February 27 - Day 13

We said our goodbyes to Lucia and Josie,and Arlindo and Anna drove us to the airport to catch our flight for Manaus. We picked up Luiza on our way and we were met at the airport by Felipe Maio who had just returned to Brasilia last night. We posed for pictures, reminisced a bit more, hugged each other and we were off on the next third of our journey.

After about a two and a half hour flight we were in Manaus. Luana and her father met us. His name is Worney but everyone calls him Amoedo. After a twenty minute drive in the rain from the airport on streets lined with lush growths of trees and shrubs, we were finally at Luana's place. We met Luana's mother, Salete, and her brother, also named Worney. Worney was quite fluent in English as he had attended an American college which was keen on his soccer skills.

We took over Worney's room. Each bedroom and the office of Amoedo had air conditioners. We were soon to find out why.

After a wonderful "lunch", of which the highlight for me was baked wild river turtle, we slept for several hours. By now all the travel and intensive visiting was taking its toll on our older bodies. We had supper at 8:00 p.m and then, while Luana was at her university classes, Amoedo, Salete, Warney, Patti and I went on an evening sight-seeing tour of Manaus. Manaus (Portuguese pronunciation: [maˈnaws]) is the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is situated at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões river. It has a population of over two million people and it is the eighth most populous city of Brazil.

We saw many of the beautiful old buildings of Manaus, many of which we would come back to see in daylight,and we ended our tour by driving across the Rio Negro River on the Manaus Iranduba Bridge (called Ponte Rio Negro in Brazil) which spans the Rio Negro with its 3.6km of length and which links the cities of Manaus and Iranduba. Locals say it cost Brazilians a billion dollars to build it. It will connect Manaus with a road being repaved over its 900 km length through the rain forest jungle(which had reclaimed the road) and will break Manaus's isolation from the rich and populous south.

Back at Amoedo's, Luana was home from her classes and we met her boy friend, Fabio, a really nice guy who was spending day and night completing his last month of study in Law school. We also met Nae, a co-worker of Luana's and a personal friend of Luana and the family.

For some reason I did not sleep well that night. Perhaps there was too much stimulation that day or the hum of the air conditioner caused a restless sleep.