Up in the north west of brazil is Manaus, the main entrance city to the Amazon Jungle. The city itself was once a self indulgent rubber funded place where the rich would be known to light their cigars with 20 pound notes. Today though the rubber supply has shifted to the far east, the city has been industrialised as a tax free factory attraction and, although inhabited by over two million people, it has unfortunately become a dilapidated and dirty version of its once majestic self that's been overtaken by corruption and "bad elements". The only reminder of its historical wealth is an opulent, surprisingly well maintained, theatre in the middle of town.

But, history and pretty city life are not what attracts people to Manaus. The real attraction is the Amazon Jungle with its close proximity to and ease of access from the city. So, despite the state of the city, people still pass through to get their taste of this natural wonder.

It's easy enough to arrive in town and pick up a tour into the jungle. Just go walk around by the theatre and you'll see all the tour agencies. In fact it's so easy that a tour may find you - but be careful of the guys offering you tours off the street, many of them have sub-par products. We got in touch with a tour operator before we arrived in Manaus that was mentioned in a few blogs and was highly rated on TripAdvisor. The tour operator organised us a hotel as well and after a day in Manaus we were already on the Amazon River crossing over the oil-vs-vinegar like meeting of the waters and heading into the jungle.

On the boat to our lodge, amid stories from one of the guides about the joys of piranha soup, we quickly also learnt about the joys of being in a rainforest. We were sitting in the boat looking up at the grey skies and enjoying the cooling water relief of a drizzle. We noticed the birds still flying overhead through the drops. We admired the tiny specs of sunlight still managing to break through the clouds. And as our boat cruised on into the heavier and heavier rain, we sat there, still looking up, and realised, where the hell was our roof. Our guides stories had turned to singing about the rain and he just got louder as the rain got harder. Nothing we could do but sit there, accept and enjoy being in open rain. Welcome to the jungle.

The guides on our tour and at the lodge were brilliant. Beyond their abilities of cayman hunting and sloth spotting while we were on the water or their knowledge of the jungle animals, survival and medicinal plants while we were hiking on land they were chilled out and happy to drink caiparinas with us, teach us dominoes and get us involved in their practical jokes during the downtime at night. It's a kid again feeling being in the jungle where we could climb trees, fish for piranhas, play with tarantulas (well for the guides at least, we didn't actually hold them) and swim in the same piranha and cayman infested waters we had been fishing and hunting in.

Our lodge was in a "residential" part of the jungle and we would pass lots of locals' homes and farms on each of our trips out. But these people were living in and off the jungle and our lodge was surrounded by jungle. The sounds at night were definite reminders that we weren't in any sort of civilised place. Unfortunately we didn't see too much exciting wild life but the experience of being in the jungle was brilliant. Getting up close to the jungle while losing shoes in its mud on our hikes and looking for animals and birds while watching dolphins, sunsets and sunrises out on the water. These are the sort of things that make the jungle such a big tourist attraction and that we enjoyed so much that we extended our stay by an extra night.

The escape from civilization, the appreciation of the jungle life, the closeness to nature, the excitement of the dangers and the size of the jungle (and its bugs) made this one of the highlights of our trip that we hope we'll get to experience it again someday.

Trek on...Brett and Darren.

P.S. Here's some more info on the tours:

We did our tour through Amazon Gero Tours. Gero is a guy who built himself up from being listed in Lonely Planet a few years ago as the guy you find by asking in a salon on 10 de Julho Ave if they can find him for you to the number one tour on TripAdvisor. The tour seemed to be a really good balance between price and quality and the staff were brilliant.

You can also contact our guide, Jungle Boy, directly on Facebook under his full name Ubens Kenrick Lacruz or email him on: [email protected]

Our tour, and we're guessing most other group tours, worked on a rolling basis where people join in-progress tours everyday and leave while others continue. There are also private tours. Most tours also seem to stay in lodges of varying levels of comfort. Our lodge was very nice and although it didn't have hot water showers or electricity (except between 6 and 9ish at night) it was very well maintained and cleaned. Other general options for lodges are sleeping in a share room or private room. And sleeping on a bed or a hammock in the share room (holds about 15 people). We took the middle ground and chose a bed in the share room. This turned out to be a good choice cause the lodge wasn't too busy - we had the room to ourselves for one night - and the share room was above the eating area so it was higher and cooler. It also mostly had netting instead of walls which helped make the room much cooler. But it did have shared bathrooms. Other types of tour go from the extreme survival tours and living in the jungle to living with local families to staying aboard a boat. The last option you'll need to choose is how long you want to spend in the jungle. We did three nights and this was perfect for the jungle experience we were after.