Monday, November 7th, was our day to board the Iberostar and cruise the Rio Negro. But, we couldn't board until the afternoon. We had a morning to fill. Our tour company found the perfect way to fill those hours. We would visit MUSA (Museu da Amazonia).
(Claude, Sandi, Jeff, Judy, Shari, Mark, Suzanne (in front), Lindsey (behind), Mary, Leslie, Roxana, Bruce, Meryn and Burr)
MUSA is a Beautiful forested area with walking trails and a viewing tower. Musa sits on a 100 square kilometer area at the Adolpho Ducke Forest Reserve. Adolpho Ducke lived in Manaus and felt the importance of preserving some of the area in its natural state. He could see the city growing out and into the rainforest. So, he purchased this huge tract of land on the north edge of the city and kept is natural. Eventually a tiny portion of it was turned into MUSA. It is a wonderful outdoor museum. Trails you can walk through the rainforest. Little buildings with snakes, spiders, plants, etc. that are used to study these things. There is a pond that you typically would not find here but it was built to share what is deeper in the forest. This pond has Victoria waterlilies. And, the icing on the cake is a 14-story tower you may climb. It was a great way to experience the rainforest and come to understand it better.
Some interesting items were in the entry. A chair made out of a tree stump, a snake carved from one tree, Brazil nuts in their pod as they grow on trees, and a canoe made from a tree trunk.
Our guide talked to us about the history of the museum and gave us an overview of what we would see. Then we hiked to the pond where the Victoria lilies grow. These are huge. They are named for Queen Victoria. They bud out in what appears to be a white bud that blossoms into a beautiful pink flower. This flower lives for about three days. If you look closely, you can see new lily pads beginning to open up. So very pretty to see in real life. I have seen pictures. Real life was amazing.
Then we would hike one of the trails through the rainforest. We noticed a tree with a termite nest in it.
The first little building we entered housed the snake collection. There are cases with live snakes. There were two young college students who spend their days studying these creatures. This is a skeleton of a boa constrictor.
We walked thru a 2-room orchidarium. It also had bromelias.
We walked past the tallest kind of tree to grow in the Amazon. It is a Rockwood Angelim-Pedra. It can grow up to 263 feet tall. It only grows in the parts of the rainforest that flood during the rainy season. The bark turns red when the sunlight hits it. I'm thinking it gets sunburned!!
Back for more walking through the rainforest. We past an ant nest. It is hanging down to the left of the frame.
I was fascinated with this signage. It lists almost 400 different indigenous groups of people in the Amazon. Each has its own language and customs. The map in the next picture has corresponding numbers to the list to show where each group lives. To help these people maintain their way of life, language and culture, certain places in the Amazon are protected. The police monitor to be sure no one enters these areas. You must have special permission to enter them. The number of ethic backgrounds in Brazil through its history added to the number of indigenous groups astounds me. I can't figure how you could manage that from a government standpoint with infrastructure or a need to not put infrastructure so you preserve their way of life, etc., etc., etc. An amazing country for sure.
Claude took these pictures from the top level as he hung onto the railing. He doesn't do heights well when there is not a good wall in front of him. I was grateful he was able to get to the top and take pictures for us. If you look closely, you can see Manaus in the far background.
I took these pictures from the canopy level. One is looking over the canopy. The other in looking from canopy level to the trail we walked in on. My blood pressure was not good and I determined I should stay at canopy level. Shari took this picture of Claude and me at canopy level.
And...here is the tower (torre) with all 14-stories in view as well as the three platforms. Amazing. A wonderful way to experience the rainforest an each of its levels.
After visiting MUSA, we went to Florintina in Manaus for lunch. We were given a room on the second floor to eat our lunch. This was because there was a big picture window to view the plaza across the street. Look closely at the window. Their electricity is a systems of lines, lots and lots of lines, across the poles. So, the view in the window is lots and lots of electrical lines. We saw this in China also. On one drive through Manaus, I saw from our bus window, a man working on these lines. I cannot for the life of me figure out how he knew which line to work on. Amazing.
After lunch, we finally went to an establishment that could change our American dollars for Reals. These two pictures are the front and back of the Reals. One side has animals. The other, a friend tells me, is Pedro Álvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator credited with being the first European to reach Brazil.
Now, we are ready to head to the port to board the Iberostar Heritage Grand Amazon, our home-away-from-home, for the next four days. 
Leaving the port at night. The lights on the left are the Manaus Bridge lit up at night.
We settled in nicely. Leslie, one of the ladies in our tour group, had an extra adapter. We would work the next four days making sure our cellphones, Kindles, camera and hear aids were charged with that precious adapter. How grateful we were to Leslie for sharing her bounty with us.
We would have dinner every evening in Kaurup's, the main restaurant on the ship. It is located in the bottom of the ship and you actually sit below water level.
We also were provided with two water bottles. There were filtered water stations in each of the three lobbies and the two restaurant areas. We were to keep our water bottles full and drink lots of water at no cost to us. All the beverages on board were also free. All our excursions were included in the price of the cruise. Every evening you would go to the 2nd level lobby and sign up for the tours you wanted the next day. This was to let them know how many tenders (boats) they needed for the next day. You were never denied an excursion because it was full. It promised to be good cruise.
One thing fascinated everyone in our tour group. The director of the cruise would talk to us in the lounge area. There were people who spoke Portuguese, some who spoke Spanish, and some who spoke English. This guy spoke extremely fast. He would rattle off something in Portuguese, then quickly shift gears and rattle off the same thing in Spanish, then shift gears again and quickly rattle off the same thing in English. Then he would go back to Portuguese, then Spanish and English. He did this with great speed and never faltered. You had to learn to pay attention so you caught when he switched to English.
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