I had been on a guided tour of Manaus for less than an hour when I ripped a gaping hole in the crotch of my denim pants—which probably served me right, since no one advises wearing denim in the tropics. Lightweight cotton, sure. Waterproof nylon, great. Wrangler Premium Quality Comfort Guaranteed blue jeans? No one, ever.
Sena, my guide, looked at the leg of my blue-checked boxers billowing in the breeze and bravely said not to worry, no one would possibly notice. And yet the flapping Fruit of the Looms and the cool wind on my nether region gave lie to his encouraging words. On the other hand, I think Sena was greatly relieved to discover a sartorial malfunction and not a fulsome fart had caused the ripping noise from between my legs.
It was the only time I ever saw him smile.
I had met Sena on my arrival at the Manaus airport from Miami the night before. He held one of those typical signboards, with my surname on it, at the exit from immigration control. Of fair complexion, perhaps in his late thirties, he was slight, of medium height, and wore an expression of worry that never left him.
We drove to the distant Hotel Tropical Manaus, where the bar had just closed when I checked in at midnight. “Too bad,” I said to Sena. “I could use a beer.” He looked heartbroken and job-concerned, as if I might blame him for the closed bar. Then his face brightened as he recalled that our driver, still in the passenger van, had been given a large bottle of beer as a gift. “Do you mind warm beer?” I admitted I did not. “Ah, but it’s jambu beer,” he said, dejectedly. Jambu is a medicinal herb with analgesic qualities, and is sometimes called the toothache plant. “It’s real beer, but with jambu. It makes your face go numb. Some people like that. Do you mind if your face goes numb?” I said I preferred it. Beer bottle eventually in hand, I bid good-bye to Sena, who waved dolefully and said he would see me tomorrow.
Sena returned the next morning to give me a tour of Manaus, the languid riverine capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state. I hadn’t requested a city excursion—guided tours aren’t my thing—but the owner of the expedition vessel I would board a day later had insisted. When I greeted Sena in the hotel lobby, he was still the same affable Gloomy Gus from the previous night.
He almost immediately began apologizing, as if to pre-empt a formal complaint from me about my hotel’s inadequacies. “Your hotel has five stars,” he explained, “but it’s not what it once was. It’s also a bit out of town, and there are no restaurants nearby, just the one here.” Sena also mentioned that his son was sick and being cared for by his sister. Maybe that’s why he seemed so down in the dumps, I thought. His demeanor wasn’t sorrowful so much as resigned. I kept expecting him to heave a deep sigh of regret after each observation.
To say that Manaus is in the middle of nowhere would be an understatement. In the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, the city commands a fortunate location on the Rio Negro near the confluence of the Amazon River. Manaus was the upper Amazon basin’s primary port during Brazil’s 19th and early 20th-century rubber boom (and remains so today), and reaped the economic benefits. It was one of the first cities in Brazil to have electricity. It boasts a beautiful Victorian-era opera house. But like many port cities, there is a grittiness that can’t be denied.
“We don’t have as many fish here as on the Amazon River,” said Sena as we walked among the fishmongers in the century-old Adolpho Lisboa Municipal Market. “We have about 500 species in the Rio Negro, and the Amazon has a thousand.”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, consolingly, “It’s all right, Sena. It’s probably not your fault.”
The red and yellow municipal market, on the riverfront in the city center, was imported in pieces in 1906 from Great Britain, prefabricated in Glasgow and Liverpool. We saw water-buffalo cheese from Autazes, sixty miles downstream from Manaus. Fishmongers hawked prehistoric-looking arapaima, sweet-tasting tambaqui, and peacock bass, the hardest fighting fish on the Rio Negro. But the vegetable and beef vendors offered a more paltry selection, the region not being conducive generally to farming or cattle-raising. The market’s restaurants (all of them seemingly sharing the same menu) lent a lively tone to the surroundings, with servers shouting out their orders above the din of the patrons. Bearers hauling massive sacks of goods on their backs shouldered through the crowds. Add to the color and cacophony the wildly out-of-place Victorian-style building itself and you have one of the must-visit sites in Manaus.
The market’s main purpose has largely been undermined by the growth of supermercados spread throughout the city. “The only people who come here to buy food anymore are the jungle people,” Sena said.
Among the offerings not supplanted by the spread of supermarkets are natural herbs and medicines, housed in a separate building adjacent to the main market. “If we feel bad, we come here,” Sena said. There were sellers of dried plants, bottles of pulverized flowers, boxed medicines, and tablets in jars, each kiosk a natural pharmacy. “Most of the time the herbs work and there are no side effects. The other day, I had a strong pain under my ribs.” He touched his left side delicately, as if it still hurt. “I bought some boldo and made a tea from it. Boldo is one of the best plants we have.” Boldo is a shrub, native to South America, whose leaves are used to treat everything from gout to gallstones. “You can find it in the jungle, but many people here grow their own medicinal herbs at home. If they don’t work, only then do we go to the doctor.”
Because I had just arrived in Brazil the previous evening, I told Sena I needed to exchange some money. “You shouldn’t change money at a bank,” he warned, shaking his head to emphasize the foolhardiness of such a misstep, as if I had insisted on it. “Their fees are too high. If you come with me, I’ll take you to someone.” It was the Manaus equivalent of Brooklyn’s, “I know a guy…”
So off we walked, leaving the market behind. Dozens of three-tiered Amazon ferries, painted in gaudy colors, lined the harbor front. Barbers gave outdoor haircuts. We crossed busy streets lined with cracked sidewalks, small shops, and carefree crowds. The heat and humidity were fast becoming oppressive. The local people dressed accordingly: stretchy blouses and T-shirts, capri pants and baggy over-the-knees cargo shorts, sneakers and neon flip-flops. Some gabbed at cafés; others leaned against walls, in the shade, with nothing to do; still others strode purposefully along the narrow lanes, bundles balanced carefully on their heads. They looked like fun people, by turns relaxed and industrious.
At last, Sena wheeled abruptly into a sporting-goods store. We marched past metal bins full of soccer balls and hanging racks of loud jerseys until we arrived at a kiosk discreetly hidden in back. A skeptical-looking middle-age man eyed me dubiously as we approached, but he smiled once he saw Sena. They exchanged pleasantries in Portuguese, and then Sena nodded at me as he spoke. I removed $300 from my wallet and laid the currency on the counter. “His rate is thirty-point-one reales for one dollar”—a good rate—“and there’s no fee.” The bills he gave me were all thin, well-used twenty-real notes; I had to count them several times because they tended to stick together.
Sena and I left the sporting-goods store, my pocket crammed with cash. But I could tell something was on his mind. He seemed on the verge of blurting out a warning or confession before stopping himself. Finally he could constrain himself no longer.
“Many people say it’s a good idea to put your money in several different places,” he said, clearly upset that he had to be the one to tell me this plain fact. “Not all in just one pocket.” As a victim of a New York City armed robbery, I was about to point out to him that rarely does a thief ask only what’s in your right front pocket; he takes everything you have. But I stopped myself, because clearly Sena was distressed about having to admonish me. My guide was obviously one of those people who worried about others—whether needed or not—and not about himself. To placate him, I began to redistribute my Brazilian money—some in this pocket, some in that, some in a hidey-hole in my travel vest, but I could see he was almost cringing as I did so. “Also,” he said, with utmost hesitation (and a hint of a sigh), “it might be better if no one else saw your money or knew about it.” The sad-eyed guide was simply looking out for my welfare.
The high-water mark of Manaus’s growth was in the 1890s and early 1900s, verified by the dates on the town’s most prominent buildings. But then the rubber boom faded, and the city’s development stalled for five or six decades. Even today, there is a sense of stagnation, resulting in a scrappy river culture, the sort of place where an unshaven, down-and-out Humphrey Bogart might stop you outside a bar and ask you to stake a fellow American to a meal.
But that would be a misimpression. In giving the city free-port status (codified in 1967), the federal government changed the city’s future. Despite the rough-and-tumble waterfront, the old-fashioned municipal market, and the locals lounging in the shade, dozens of international firms have footholds here, often as assembly plants for parts made elsewhere. There are now six universities, a law school, and a medical college. By every count, Manaus is better off today than ever, in health care, distribution of wealth, quality of life. And yet Manaus still feels as remote as it is in reality.
It feels like the end of the road.
Sena and I spent our last hour together touring the Teatro Amazonas, the fabled Opera House of the Amazon, the unlikely result of a culture quest by the region’s rubber barons in 1896. The praises of the handsome institution have been written about extensively, but in fact the structure is not much more impressive than some of the luxe Loews movie palaces from the 1920s and ’30s that still exist in many American downtowns. But those theaters can’t claim, as the Teatro Amazonas can, that Pavarotti sang on their stage. (The singer pronounced the Manaus opera house’s acoustics to be near perfect.)
After a pleasant morning together, I told Sena that he was released, and that I would continue to walk the streets on my own, as I prefer anyway. He seemed hurt. “But you told me your son is sick and being looked after by your sister,” I entreated. “You should be with your son.”
“Yes,” he agreed, but with ambivalence. I asked for directions back to the municipal market, where I could get my bearings. He pointed across a busy road. “It’s just down there,” he said. “But please, watch the traffic.” Of course, that’s exactly what Sena would say.
I dashed across the street, and once on the other side I turned and waved. “Tschau, Sena!” But I couldn’t see him. He had already gone.
