Manaus

Manaus is the capital of the largest Brazilian State, Amazonas, founded on the confluence of the Negro and Solimões Rivers, just before the two rivers join together forming the Amazon River. In the mid 19th Century, Manaus which was only a village, was forever changed by the growth of the automobile and rubber industries. The Europeans investments flowed and the city expanded dramatically. The wealthiest inhabitants were living in a show off luxury contrasting particularly with the daily misery of the "Seringueros" (the hevea workers, most of them from the poorest North East areas). A local anecdote says that some rubber barons used to send their laundry to... Paris. After 50 years of euphoria, the Indonesian and Malaysian heveas got more success than the Brazilian hevea putting the city in a severe depression. Until the 50s when the government declared it a free area, and Manaus lived throw a new economical growth which turned it into one of the most important cities of the country nowadays (it is the third industrial pole of the country after Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte). The visitors can see contrasting aspects of Manaus. Like a concrete made island at the heart of the jungle, it has kept many monuments showing its wealthy past. As a symbolic remain of the short but glorious rubber era, the famous Teatro Amazonas founded by Caruso in 1896 was rehabilitated recently after several decades in the silence and the dust. They have a full house twice or three times a week and every year for an opera festival attracting great names in opera. Nearby and next to the floating port, the city market spreads out over the limits of the Eiffel style shed which was built to host it in the early 20th century. It is the place where a million and half city people encounter with a million and half of forest people coming to Manaus to sell their natural products (manioc, fishes, handicrafts...) and to buy necessary products to live in the jungle. This immense popular area is well animated starting at dawn when the fishermen unload from their backs millions of fish of all sizes and colors, brought to them by nature in the many streams around the city.