Manaus:
The capital of the biggest state of Brazil is Manaus . The Portuguese founded it in the 16th century, but Manaus remained a small village until the success of the rubber plantations. It was during this period that Manaus was nicknamed “The Paris of the Jungle” and the main features of the city, such as the Grand Opera House , the Municipal Market and small Palaces were built.
On the surface, Manaus looks a lot like other Brazilian cities. The old downtown is shabby and bustling. Along the shoreline in the upscale Ponta Negra area you'll find the familiar beachside high-rises, kiosks, and same wide streets. But stop for a moment and contemplate: You're in the middle of nowhere with 1,000 miles of forest in every direction.
A city of about a million and a half, perched on the Rio Negro some six miles upstream from where it joins the Amazon, Manaus is not so much a tourist destination as a way station for adventurers who fly in for rain forest treks. Manaus is probably most famous for its startling salmon-colored opera house, so out of place amid streets of functional, grime-covered buildings that it might as well be an igloo. The Teatro Amazonas was completed in 1896, when Manaus was the world's ultraprosperous rubber capital and could afford to import the best architects from Europe.
The Amazon region, where Manaus is located, is one of the world's rainiest places. Rainfall occurs most frequently from December to May, making travel during those months exceedingly difficult. The rest of the year the region still receives plenty of rain, though showers tend to last only an hour or two.
Although Brazil's high season generally runs from December to March, the best (and most popular) time to visit Manaus and the Amazon is between May and November. If you're planning your trip around major festivals - particularly the month-long Festival Folclórico do Amazonas in June - book your room in advance.
The Amazon:
Often referred to as "The green Inferno", the Amazon jungle is the largest tropical rainforrest on Earth. Although the jungle's area is so big that reaches out to several different countries (Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Guiana, French Guiana, Suriname, Panama, and Equador), most of its area is located within the Brazilian territory. The rainforrest covers 7 out of the 27 Brazilian states, holding 39% of Brazil's 3,3 million square miles of area, which means that 1,28 million Sq miles of the Amazon is located in Brazil alone.
The term “Rain Forest” describes flora that thrives in areas with registered rain fall reaching 1500 mm per year. The Amazon River measures approximately 7,000 km, considered the largest river in the world. Its water volume is 11 times larger that the Mississippi River. The Amazon region consists of flora that occupy 38, 5% of the Brazilian territory, representing a mere 7% of the country's population. Recognized as the world's greatest reserve of life form with the greatest biological accumulation of carbon on Earth the Amazon is one of the largest remaining contiguous tracts of nature on earth. The Amazon is the "lungs of the world."
The Amazon forest contains the largest single reserve of biological organisms in the world. No one really knows how many species there are in the Amazon forest, but scientists estimate that there are between 800,000 and 5 million species living there, amounting to 15 to 30 percent of all the species in the entire world. As naturalists catalogue new species of freshwater fish, their findings suggest that there may be as many as 3,000 kinds of fish in the Amazon's rivers and lakes. Among the specialized fish found in the area are: the pirarucu, said to be the largest freshwater fish in the world with specimens measuring over 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length and weighing 275 pounds (125 kilograms); the tambaqui, a member of the fruit-eating characin family which possesses teeth that can crack seeds as hard as those of the rubber tree and the jauari palm; and the piranha. The ferocity of the meat-eating piranha has been exaggerated, Although it is true that some species in rare circumstances have killed large animals and even people, their behavior depends on the state of their habitat. In main river channels and in larger lakes they appear to leave swimmers unmolested. Only when they lack nourishment do they become aggressive. |
