Published on Jul, 2024
Tour agent was in contact with us and said that pickup time is 4pm. At the morning they contacted us and said that pickup will be at 4:30. At 4.30 driver contacted us and said that he is coming. Car was very good and we quickly reached the port. It turned out that it is just us two on the tour. We met Antonio, who was not speaking english at all, maybe just a few words. Our 10 words in spanish helped us to understand each other but believe me you don't need to know any language to understand what is going on. Real part of the tour started at 5:00. It was very small boat for 4 person. We drove to the next river bank. It very spectacular view because of excellent sunset. Behind the place where we were swimming with porpoises day before. Manaus was visible behind the trees. We started piranha finishing there. A lot of piranhas. We were not able to catch something, they were eating the meat very quickly. Our guide catched one very big piranha, we made photos and videos like it was us who catched it :D. Then we let the fish back in the waters and went to look over alligators. Sunset was continuing and it was spectacular views again. We seen slots on the trees, birds and anacondas leather on the water. After dark it was cloud of mosquitoes over us and repellent was not helping much. We sprayed it over our face and fingers and everywhere but they bited our fingers and face anywhere. Luckily we were wearing long sleeve/pants. Antonio gave us some torch and we started to seek for alligator. We found one quickly. Baby one. We went near and Antonio wanted to catch it by his hands. My wife quickly got mad about it and asked to go. So we continued to drive and look over the alligators. There were alligator eyes everywhere. Trees were fool of eyes of birds as well. On the way back we drove through river in the dark and it was like driving through crystal lake to the city of lights. Sky was open and everything was very beautiful again. We've seen bigger vessels and our small one was better better because we really enjoyed the views. at 19:00 we were back in port. Some other car took us back to hotel. Big thanks to Antonio. Despite not talking in english he was very gentle and done his job very well. Some reviewers were complaining that it is not Solimoes river. I am not sure what river it was (probably it was Rio Negro because water was black) but it makes no difference. Piranhas and alligators were there. According to what I heard solimoes has much more mosquitoes than Rio Negro and mosquitoes are real issue.
Thanks for the great tour. It was lifetime experience of real amazon river at the night. Recommended to everyone.