June 1, 2026
A quick inspection of Manaus – including its opulent opera house.
Where should you head first in Manaus – the capital city of Amazonas? The fish market, of course!…
It absolutely floors you with its sheer size and variety. They’ve got everything that lives in the Amazon and its tributaries here – well, except for Red Book protected species (dolphins, for instance). And in waters this vast, the variety is about as wide as it gets:
I’m afraid I can’t remember what any of these various species of fish are called; I just recall being bowled over by the variety:
Ooh. My mouth’s watering just looking at these pics…
Exotic! ->
Also on sale: the famously gigantic pirarucu ->
They don’t sell it whole, but in slices/chunks – since the thing’s just way too ginormous.
“But where are the piranhas?” you ask. I’m 200% with you on that. In fact, that’s the very same question we put to our guide. So he scurried around here and there, but came back looking all disappointed and announced that we’d arrived too late: all the piranhas had already been snapped up. // Whether that was true or just some excuse, I’ve no idea. I’m just passing on what I heard.
These ones here look especially fantastical:
After the market we went off for a wander around and about: there’s the city center (we’d head there a bit later), but first… – yet more seafood (yes – it’s a central theme here); this time – market stalls along the riverbank:
But this fresh-seafood experience wasn’t so nice: spoiled by dirt and stench…
If you look closely, there are hammocks strung up on those boats. These are the local “buses” that ferry passengers around to the other settlements along the rivers over the course of two, four, or five days (we were told). And since air-conditioned cabins are nonexistent here – people lie in the hammocks on the decks. What it all smells like by the end of a trip, I’d rather not even imagine.
But enough of the negativity (you know me:); time serve up a nice strong dose of positivity! And there’s plenty of it here! So, next up: the city center. Pretty (though nothing fancy), colorful, assured, and actually rather appealing!…
Interestingly, those buildings represent the world’s different continents. One building is Africa, another’s Europe, two others are the Americas… or something along those lines. Asia was definitely in there; Australasia – I don’t recall.
And now we’re off to the grandiose Amazon Theater! No joke! Here, in the Amazon jungle – a stately opera house!…
Back in the days of the crazy rubber boom (before it was figured out how to synthesize it chemically), there was so much money sloshing around here that they went and built a city smack in the Amazon jungle – including this here large theater (one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world, according to Vogue magazine):
In we go…
Lavish!
The rubber business must’ve really been something for them to have thrown up something like this out in the jungle!
Photos courtesy of fellow traveler, DK.
We head out onto the balcony to stroll about and take in the surroundings:
The city – and some amusing mural-graffiti visible off in the distance:
Not bad!
And in the hallway inside there’s a model of the opera house built out of Lego:
So that’s the Amazon Opera House for you, folks – with the national emblem on its dome. If you’re ever in Manaus, don’t pass up the chance to check it out (I resisted at first): it’s well worth it!
And that is about it for our delightful winter tour around Latin America!
The journey back was a touch exhausting – we flew two nights with a day sandwiched in the middle: Manaus -> overnight layover in São Paulo -> Istanbul (another overnight layover) -> Moscow early morning. And on the flight out of São Paulo I slept clean through across the whole Atlantic – only coming-to over the Sahara! ->
But the flights home probably aren’t all that interesting so I won’t detail them.
And now, half-a-year later, something in me already wants to head back over to LatAm – to those magical mountains-glaciers-jungles-deserts. Well, sooner or later – it’ll happen; it has to!
And that’s all for now, folks! Back soon!…
