On November 25th, starting our 8th month of travel, we arrived in Manaus the capital of the Amazonian state in Brazil. Manaus is one of the biggest free tax areas in Brazil, home to the largest industrial parks in the country.

Located in the middle of the jungle, instead of being in contact with nature, it’s the greater expression of the extractive model historically taking place in Latin-America.

We got there by plane, from Salvador, Bahia. As we started to land, the landscape we were about to meet begun to be more clear. First, kilometer after kilometer of the greenest forest I had ever seen, and then, the grey colored industries, a cloud of smog and the sensation that we were landing inside a factory, not a forest.

The city was founded in 1669 with the main objective of extracting rubber and today, helped by tax exemption policies and reduced export taxes, almost every company in the world has a factory here.
After landing, we took an Uber to one of the bus terminals, where we arranged to meet our host. His name was Gilson and we had contacted him via Couchsurfing. He was born and raised in Manaus and is currently working for one of the cellphone companies stablished in the city, he doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with these policies I’ve mentioned.

The first night

We met Gilson at terminal 5, at around 5 pm, he was with a friend and they were both very nice and welcoming to us. After a two-hour bus ride from the terminal and through a big industrial district, we arrived; Gilson showed us his place, a small one bedroom house in a humble neighborhood. We went through the industrial district observing several factories of diverse industries, working perfectly, while on Gilson’s house located on the banks of the river, he only gets running water from 12 to 17hs.
We had no clue where exactly we were but tried to stay cool. Then Gilson said he would sleep in his family’s house (because it was closer to his university); after that being said, “staying cool” was not so easy…
Before leaving he told us all we needed to know about the house, mentioned something about the neighbors not being very friendly, and for some reason, we still don’t know he showed us a big knife and said: -“This one is here, just in case…”. After Gilson and his friend left, Mati and I started sharing some thoughts about this place and got on the map to check exactly where the fuck we were after that endless bus ride. So there we were, alone in the night, without running water (had some really big water containers, for the toilet and other stuff) around the corner from one of Manaus prisons.
Sleeping was really difficult, waking up with every minimal noise, so around 7 am we got up and left the house heading downtown.
Of all the Brazilian cities I’ve known Manaus is by far the most unequal one. Luxury buildings and fancy condos on one hand and the other small humble houses and favelas or communities, as locals like to call them. In the middle, the factories and some old buildings left from the “Golden” rubber era.

On the port they told us the next boat to Tabatinga was leaving the next morning, and without doubts, we got a ticket. I had been reading blogs and searching for information about the prize of the ticket, to avoid getting scammed, but at this point, I was unable to ask for discounts and the number sounded quite fair so we took what we were offered.
The main square is located in front of the port so we crossed the street and got a “Prato feito” to eat there from a small food truck managed by a group of women. They were openly Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters, like most people we met in this city. This amazed me considering that as a presidential candidate he had openly spoken about selling parts of the Amazonian jungle to the best offer. Unfortunately, he was no longer a candidate but the elected president of the Brazilian republic.
Manaus reality hit us so hard that getting on the boat was a great relief. This was just until we faced with the reality on the boat. Naively, I always thought of this boat trip as one of contact with nature, with the native tribes, ancient culture, and wisdom. Oh, was I wrong…