The ramble in the jungle
“Liam!”
“Ken!”
Actually, I’m gilding the lily ever so slightly here. In truth, myself and Ken Early bumped into each other on the fine expansive patio outside the grand old opera house in Manaus rather than in a clearing in the jungle replete with chattering monkeys and things slithering in the oily undergrowth but, still, it was an unexpected hoot to suddenly cross paths with a familiar face in a place that’s nearly 2,000 miles from Rio and many thousands more from home.
Having overcome our shared surprise, we did what all smart adventurers would do under the circumstances and promptly repaired to a convenient café to watch, in even greater astonishment, as the Netherlands walloped Spain, the weight of local support entirely behind the Dutch to judge by the glee with which the staff, all of whom were decked out in Brazilian shirts, celebrated the Orange goal-fest. And, naturally, they reserved their biggest chuckles for when the entirely ineffectual Diego Costa was called ashore.
There’s plenty of World Cup buzz in Manaus – where Cameroon, Croatia, Honduras and Switzerland have still to follow England and Italy – but, for the gringo football journalist, the unique bonus attraction of the games at the Amazonian Arena is the proverbial once in a lifetime chance they offer to sample a little of this impossibly exotic and remote part of the world.
Of course, a single overnight stay meant I could do little more than dip a toe in the Amazon – and, no, a piranha didn’t bite it off, thanks for asking – but the experience was still enough to leave a mark on the psyche that is sure to abide. Manaus might be home to two million people – and, as such, as simultaneously decayed and developed as many other big cities the world over – but in the so-called ‘Paris of the tropics’ you are always conscious that, improbable though it seems, you’re located slap bang in the middle of planet earth’s great green lung.
The first unforgettable sighting was from the air as, after what seemed like hours passing over the green canopy of the rain forest, the plane from Brasilia began its slow descent into Manaus. And, suddenly, there below us under a cloudless sky was the fabled meeting of the waters, where the dark Rio Negro and the sandy-coloured Rio Solimoes join forces to swell the Amazon but, because of differences in temperature and density, don’t immediately overlap, instead flowing parallel with each other.
At the airport, I was greeted at the taxi desk by a young man and woman attired in the minimalist feathered attire of the indigenous Indians, a cheesy tourist board initiative which, I guess, would be akin to a couple of lads in leprechaun outfits meeting the Yanks off the plane in Ireland. Oh, well, at least Sting wasn’t waiting in arrivals to melt my brain with his lute.
The climate does that pretty effectively in Manaus anyway, its prevailing characteristic a heavy, dense, throbbing tropical heat which leaves your t-shirt soaking inside ten minutes. And the nights, if anything, are even steamier, and alive with buzzing and flying critters.
The vast majority of the locals speak not a word of English which turned my attempt to buy mosquito repellent – having forgotten to pack my spray in Rio, naturally – into quite a comic adventure. The pharmacist hit on a good trick, however, allowing me to type my request into her computer which she then put through google translate, the emerging results prompting raised eyebrows, then growing smiles and, finally, great cries of recognition. Indeed, so pleased was she with the success of the transaction that, before I could leave, she insisted I pose for a photograph holding up a little ‘Go Brazil’ flag which doubled as an advertisement for some sort of medical product.
Brief though it was, my visit to the Opera House, the celebrated Teatro Amazonas, was enough to confirm why it appealed to the vivid imagination of Werner Herzog who used it as a setting in ‘Fitzcarraldo’. The building is an incongruous but beautiful relic of the 19th century rubber boom, with its pink and white wedding cake exterior surmounted by a stunning cupola in the colours of Brazilian flag while, inside, it’s all ornate tiles, marble columns and chandeliers.
But the main thing I was determined to see in Manaus was the great river itself, or at least the mighty Negro, the mother of all tributaries. And I got lucky on the morning of the England-Italy game when the son of the owner of my little hotel materialised. Nento turned out to have very serviceable English, the result, he claimed, of learning the language off tapes in just six weeks. He was certainly making good progress. “Fuck Fifa,” he pithily declared as we haltingly discussed the World Cup.
Keen to put his training into practice, he kindly insisted on accompanying me on a dander down to the river, which we accessed through the food market on its banks. Even at 7.30 in the morning, the place was alive with every kind of colour, movement and smell, the fruits of the forest and the river – including some truly spectacular fish — ferried by hand to the stalls and piled high on counters as early morning shoppers bustled about, trying to beat the intense heat of the rising sun.
Sadly, time didn’t permit a trip upriver and into the jungle but then I’ve already seen more than one Jaguar – in the car park at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground, as I recall – and, furthermore, I didn’t really want to run the risk of disturbing David Beckham in his solitary communing with nature (apart from helicopter providing aerial views).
No matter. For the nomadic football journalist, with one eye on the game and the other on the deadline, that’s the Amazon pretty much done and dusted I’m sure you’ll agree.
Coming soon: I ‘do’ the Antarctic in 90 minutes (plus injury time).
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