April 27 – Flight to São Luis and on to Barreirinhas

Today ends our isolation.  We were picked up early for our transfer to the airport.  Mary took a lot of photos from the plane window as we left Manaus.

We could see the “Meeting of the River”.  The Rio Negro and the Amazon meet a short distance downstream from Manaus.  The Rio Negro is a very dark brown and the Amazon is a muddy, light brown.  The composition and the pH of the rivers is very different so their waters travel side for a long distance before finally mingling to become the mighty Amazon.

Lots of rivers to be seen everywhere. 

Our travel itinerary today took us to Fortaleza where we had a short connection but made it with no problems.  The second flight took us to São Luis where we were met by Oscar, our guide, and a driver.  We have a four hour drive to Barreirinhas.

A good portion of the drive was through a raging thunder and lightning storm.  Lots and lots of rain.  But it eventually cleared up and there was no rain by the time we arrived at our lovely resort. 

We checked in and then headed over for dinner.  It was nice to have a different selection of menu items after a week of eating off the same menu, fine though it was.