Day 92 - Manaus

As soon as I left the port of Manaus, my nose got stuffy and I started sneezing regularly.  Turns out I’m allergic to Manaus.  Right outside the terminal were rows and rows of vendors selling anything but tourist items – shirts, bras, sunglasses, remote controls (who buys these?), and food.  We found the elegant Manaus Opera House, about a 10-minute walk from the ship.  Standing outside in the heat, we were sweating and panting as if we had just done hard labor.  We continued exploring until we found a piercing place where my friend Cari added a few aesthetic holes in her face.  The streets were concave and the gutters on the sides were so deep that we had to jump to get from street to sidewalk.  There were open sewers along many streets, and the smell hit you before you saw it.  We went in search of a crafts market, but just found more of the same booths as before, so we went to the other side of the city to the major shopping malls instead.  Again, we found no tourist gear, but we bided our time in the air conditioning for as long as we could.  By mid-afternoon, we were all heavily dehydrated and developing headaches.