My Amazon trip: not just fishing and jungle Adventure

While the highlight of my Amazon trip is extreme fishing and jungle river Adventure, it’s also a cultural and historical trip.

In what can be my last post until I come back from the Amazon at the end of the month, I want to focus a little on the non-fishing aspects of my trip.

Manaus, Brazil

I will be arriving and staying a few days in Manaus before heading out to the jungle. Manaus is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

The city was founded in the late 17th century and by the 1800s the city was the epic-center of the rubber boom and later rubber bust.

A city on a River and Built on Rubber

Manaus is situated at the confluence of the Rio Negro where it meets the Amazon river, and is an ocean going port even though it’s more than 1,500 KM from the ocean.

It has been and continues to be an important port and transportation hub for the entire Amazon region. My interest is in seeing the history of the Rubber Barons (both good and mostly bad) as well as spending time at the port to see the type of boat traffic, transportation and trade that plies these rivers from fish to nuts to lumber.

I plan on diving into the history of the region both indigenous peoples as well as the rubber barons and their brutal exploitation of the Amazon and its peoples. I plan on visiting both indigenous communities and museums as well as a reconstructed rubber plantation on the Rio Negro.

To help me navigate all of this I hired a private guide to take me for two days all over Manaus before I head out to the fishing expedition deep in the jungle, more than 500 KM south of Manuas on only reachable by boat.