Lost on the Amazon

The NYT has a great travel section this weekend, full of articles on Rome's culinary delights, round-the-world multi tickets on airlines, and MANAUS. I have only ever seen Manaus from the air and the tarmac of the airport runway, but everything I have read, and the little I beheld with my own eyes, is of striking, haunting, isolated beauty. One of the few wayward outposts left us in this world. A small excerpt from the Time's article is below. A rewarding destination, but not for the faint of heart or those looking for ultra luxury, lazy relaxation, and shopping. This is travel for the unobtrusive anthropologist, would-be adventurer, ambitious fisherman, lonely backpacker, and inveterate foodie.

In Brazil, an Exotic Buffet for the Adventurous Set - New York Times: "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 or pass through on a boat trip downriver to Belem. While much of it is grimy and virtually shuts down on Sunday, Manaus is a fascinating port city, buzzing with activity six days a week. Flat-screen TV's may be manufactured in a free trade zone nearby and fleets of modern taxis may arrive by boat, but the lack of a road to Bahia or Brasilia or Sao Paulo still gives Manaus a quirky sense of bustling isolation. People here often have striking indigenous faces rather than the blond to bronze to black spectrum of many Brazilian cities."

Tags: Brazil