"My first sight of Manaus was in darkness. Naked bulbs illuminated vignettes of local life: men fixing fishing nets whose recent catch was dangling from hooks beside simmering pans illuminated by oil lamps in roadside stalls. It was a scene barely touched by the 20th century, never mind the 21st. Like a beckoning beacon, the lights of the ship dominated this scene straight out of the pages of a Joseph Conrad novel: remote, secretive, unknowable, a barrio pressed against a dark interior."

© Gary Buchanan, Amazing Amazon, World of Cruising, Summer 2008