At the mention of staying a month in Manaus, most people’s reaction was to stare at us in horror and ask why. When we told them it was for the World Cup and we were lucky enough to get tickets to four of the games there. They mostly composed themselves but still looked at us as though we were crazy. Their concerns were that it was really hot (yeh but we are from Australia, we are used to the heat), not much to do there and it’s really small (umm it’s in the Amazon, that’s huge I’m sure we will find lots of things to do there).
In fairness to these people, after we arrived we did bring our flight forward a week, however Manaus wasn’t as bad as it’s reputation made it out to be, except for maybe the heat. As soon as we got off the plane the heat and humidity hit us like a tonne of bricks. It was so hot we instantly started sweating and almost had trouble breathing. We may be used to the heat in Australia but we are definitely not used to the humidity!
There was a lot of controversy around Brazil building a stadium in Manaus when there are so many more important things the money could have been spent on. Despite this though, I think the people of Manaus really took the situation in their stride and made it one of the top cities to watch the first rounds of the World Cup games.
The São Sebastião Square outside the Teatro Amazonas is the main centre of the town with restaurants and bars lined around the outside of it. There was a stage and two TV set up here with free daily entertainment when there wasn’t a game on. It was mostly traditional acts such as dancing, music, singing and skits giving a great insight into not only the Brazilian culture but also the native Amazonian cultures as well. The Teatro Amazonas also put on a a wide repetoir of different shows each night with acts from all around the world (a lot of them were free which was a bonus) such as the Croatian Orchestra, an extremely skilled Columbian harp player and local Samba groups. Just outside town a FIFA fan fest was set up at the popular river beach destination Ponta Negra.
The main square became the hub of activity and every night you could guarantee a party going on. It is where everyone congregated, so you didn’t have to arrange meeting friends from other hostels because without a doubt you would run into them there. It was interesting to see the influx of vendors throughout the Cup, as slowly more and more locals caught on. By the end of it there were hundreds of them selling meat on a stick, beers, churros, caipirinhas, popcorn, fairy floss and everything else in between. Some of the more extravagant vendors set up complete bars on the street forcing the police to shut down the tiny roads surrounding the square.
As we were there for all four games, it was fun to see the different crowds coming in to support their team. The most notable were the English who made the pubs rowdy, some dressed in knight costumes and almost all of them carrying the English flag of some varying size. The US supporters not wanting to be outdone were of course extremely loud and dressed in costumes embodying their flag with capes, shirts, pants and faces of red, blue and white stars and stripes.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Manaus, but were happy to get out of the heat and humidity and back to Rio. When it’s not World Cup time I would recommend 5-7 days in Manaus so you have time to do a tour into the Amazon and check out the city.
Every Country 