly, very poor city. Once we got to the airport we had to wait in a monstrous queue to check in with TAM airlines. There was some hold-up and our flight was delayed too. We had three seats each and we arrived in Manaus at lunch time. We had to wait for someone to pick us up at the airport and we got a free transfer to a hotel in the city centre. We picked Hotel Krystal and it wasn’t too bad. It was Saturday afternoon and we had to get some lunch so by the time we were done there was not much time for sightseeing. We visited the opera house/ theatre but there was no opera showing this evening unfortunately. We walked passed the shops and amongst the chaos down town and in the evening we got the bus to Ponta Negra. This is an area along the river with restaurants and bars and stalls and a fine hotel called ‘The Tropical’. We walked along the river and had some popcorn and visited the hotel. As the evening went by, it got busier and the stalls were quite active.
Manaus is a fairly big city and a large port; and basically a stopover for people who are heading into the jungle. We got on the bus back to our hotel passed all the favelas (seedy areas) and into bed for our big day tomorrow.
We woke up and had some breakfast before leaving for the airport on the local bus. It took forever and we realized that it really is quite an ugly, very poor city. Once we got to the airport we had to wait in a monstrous queue to check in with TAM airlines. There was some hold-up and our flight was delayed too. We had three seats each and we arrived in Manaus at lunch time. We had to wait for someone to pick us up at the airport and we got a free transfer to a hotel in the city centre. We picked Hotel Krystal and it wasn’t too bad. It was Saturday afternoon and we had to get some lunch so by the time we were done there was not much time for sightseeing. We visited the opera house/ theatre but there was no opera showing this evening unfortunately. We walked passed the shops and amongst the chaos down town and in the evening we got the bus to Ponta Negra. This is an area along the river with restaurants and bars and stalls and a fine hotel called ‘The Tropical’. We walked along the river and had some popcorn and visited the hotel. As the evening went by, it got busier and the stalls were quite active.
Manaus is a fairly big city and a large port; and basically a stopover for people who are heading into the jungle. We got on the bus back to our hotel passed all the favelas (seedy areas) and into bed for our big day tomorrow.
# posted by Heidi & Richard's travels @ 4:21 PM 
