Yess!! I made it to Brazil and really smoothly too, well if you don´t count the turbulence in the airplane. My flight from Miami left ontime, the flying time from Miami to Manaus is five hours, I will take that as relatively easy, remember it takes me two ~12 hour flights to fly home from the US.
I had splendid company on the airplane, an extremely friendly Canadian guy, is that redundant information, Canadian AND friendly ? Well anyways, with plane conversations sometimes you get good company and this will surely rank amongst my best. When the plane landed in Manaus it was immediately clear that the plane was full of foreign tourists, the line for Brazilian citizens at immigration was literally empty. Immigration was a breeze, I was out of the airport 20 minutes after landing which is heaven compared to the nightmare that US immigration is, I still get nightmares about my 2 hour standing wait the last time in Chicago. Personally I feel India could learn a lot from Brazil too, the staff were extremely courteous, the facilities were great. Obviously I´m not sure if this is how it is all the time or if it is a special effort for the World Cup, but in any case I was impressed with what I saw.
I had someone waiting from me from Iguana Tourismo with a sign and all I had to do was jump into the cab and get out at the hostel. I´m really thankful to Ricardo for putting this together, dealing with taxis upon arrival I think is one of the most stressful things tourists usually have to deal with.
My initial impressions of Manaus were, this looks eerily similar to Madras - India where I´m from. The infrastructure is slowly being setup, roads are not super wide, traffic is pretty flexible(you don´t have to stop at red lights at night sometimes, you can proceed with caution in order to avoid a heist from a car pulling up on the side at a stop signal is what I learnt.) and the pace of life is generally slower than the US. The stadium looked pretty impressive from outside, my driver Carlos was pretty practical about the World Cup being held in Brazil, of course Brazil clearly has a lot of social problems he said but we also love football and the cause of these problems is not the World Cup, I know it is a touchy subject and there are arguments on both sides.However. he seemed extremely well informed about the budgets of recent construction projects by the government and how estimates had been outrageously exceeded in a number of occasions, I wonder if its just him or if Brazilians in general have a heightened sense of awareness about social/political problems, I think awareness is definitely a good sign and it makes it harder for the government to get away when they botch up, again my thought here was - great lessons for India.
The hostel I´m put up at, Local Hostel - Manaus, seems to be an amazing place so far. It seems to be extremely well organized and the company of other tourists here(mostly backpackers from Europe) has been good too. I had to pay R$ 327 for 3 days in a ten person dormitory which is air-conditioned, I think the rates might be lower after the world cup. The breakfast comes included with the room and there is a kitchen and living area that is open to all visitors. The toilets and showers are clean and the staff are extremely friendly. I was speaking to one of the staff this morning, she told me she had started working here after a year in France in the hotelling industry and this was the idea of one of her friends who was also working there this morning and is extremely friendly too.
This morning I got a sneak peak of the city, it seems to be a fairly smallish city and it might be hard to find things to do here for ten days without the World Cup I think. I got to visit the Theatras Amazonas which is a beautiful Opera House. I got to watch the performers of the Opera rehearse, I stayed there for about an hour and I thought they were really good, again I am not the most knowledgeable about the Opera but I´d sure check out their show, I´ve learnt there are free performances at 9 pm every night. The architecture of the place which was setup in 1890 is simply brilliant and definitely worth a visit if you are around.
I met up with Keerthi who is Boochi´s brother and who got here after a mammoth 48 hour flight from India. Madras->Bombay->Johannesburg->SauPalo->Brasilia->Manaus !!! We got lunch at a place which is .. ´100% vegetarian´, I don´t think I´ve seen that sign outside India, the food was pretty good, bodes well for my friend Walker who does not eat any meat. It is a buffet but you pay by weight with the rate being R$ 30 per kilo(2 pounds, if youre American).
We then watched a splendid game in the hostel lobby where the Dutch ripped the defending champions Spain apart in their first game of the tournament, the final score was 5-1 ! I was on constant email contact with a Dutch buddy and boy was he happy, a slight consolation some might say for the defeat in the Final 4 years ago ! It was great watching the game with a small group of people from around the world(mostly England) and to realize everyone around the world, irrespective of race/language/religion share the same spirit while watching a game of football huddled around the television, says a lot for the power of sport and I´m hoping to see more of it :)
I had splendid company on the airplane, an extremely friendly Canadian guy, is that redundant information, Canadian AND friendly ? Well anyways, with plane conversations sometimes you get good company and this will surely rank amongst my best. When the plane landed in Manaus it was immediately clear that the plane was full of foreign tourists, the line for Brazilian citizens at immigration was literally empty. Immigration was a breeze, I was out of the airport 20 minutes after landing which is heaven compared to the nightmare that US immigration is, I still get nightmares about my 2 hour standing wait the last time in Chicago. Personally I feel India could learn a lot from Brazil too, the staff were extremely courteous, the facilities were great. Obviously I´m not sure if this is how it is all the time or if it is a special effort for the World Cup, but in any case I was impressed with what I saw.
I had someone waiting from me from Iguana Tourismo with a sign and all I had to do was jump into the cab and get out at the hostel. I´m really thankful to Ricardo for putting this together, dealing with taxis upon arrival I think is one of the most stressful things tourists usually have to deal with.
My initial impressions of Manaus were, this looks eerily similar to Madras - India where I´m from. The infrastructure is slowly being setup, roads are not super wide, traffic is pretty flexible(you don´t have to stop at red lights at night sometimes, you can proceed with caution in order to avoid a heist from a car pulling up on the side at a stop signal is what I learnt.) and the pace of life is generally slower than the US. The stadium looked pretty impressive from outside, my driver Carlos was pretty practical about the World Cup being held in Brazil, of course Brazil clearly has a lot of social problems he said but we also love football and the cause of these problems is not the World Cup, I know it is a touchy subject and there are arguments on both sides.However. he seemed extremely well informed about the budgets of recent construction projects by the government and how estimates had been outrageously exceeded in a number of occasions, I wonder if its just him or if Brazilians in general have a heightened sense of awareness about social/political problems, I think awareness is definitely a good sign and it makes it harder for the government to get away when they botch up, again my thought here was - great lessons for India.
The hostel I´m put up at, Local Hostel - Manaus, seems to be an amazing place so far. It seems to be extremely well organized and the company of other tourists here(mostly backpackers from Europe) has been good too. I had to pay R$ 327 for 3 days in a ten person dormitory which is air-conditioned, I think the rates might be lower after the world cup. The breakfast comes included with the room and there is a kitchen and living area that is open to all visitors. The toilets and showers are clean and the staff are extremely friendly. I was speaking to one of the staff this morning, she told me she had started working here after a year in France in the hotelling industry and this was the idea of one of her friends who was also working there this morning and is extremely friendly too.
This morning I got a sneak peak of the city, it seems to be a fairly smallish city and it might be hard to find things to do here for ten days without the World Cup I think. I got to visit the Theatras Amazonas which is a beautiful Opera House. I got to watch the performers of the Opera rehearse, I stayed there for about an hour and I thought they were really good, again I am not the most knowledgeable about the Opera but I´d sure check out their show, I´ve learnt there are free performances at 9 pm every night. The architecture of the place which was setup in 1890 is simply brilliant and definitely worth a visit if you are around.
I met up with Keerthi who is Boochi´s brother and who got here after a mammoth 48 hour flight from India. Madras->Bombay->Johannesburg->SauPalo->Brasilia->Manaus !!! We got lunch at a place which is .. ´100% vegetarian´, I don´t think I´ve seen that sign outside India, the food was pretty good, bodes well for my friend Walker who does not eat any meat. It is a buffet but you pay by weight with the rate being R$ 30 per kilo(2 pounds, if youre American).
We then watched a splendid game in the hostel lobby where the Dutch ripped the defending champions Spain apart in their first game of the tournament, the final score was 5-1 ! I was on constant email contact with a Dutch buddy and boy was he happy, a slight consolation some might say for the defeat in the Final 4 years ago ! It was great watching the game with a small group of people from around the world(mostly England) and to realize everyone around the world, irrespective of race/language/religion share the same spirit while watching a game of football huddled around the television, says a lot for the power of sport and I´m hoping to see more of it :)
Looks like you are having a great time Avi!
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