Meeting of the Waters, Manaus, Amazon, Brazil

I spent an enjoyable day in Manaus, formerly known as the Paris of the Jungle.
The next day I did a boat trip to the famous Meeting of the Waters. This is where the dark Rio Negro and the light Rio Solimoes join and form the Amazon. They flow for quite a distance side by side without merging. This is the “start” of the river named Amazon. This Google Earth image shows the difference in water colour (although the Solimoes is named as Amazon) -

Manaus is on the Rio Negro. The Meeting of the Waters is about 6 km down river from Manaus.

A local family on my boat trip

Floating fuel station

Boat trips are very popular, here is a variety of river boats -

We reached the Meeting of the Waters.

The Solimões River is the lighter half,  due to the mud and silt sediments that runs down from the Andes Mountains in Peru. The Solimões River stretches over a 1600 km distance.
The darker side is the Rio Negro, and it gets its ‘black tea’ hue from leaf and plant matter that has
decayed and dissolved in the water. It might look dark and murky, but the Rio Negro carries little or no sediment.

The Solimões River and Rio Negro flow side-by-side for over 6 km. They don't mix due to the differences in temperature, speed and water density. The Solimões is faster, cooler and denser, its waters flowing up to 6 km/h at 22 degrees C, and the warmer, slower waters of the Rio Negro flow at a more leisurely 2 km/h, and maintain a temperature of around 28 degrees C. [See ScienceAlert]
If I'd been asked to guess, I would have said, wrongly, that the Solimões River would be warmer.
When they finally merge they become part of the Lower Amazon River.

Sailing along the divide

We then went back along the Negro and turned into a ‘tributary’ and stopped at a fish farm on stilts.
Lots of el shaday (?), very large dark coloured fish (maybe arowana).

Next onto an area of restaurants. We did a boardwalk through the forest, there were lots of cute squirrel monkeys, but it was hard to get a good photo with so many people.

Saw the large Victoria regia water lilies, now known as Victoria amazonica. These are the same as I saw in Mauritius. It wasn't so easy to appreciate their size from high on the board walk.

We could see the tide mark high up the tree trunks. This is Lake January, an ecological park between the 2 rivers.

We then had a wonderful lunch, there were dozens of dishes, hot and cold, with lots of local food. I was able to try the farofa, which is toasted cassava mixed with some oil. I later saw a woman preparing it in the market in Manaus.

Farofa stall -

We made our way back to Manaus. I'd really enjoyed the stay in Manaus. It was much nicer than I had been expecting, especially the old architecture.

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See the next blog on my Amazon cruise - Parintins .