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Previous: Manaus
Edilene and I had to cross the Rio Negro to get to Manacapuru. We took the ferry on Saturday morning in Raimundo, a suburb west of Manaus, and landed at Cacau Pirera where the bus took us to the junction of the Manacapuru and Solimoes rivers some 75 kms away.
The weather looked threatening for a while but we were lucky and had fine weather for the weekend save for a few short showers. Natural channels such as this "igarapé" allows the water to flood in over the land and to drain out of it according to the seasons.
Here and there along the way were isolated homesteads like this one and a few brick kilns where suitable clay occurred.
This picture shows how being informed is becoming essential in the era of global communications we are entering into with the coming 21st century. You can see a similar scene in a photo I took in Sumbawa Besar (Indonesia) shown in my 1996 travelogue. Here again, the expenditure on electronic equipment is obviously greater than what was spent on the house!
I was delighted to discover the friendly people of Manacapuru and more particularly Edilene's family. Here we are with her sister and her mother in front of her mother's house. Caboclos have large families, Edilene's father had twelve children with her mother and six more with his second wife.
Edilene's vigorous 72 year old father, Epaminondas, and his second wife Clarisse run this corner store. I was looking for a hotel but they offered to put me up for the night so I gladly accepted their hospitality.
Here are Epaminondas, Clarisse and Edilene in front of his house. Epaminondas spoke only Portuguese, Clarisse spoke some Spanish and Edilene spoke English so we managed to communicate.
Looking down upon the regional abattoir from the malecon on the riverfront. The cattle wait to be slaughtered in the pen on the left. The deed is done without fuss and the beasts are cleaned and quartered before your eyes. It's all very efficient, quick and clean, blood is washed away by the swift current of the Solimoes river.
The prepared quarters are immediately carried up to the malecon for distribution to the retail butchers of the region.
Little time is lost. The meat must be distributed, retailed and cooked without too much delay in this heat because there are very few refrigerators around here. My visit here was a lovely experience but too short for we had to return on Sunday.
This ferry leaving Cacau Pirera was going to Manaus but we took a smaller boat that was faster.
My friend Edilene Menezes.
Yours truly after a pleasant weekend.
As all good things must come to an end, the time came for me to fly back to Quito and hence to Montreal via Guayaquil, Miami and Toronto. I chose this view of the Educandos district near my hotel as a symbol to remember Manaus and the dark waters of the Rio Negro.
