Day 1 on the Amazon Clipper

To our surprise, we were greeted by our boat crew at the hotel lobby and informed that we were being upgraded to premium from the traditional class. This was a great start to our trip! We boarded our boat with our welcome passion fruit drinks and saw the luxurious boat we weren't expecting. Hugo our tour guide have us a briefing and assigned us to our cabins. We have a lovely room on the first floor with a fantastic view from the window.

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Our guide - Hugo

I quickly found my favorite spot on the boat after they served us some yummy welcome soup.  The boat is 4 floors with cabins on the lower 2, the dining area on the second floor, the bar and outdoor Jacuzzis (yup there are Jacuzzis) on the third floor and a sundeck on the fourth floor. My favorite spot is on the stern on the top floor where I have an amazing view with the wind in my hair. It's also peaceful and quiet up there. Great for star gazing too.

We left for our first excursion after our boat passed from the black waters of Rio Negro to the silty brown waters of Rio Solimoes. We initially docked at a small fishing village and walked along a wooden walkway to Victoria Regia where the giant water lilies live. Along the way we saw some bare eared squirrel monkeys 

bare-eared squirrel monkey

and some red howler monkeys as well as a trogon bird which Hugo called the quetzel of the Amazon. The lilies were all pink which apparently means they've changed from their original white when they were female into their pink male form. 

giant water lilies

We saw a number of birds there too. Can't remember all their names. They we rode a motorized canoe along the narrow passages through the riverway. 

I joked with members of the boat that it was just like the Jurassic park ride at universal without the catastrophes. Little did I know...

Along the way we saw howler monkeys and a black chested hawk along with more giant lilies. Our adventure was when we tried to pass a waterway that was far too narrow for our boat. 

Fortunately we were rescued by a couple guys on a canoe. We congratulated ourselves on overcoming our obstacle and continued on, until our next obstacle. This time no one was around to help. Both our guide and driver had to get out of the boat into sometimes chest high waters to move us forward. This was slow going and the sun quickly set. We tried to help by rocking the boat, pushing and pulling on the logs and weeds along the water, and by rearranging ourselves on the boat. After an hour of arduous maneuvering we finally got free and back to our boat. What an adventure!!

We finished the evening with capairinas and a yummy dinner of the second largest freshwater fish - piraiba - giant catfish. We turned in early for a 5:30 wakeup.

The zoo at Tropical Manaus Ecoresort

The zoo at our hotel was really incredible. There were 22 species in total including jaguar, ocelot - a smaller cat, cabybara - world's largest rodent, cayman, 4 types of monkeys - red howler, brown Capuchin, bare eared squirrel, white belly spider, Scarlet macaw, parrot, tiger heron, collared peccory, little chachalaca, blue and yellow macaw and a couple others. What was even more amazing was that we saw 2 varieties of monkeys outside the cages too. There was a biologist who guided a tour in Portuguese. A nice young girl translated for us into English. The tour was fantastic and the zoo was super well kept. In fact it's even supported by ibama - the local animal protection agency.  We were really impressed by the whole place, especially since it was a hotel zoo.

Jaguar - rescued from someone's home (they were keeping it as a pet)

Capybara - largest rodents in the world

White belly Spider Monkey

Brown Capuchin monkey

Bare-eared squirel monkeys

blue and yellow macaw

Back online

I went off line the moment I checked out of my hotel - one thing that's gets done quickly here! I've been writing my posts over the past week and will post them in the order written over the next couple days.

Thanks for understanding.

There are really big turtles here!

I finally saw them last night. They are in their own pond. I tried to get a picture with my hand to show size but I got too nervous they would bite me.