manaus, Brazil

The Jumps and Starts of the former World Rubber Capital


back in the spotlight
The Teatro Amazonas shines in the historic heart of Manaus.
rubber memory
Caboclo Sôr Tom reconstitutes the centuries-old processing of the rubber tree sap.
boat jungle
Traditional boats from the Negro and Solimões rivers anchored in a dock in Manaus.
Side Theater
Side facade of Teatro Amazonas, the supreme cultural building of Manaus and the Amazon.
Middle of the Afternoon
Passersby stroll through the Praça de São Sebastião, which hosted the Teatro Amazonas.
"Armando's Bar"
Get together on the terrace of a bar owned by a recently deceased Portuguese emigrant from Coimbra.
Fluvial Romance
Couple talk about the floating platform that houses Bar da Denise and Sopão do Tio Jorge.
Au Bon Marché
Legacy of the era of wealth and luxury in the middle of the Amazon jungle, the Au Bon Marché establishment
Manaus Mercantile
One of the facades of the old Adolpho Lisboa market, next to the riverfront of the Rio Negro.
Assault on fishmongers
Fishmongers in the fish sector of the Manaus market, where the famous Amazonian fish are sold: pacu, pirarucu, tambaqui, etc.
A beautiful yellow customs
The elegant and historic building of Manaus customs, overlooking the vast flow of the Rio Negro.
From 1879 to 1912, only the Amazon River basin generated the latex that, from one moment to another, the world needed and, out of nowhere, Manaus became one of the most advanced cities on the face of the Earth. But an English explorer took the tree to Southeast Asia and ruined pioneer production. Manaus once again proved its elasticity. It is the largest city in the Amazon and the seventh in Brazil.

From the 12th floor of a so-called Taj Mahal hotel, the horizon receded several dozen kilometers and revealed the Teatro Amazonas in its secular surroundings: the vast Negro river to the west, preceded by a curious mixture of historic houses and Manaus, with vegetation tropical rainforest of the Amazon and towering housing or office towers.

Far away, the modern bridge over the Rio Negro and a streak of marginal habitation crept in, the farther away, the more shapeless and cramped.

We weren't staying at that hotel so we extended the favor of the panoramic climb even further. It was enough for us to watch the nightfall settle in, the square filling up with people and cheering, samba or sertanejo resounding, terraces at the pine cone flooded with beer and conversations without ceremony or end.

Esplanade of Bar do Armando, Manaus, Brazil

Get together on the terrace of a bar owned by a recently deceased Portuguese emigrant from Coimbra

The increasingly Cosmopolitan Capital of the Amazon

These days, Manaus is this dammed, Euro-tropical world and much more. It expanded from its riverside and invaded 11.500 km2 of the Amazon forest.

A small retinue of intrepid settlers afraid of the vastness in which they had been forced and, in particular, of hostile natives, became a multi-ethnic and multicultural population of 2.600.000 souls given up to the jungle, the urban of Manaus, not the natural one in around. Anyone who comes to these stops quickly wonders what made them possible.

After the restoration of independence and the old colonial rivalry, the Portuguese saw themselves as beneficiaries of the Iberian Union, which they took advantage of to take over the interior of Brazil. They also remained alert against the pretensions of their usual Hispanic rivals and those of the Dutch, these, with headquarters in Suriname.

In 1668, they built the fort of São José da Barra do Rio Negro, in the heart of the Amazon and next to the confluence of two of its most important arteries, the Negro and the Solimões. They built it in rock and clay with the help of natives and mestizos. Many ended up settling there.

Once the Portuguese farmers and their slaves arrived, the population increased exponentially. In such a way, that several missionary groups lined up in the evangelical investment of the chapel of Nª Senhora da Conceição, which was named the patron saint of the village in the meantime.

The Late Afternoon Entertainment at Praça de São Sebastião

On another late afternoon, the garden benches at Praça de São Sebastião are occupied by young, white-skinned friends, with almost black skin, almond-shaped eyes and lank hair, like those of indigenous people from so many native tribes in the surrounding jungle.

São Sebastião Square, Manaus, Brazil

Passersby stroll through the Praça de São Sebastião, which hosted the Teatro Amazonas.

A middle-aged Chinese couple scolds their children in Mandarin, they ignore them and scold them in Brazilian Portuguese. Several stalls at the mini-fair that were installed there are operated by small Indian traders or those with roots in the Middle East.

Bar do Armando, with its big heads from the Bumba Meu Boi festival and a large Portuguese flag, side by side with the Brazilian flag, among others, smaller, from other countries, belongs to the Church but has long been explored by a Portuguese family.

While serving beers at the counter, the employee Oriane explains us better how. “Ser Armando passed away some time ago. Now who got the bar was the daughter. But his family was real patrician. I believe they came from the side of… what's it called… oh that's it, it's Coimbra.”

A cultural festival evolves in front of the theater. There, a youth choir group sings recent Disney musical hits: Rei Leão, Pocahontas and the like. Around this time, the mass ends at the Church of São Sebastião. Believers join the crowd and surrender to the profane call of the night.

As sacred as it was inconvenient, the priest had ordered an explosive closure of the Eucharist. Rockets burst above the temple, illuminating its pointed tower and the bells in no less hysterical peal.

In a duet, the roar of dry gunpowder and the chime of the belfry make the night a misery, especially the life of the choir who, with so much noise, sings pro puppet. Inside the theatre, on the other hand, a well-heeled audience delights, without interference, in a grandiose opera.

The Symbol of Wealth Theater Borracheira da Amazonia

Teatro Amazonas has long been the Amazonian building of buildings. The most important civilization symbol in the entire state. And yet, it was a mere Amazon tree – the hevea brasiliensis – that made it possible and that, for more than a century, made Manaus an improbable “Paris in the Jungle".

Amazon Theater, Manaus, Brazil

Side facade of Teatro Amazonas, the supreme cultural building of Manaus and the Amazon.

In the XNUMXth century, several colonists and scientists had already noticed how the natives used the solidified sap of this tree to waterproof shoes and clothing, among other purposes.

The first samples arrived in France and its European use was inaugurated in 1803, in suspenders, bra elastics and others. Later, the American company Goodyear discovered the vulcanization process and rubber provided the tires for vehicles that Ford soon sold en masse.

After the Cabanagem, the population of Manaus had increased, but the dense and soaked jungle around, the inexistence of metals or precious stones and the 1600km located from the mouth of the Amazon and the coast prevented its development.

Until, at the end of the XNUMXth century, the culmination of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America demanded more and more rubber, a hyper-valuable commodity unique to the Amazon.

Rubber: the Raw Material that Changed the Amazon and the World

European and American investors flocked to the jungle of which Manaus was the only entrepot worthy of the name. They settled in the city or on farms. They bought vast patches of jungle that they filled with rubber tree plantations.

Eager for manpower, they forced the indigenous people to ensure extraction. In certain areas, the natives – little cut out for submission and repetitive tasks that made no sense to them – did not resist slavery, brutality and the diseases spread by the colonists.

Reconstitution of the rubber dam, outskirts of Manaus, Brazil

Caboclo Sôr Tom reconstitutes the centuries-old processing of the rubber tree sap

They died in their thousands. Indifferent, the new Rubber Barons limited themselves to employing a wave of newcomers eager to submit to those ordeals.

In 1877, a terrible drought hit the Brazilian Northeast, especially the state of Ceará. Many Northeasterners migrated to what they dreamed of as “Land of Fortune”. There they lived in precarious huts on the outskirts of the city and, given the illusory suffocation of latex, continued to enrich the barons. Manaus benefited by table.

The Afrancesada Ostentation of the Millionaire Manaus

It was promoted to the rubber capital of the world, it was equipped with electricity and many other luxuries, before many European cities. French and French manners were the ostentatious fashion of the time. Anyone who did not speak French or behaved like that felt diminished in front of fellow citizens.

When we walk through the ancient, cosmopolitan and overcrowded streets of Manaus, proof of this old Francophony is quite obvious in the architecture and even in the names of establishments from other times. Among others, a facade of a building on the corner, all of it lacy, imposes on us a beautiful and yellow "au bon marche".

Former Au Bon Marché store, Manaus, Brazil

Legacy of the era of wealth and luxury in the middle of the Amazon jungle, the Au Bon Marché establishment

Under the pseudonym Robin Furneaux, Frederick Robin Smith, a British historian, described the abundance of this period. “No extravagance, however absurd, stopped the rubber barons. If one bought a huge yacht, another showed lions trained on his property and a third would give champagne to his horses.”

As we are guided through the corners of the Amazon opera-theatre, we get a better understanding of how the most sumptuous of these whims turned out to be. It was proposed in 1881, in the middle of the Belle Époque. Proposing it António Fernandes Junior, who had the vision of a cultural jewel in the heart of the Amazon rainforest and got the approval of the House of Representatives.

The project was carried out by an engineering and architecture office in Lisbon and the construction was carried out by an Italian architect. To match, La Gioconda, by Amilcare Ponchielli, was inaugurated.

Boats moored in Manaus, Brazil

Traditional boats from the Negro and Solimões rivers anchored in a Manaus dock

1912 – The Beginning of an Inevitable Decline

When the year 1912 arrived, the “Brazilian” rubber barons could not even witness the greatest of its tragedies. Unknown to anyone, the English explorer Sir Henry Wickam transposed tens of thousands of rubber tree feet to British territories with a climate similar to that of the Amazon, less isolated and with reduced production costs, by comparison. The Brazilian monopoly quickly withered.

Addicted to opulence, Manaus found itself in decline and abandoned by all who could leave. The theater closed for most of the XNUMXth century, in the shadow of the collapse of lighting that, before provided by generators, started to be fed, by hand and lamp by lamp, with fat from the infamous Amazonian manatees.

The resplendent houses were left with time and humidity, the same chlorophyll vapor that makes us sweat a good sweat as we admire the delicious decay of the city's riverside-port area: the bustle of the Adolpho Lisboa Municipal Market (baptized in honor of one of the most esteemed mayors of Manaus) and the strong fleet of ships that ensure transport along the river arteries of the Amazon.

Meanwhile, World War II broke out. The Nippon Empire occupied the main Asian rubber producing territories. Thus, it triggered a second Amazon boom that lasted little longer than the conflict and did not prevent the worsening of a demographic vacuum in the Amazon region.

The Free Trade Zone and the Recent Recovery of Manaus

Twenty years later, a Brazilian government more attentive and obsessed with the modernization of the country's borders turned Manaus into a free zone. It gave it strong financial incentives and made it accessible by a network of new roads. Thus, it generated an investment flow that attracted millions of new inhabitants, as well as investment, both national and foreign.

Manaus has confirmed itself as one of the most populous cities in the nation and one of its main tourist centers. It even proved to be important enough to host the ever controversial and wasteful construction of a new football stadium and assume itself as one of the venues of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Numerous industries have replaced the formerly exclusive export of rubber and now ensure the city's constant expansion.

Manaus Theater's New Fame

Theater, that one, regained its aura, in the beginning of the 80's. Around that time, the director Werner Herzog released it in his epic “Fitzcarraldo”. Now worshiped, the film was about Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irish entrepreneur and opera lover living in Iquitos, when this Peruvian city was also thriving on the export of rubber.

More romantic than entrepreneurial, Fitzgerald pursued a lunatic plan to build an opera in the image of the most prestigious in Europe in a jungle area with atrocious river access, inhabited by intractable indigenous people.

Without wanting to reveal the outcome, from that profitable era onwards, Iquitos evolved into the Peruvian rubber capital and, later, the Peruvian Amazon. Even so, today, it is home to less than 500.000 inhabitants.

Manaus Theater, Brazil

The Teatro Amazonas shines in the historic heart of Manaus

The only Amazon theater-opera South American is the Teatro Amazonas.

Passo do Lontra, Miranda, Brazil

The Flooded Brazil of Passo do Lontra

We are on the western edge of Mato Grosso do Sul but bush, on these sides, is something else. In an extension of almost 200.000 km2, the Brazil it appears partially submerged, by rivers, streams, lakes and other waters dispersed in vast alluvial plains. Not even the panting heat of the dry season drains the life and biodiversity of Pantanal places and farms like the one that welcomed us on the banks of the Miranda River.
Miranda, Brazil

Maria dos Jacarés: the Pantanal shelters such Creatures

Eurides Fátima de Barros was born in the interior of the Miranda region. 38 years ago, he settled in a small business on the side of BR262 that crosses the Pantanal and gained an affinity with the alligators that lived on his doorstep. Disgusted that once upon a time the creatures were being slaughtered there, she began to take care of them. Now known as Maria dos Jacarés, she named each of the animals after a soccer player or coach. It also makes sure they recognize your calls.
Curitiba, Brazil

The High-Quality Life of Curitiba

It is not only the altitude of almost 1000 meters at which the city is located. Cosmopolitan and multicultural, the capital of Paraná has a quality of life and human development rating that make it a unique case in Brazil.

Florianopolis, Brazil

The South Atlantic Azorean Legacy

During the XNUMXth century, thousands of Portuguese islanders pursued better lives in the southern confines of Brazil. In the villages they founded, traces of affinity with the origins abound.

Morro de São Paulo, Brazil

A Divine Seaside of Bahia

Three decades ago, it was just a remote and humble fishing village. Until some post-hippie communities revealed the Morro's retreat to the world and promoted it to a kind of bathing sanctuary.
Sheets of Bahia, Brazil

The Swampy Freedom of Quilombo do Remanso

Runaway slaves have survived for centuries around a wetland in Chapada Diamantina. Today, the quilombo of Remanso is a symbol of their union and resistance, but also of the exclusion to which they were voted.
Ilhabela, Brazil

Ilhabela: After Horror, the Atlantic Beauty

Ninety percent of the preserved Atlantic Forest, idyllic waterfalls and gentle, wild beaches live up to the name. But, if we go back in time, we also reveal the horrific historical facet of Ilhabela.
Ilhabela, Brazil

In Ilhabela, on the way to Bonete

A community of caiçaras descendants of pirates founded a village in a corner of Ilhabela. Despite the difficult access, Bonete was discovered and considered one of the ten best beaches in Brazil.
Goiás Velho, Brazil

A Gold Rush Legacy

Two centuries after the heyday of prospecting, lost in time and in the vastness of the Central Plateau, Goiás esteems its admirable colonial architecture, the surprising wealth that remains to be discovered there.
Brasilia, Brazil

Brasília: from Utopia to the Capital and Political Arena of Brazil

Since the days of the Marquis of Pombal, there has been talk of transferring the capital to the interior. Today, the chimera city continues to look surreal but dictates the rules of Brazilian development.
Sheets of Bahia, Brazil

Lençóis da Bahia: not Even Diamonds Are Forever

In the XNUMXth century, Lençóis became the world's largest supplier of diamonds. But the gem trade did not last as expected. Today, the colonial architecture that he inherited is his most precious possession.
Itaipu Binational Hydroelectric Power Plant, Brazil

Itaipu Binational Hydroelectric Power Plant: Watt Fever

In 1974, thousands of Brazilians and Paraguayans flocked to the construction zone of the then largest dam in the world. 30 years after completion, Itaipu generates 90% of Paraguay's energy and 20% of Brazil's.
Esteros del Iberá, Pantanal Argentina, Alligator
Safari
Iberá Wetlands, Argentina

The Pantanal of the Pampas

On the world map, south of the famous brazilian wetland, a little-known flooded region appears, but almost as vast and rich in biodiversity. the Guarani expression Y bera defines it as “shining waters”. The adjective fits more than its strong luminance.
Mount Lamjung Kailas Himal, Nepal, altitude sickness, mountain prevent treat, travel
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 2th - Chame a Upper BananaNepal

(I) Eminent Annapurnas

We woke up in Chame, still below 3000m. There we saw, for the first time, the snowy and highest peaks of the Himalayas. From there, we set off for another walk along the Annapurna Circuit through the foothills and slopes of the great mountain range. towards Upper Banana.
coast, fjord, Seydisfjordur, Iceland
Architecture & Design
Seydisfjordur, Iceland

From the Art of Fishing to the Fishing of Art

When shipowners from Reykjavik bought the Seydisfjordur fishing fleet, the village had to adapt. Today, it captures Dieter Roth's art disciples and other bohemian and creative souls.
Adventure
Boat Trips

For Those Becoming Internet Sick

Hop on and let yourself go on unmissable boat trips like the Philippine archipelago of Bacuit and the frozen sea of ​​the Finnish Gulf of Bothnia.
The Crucifixion in Helsinki
Ceremonies and Festivities
Helsinki, Finland

A Frigid-Scholarly Via Crucis

When Holy Week arrives, Helsinki shows its belief. Despite the freezing cold, little dressed actors star in a sophisticated re-enactment of Via Crucis through streets full of spectators.
Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde, Landing
Cities
Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde

Santa Maria and the Atlantic Blessing of Sal

Santa Maria was founded in the first half of the XNUMXth century, as a salt export warehouse. Today, thanks to the providence of Santa Maria, Sal Ilha is worth much more than the raw material.
Meal
Margilan, Uzbekistan

An Uzbekistan's Breadwinner

In one of the many bakeries in Margilan, worn out by the intense heat of the tandyr oven, the baker Maruf'Jon works half-baked like the distinctive traditional breads sold throughout Uzbekistan
Easter Seurassari, Helsinki, Finland, Marita Nordman
Culture
Helsinki, Finland

The Pagan Passover of Seurasaari

In Helsinki, Holy Saturday is also celebrated in a Gentile way. Hundreds of families gather on an offshore island, around lit fires to chase away evil spirits, witches and trolls
Swimming, Western Australia, Aussie Style, Sun rising in the eyes
Sport
Busselton, Australia

2000 meters in Aussie Style

In 1853, Busselton was equipped with one of the longest pontoons in the world. World. When the structure collapsed, the residents decided to turn the problem around. Since 1996 they have been doing it every year. Swimming.
Boat and helmsman, Cayo Los Pájaros, Los Haitises, Dominican Republic
Traveling
Samaná PeninsulaLos Haitises National Park Dominican Republic

From the Samaná Peninsula to the Dominican Haitises

In the northeast corner of the Dominican Republic, where Caribbean nature still triumphs, we face an Atlantic much more vigorous than expected in these parts. There we ride on a communal basis to the famous Limón waterfall, cross the bay of Samaná and penetrate the remote and exuberant “land of the mountains” that encloses it.
Tulum, Mayan Ruins of the Riviera Maya, Mexico
Ethnic
Overall, Mexico

The Most Caribbean of the Mayan Ruins

Built by the sea as an exceptional outpost decisive for the prosperity of the Mayan nation, Tulum was one of its last cities to succumb to Hispanic occupation. At the end of the XNUMXth century, its inhabitants abandoned it to time and to an impeccable coastline of the Yucatan peninsula.
View of Fa Island, Tonga, Last Polynesian Monarchy
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Exotic Signs of Life

Lights of Ogimachi, Shirakawa-go, Ogimachi, Japan, Village of Houses in Gassho
History
Ogimashi, Japan

A Village Faithful to the A

Ogimashi reveals a fascinating heritage of Japanese adaptability. Located in one of the most snowy places on Earth, this village has perfected houses with real anti-collapse structures.
São Jorge, Azores, Fajã dos Vimes
Islands
São Jorge, Azores

From Fajã to Fajã

In the Azores, strips of habitable land at the foot of large cliffs abound. No other island has as many fajãs as the more than 70 in the slender and elevated São Jorge. It was in them that the jorgenses settled. Their busy Atlantic lives rest on them.
Maksim, Sami people, Inari, Finland-2
Winter White
Inari, Finland

The Guardians of Boreal Europe

Long discriminated against by Scandinavian, Finnish and Russian settlers, the Sami people regain their autonomy and pride themselves on their nationality.
Couple visiting Mikhaylovskoe, village where writer Alexander Pushkin had a home
Literature
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Celestyal Crystal Cruise, Santorini, Greece
Nature
Nea Kameni, Santorini, Greece

The Volcanic Core of Santorini

About three millennia had passed since the Minoan eruption that tore apart the largest volcano island in the Aegean. The cliff-top inhabitants watched land emerge from the center of the flooded caldera. Nea Kameni, the smoking heart of Santorini, was born.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Traveler above Jökursarlón icy lagoon, Iceland
Natural Parks
Jökursarlón Lagoon, Vatnajökull Glacier, Iceland

The Faltering of Europe's King Glacier

Only in Greenland and Antarctica are glaciers comparable to Vatnajökull, the supreme glacier of the old continent. And yet, even this colossus that gives more meaning to the term ice land is surrendering to the relentless siege of global warming.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
UNESCO World Heritage
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
aggie gray, Samoa, South Pacific, Marlon Brando Fale
Characters
Apia, Western Samoa

The Host of the South Pacific

She sold burguês to GI's in World War II and opened a hotel that hosted Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper. Aggie Gray passed away in 2. Her legacy lives on in the South Pacific.
Glass Bottom Boats, Kabira Bay, Ishigaki
Beaches
Ishigaki, Japan

The Exotic Japanese Tropics

Ishigaki is one of the last islands in the stepping stone that stretches between Honshu and Taiwan. Ishigakijima is home to some of the most amazing beaches and coastal scenery in these parts of the Pacific Ocean. More and more Japanese who visit them enjoy them with little or no bathing.
Miyajima Island, Shinto and Buddhism, Japan, Gateway to a Holy Island
Religion
Miyajima, Japan

Shintoism and Buddhism with the Tide

Visitors to the Tori of Itsukushima admire one of the three most revered scenery in Japan. On the island of Miyajima, Japanese religiosity blends with Nature and is renewed with the flow of the Seto Inland Sea.
Train Kuranda train, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
On Rails
Cairns-Kuranda, Australia

Train to the Middle of the Jungle

Built out of Cairns to save miners isolated in the rainforest from starvation by flooding, the Kuranda Railway eventually became the livelihood of hundreds of alternative Aussies.
Police intervention, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel
Society
Jaffa, Israel

Unorthodox protests

A building in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, threatened to desecrate what ultra-Orthodox Jews thought were remnants of their ancestors. And even the revelation that they were pagan tombs did not deter them from the contestation.
Fruit sellers, Swarm, Mozambique
Daily life
Enxame Mozambique

Mozambican Fashion Service Area

It is repeated at almost all stops in towns of Mozambique worthy of appearing on maps. The machimbombo (bus) stops and is surrounded by a crowd of eager "businessmen". The products offered can be universal such as water or biscuits or typical of the area. In this region, a few kilometers from Nampula, fruit sales suceeded, in each and every case, quite intense.
Sheep and hikers in Mykines, Faroe Islands
Wildlife
Mykines, Faroe Islands

In the Faeroes FarWest

Mykines establishes the western threshold of the Faroe archipelago. It housed 179 people but the harshness of the retreat got the better of it. Today, only nine souls survive there. When we visit it, we find the island given over to its thousand sheep and the restless colonies of puffins.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.