Brazil - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 308

Teatro Amazonas and around
he sumptuous Teatro Amazonas
(Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; R$10 including
guided tour; T 92 3622 1880) remains
the architectural embodiment of
Manaus' rubber boom: a Belle Époque
extravagance built with materials brought
from Europe and entirely decorated by
European artists. Inaugurated in 1896
and famously attracting Enrico Caruso
for its opening performance, the place
subsequently went silent as boom turned
to bust, with a cameo in Werner Herzog's
classic, Fitzcarraldo , about as much action
as it saw for most of the twentieth
century. Today, though, the theatre is
home to the Amazon Philharmonic
(many members of whom - in an ironic
postscript to the theatre's origins - hail
from Eastern Europe) and hosts regular
concerts, including in April the Festa da
Manaus , initiated in 1997 to celebrate
thirty years of the Zona Franca.
The beautiful little Igreja de São
Sebastião , on the same praça , and often
with votive candles burning in a stone
font outside, was built in 1888 and only
has one tower, the result of a nineteenth-
century tax payable by churches with
two towers.

ENTERING FRENCH GUIANA
If you are not a citizen of a European
Union country, the USA or Canada, you
will need a visa to enter French Guiana.
There is a French consulate in Macapá at
the Pousada Ekinox , Rua Jovina Dinoa
1693 ( T 96 3223 2532), though it's better
to arrange visas before you leave home.
Buy euros at the Casa Francesa Cambio e
Turismo either in Belém (Travessa Padre
Prudencio 40) or in Macapá (Rua
Independência 232); you can get them in
Oiapoque but the rates are worse, and
you can't depend on changing either
Brazilian currency or US dollars for euros in
Saint-Georges-de-l'Oyapok. Dug-out taxis
are the usual means of transport between
Oiapoque and Saint-Georges-de-
l'Oyapok (see p.678), about ten minutes
downriver. Brazilian exit stamps can be
obtained from the Polícia Federal at the
southern road entrance into Oiapoque; on
the other side you have to check in with
the gendarmes in Saint-Georges. From
here, regular buses leave for Cayenne.

3

WHAT TO SEE AND DO
To start with the real flavour of Manaus,
head for the riverfront and the docks ,
a constant throng of chaotic activity set
against the serenity of the moored ships as
they bob gently up and down. During the
day there's no problem wandering around
the area, and it's easy enough to find out
which boats are going where just by asking
around. At night, however, the port is best
avoided: many of the river men carry guns.

Museu Casa de Eduardo Ribeiro
This brightly painted rubber boom
mansion on Rua José Clemente (Tues-
Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 9am-1pm; T 92 3631
2938; free with guided tour) was once
home to the governor responsible for
Manaus' original neo-European spending
spree. As such, it's a suitably opulent
window on how the city's original other
half lived, though pretty much everything
that you see, apart from the walls,
has been re-created, or, in the case of
the antique furniture, brought in from
elsewhere. Perhaps the most fascinating
display is the photograph montage in
the garden showing the building's rescue
from certain mouldy death (which
countless other mansions in the city,
sadly, are still heading towards). Likewise
poignant to imagine is the original
bucolic view of the Rio Negro from the
south-facing windows, now entirely
obliterated by urban sprawl.

The port and market
Known locally as the Alfãndega,
the Customs House (Mon-Fri 8am-noon
& 2-4pm) stands overlooking the
floating docks. To cope with the river
rising over a 14m range, the concrete
pier is supported on pontoons that rise
and fall to allow even the largest ships to
dock all year round. Across the main road
from the port is the Praça Adalberto Valle ,
where there are several craft stalls selling
indigenous Amazon tribal artesanato . he
main market , the Mercado Municipal
Adolfo Lisboa, is further round the
riverfront, though under seemingly
eternal renovation.