Eco Planet Turismo Ltda owner /operator of " Mamori Adventure Lodge" has a tourist trap at the airport disguised as GENERAL TOURISM SERVICE . One of the owners is a Belgian man, Marc Verfaillie , particularly nice and tricky. He speaks several languages ( which is a relief in Brazil where almost no one speaks any foreign languages ) . He acts like an "honest" tourism advisor yet smoothly leading you to book at Mamori Adventure Lodge which he owns and is the least recommendable place. http://ecoplanetturismo.com, Beware, none of the photos in their site actually corresponds to their lodge

The prices are high enough to offer a nice treat but what you get is the following.

No mosquito nets for sleeping, high risk of getting malaria since the palapa alows mosquitoes in. One big room that serves all purposes,  eating, lounging and sleeping.  If you want to sleep early or  during the day, you may do so while others listen to music, play cards,  eat, etc.
	No purified water ( they mislead you by displaying a 20 L. purified water container but in reality they fill it out from the tap water. I caught them doing so. Tricky ehh ! We got very sick.
No cleanliness on the preparation of food, which takes place mainly on the floor of the back yard in spite of having a small kitchen The back yard serves for every purpose, from feeding and bathing the dog to washing clothes and bed linens, garbage, plus preparing the meat or fish on the floor.

Shared bathrooms and toilets are filthy.

The company does not have a transportation van of it's own , it uses rundown local vans and water taxis to take you to the lodge   The boat for guest tours while in the lodge is a minimal rundown boat ( chalupe) with a small motor. If it breaks , which happens often, they have to call someone from the near by lodges to help them out by either subletting the boat or towing the broken one back to the lodge.           During our stay in the lodge, every person had a different package and rate. No one had paid the full price which we were tricked into paying ( by the honest "owner") the ones that had booked through independent agents were paying half of what we did. We also asked for three days but he said only 5 days packages were available. No one in the lodge had a 5 day package except us, some guests had one night /two days. Which is enough time to cover the "activities".

In general the Amazons and its lodges are not interesting at all. We were expecting adventure and jungle as seen on TV documentaries and were stupid not to search for real people's opinions and research several travel books. The kind of jungle that one sees on TV is not reachable by normal tourists. The river shore is not Tarzan's jungle but a woodsy wet land, which is not even close to the ones in Canada, the Rockies, Florida, Yucatan, Europe, etc. The travel book Petit Fute , has a remark in French that says something like this. "tourist pack Indiana Jones gear when in reality they should pack fishing pole and sunscreen lotion " .

There is little wildlife in the Amazons available to the normal tourist. Few small birds, sloths ( this type of slow animals that cling to trees), sweet water dolphins, lots of different kinds of fish, crocs.

Of all the above, sloths are the only thing that you won't normally see in other places, dolphins are everywhere, ( the pink ones are there but so far you cannot appreciate the color ) . Birds and crocs are common in most wet lands. In the Everglades or the Yucatan one has to be careful not to step on one. We saw a tiny croc at night.

The "aborigine" villagers is nothing more than mulatos ( European and Afro ) living in filthy shacks with women wearing nail polish and rinestones in the navel, a boa in a cage for tourist pictures and some local fruit being eaten by nude dirty children. They have cell phones which are also used to advising them when the next batch of tourists will arrive.

During your Amazon trip, the most adventure that you will get is been bitten by mosquitoes.

Manaus is a FILTHY, UNINTERESTING CITY.   As filthy as Calcutta in India.  

If in spite of this you are interested in spending energy, time and GOOD money, try this.

1. DO NOT BOOK IN MAMORI Adventure LODGE with Eco planet turismo. ltda http://ecoplanetturismo.com. , nor at their airport or downtown Manaus office, nor through any agency that carries their lodge. Book in other lodges, there are dozens of them.
2. NEVER BUY TOURS THE AIRPORT, do a search in various travel agencies in town you will find better deals. 3. Take sunscreen.
4. Take malaria pills (which have side effects)
5. Bring your own purified water or demand that real purified water in sealed 20 l containers is taken at same time as you.

6. Do not pay more than $ 30/40 usd. per pers per day ,which is enough for a camping allinclusive. The meals consist of eggs, fruit, corn flakes, self caught fish, chicken, rice, beans.

7. Do not book more than 2 nights, if you find it interesting you can always extend your stay.
8. Do not pay in advance, pay 50% and pay the rest upon delivery of the service. This way you are protected in case the boat breaks down, the food is not good, accommodations are not clean, if your valuable time is wasted or if you cancel .
9. While in the lodge do not allow them to choose your activities, demand to do things in this order:
a) sloth watching ( this are the slow animals clinging to the trees)
b) Piranha fishing, dolphin watching.
c) Crocodile watching at night.
10. Refuse to use your valuable two or three days in visiting the villager's home

11. AVOID the overnight stay in the jungle, you will be paying good money to stay awake in an uninteresting environment while they rent hammock to someone else in the lodge.Plastics and hammocks for overnight stay.  Sado-tourism indeed.  Enjoy!

12. Be firm as to what you want to do first. As I say if you still think you want to extend your stay, you can do this things later.
13. Search the net and read all travel books on the subject.
14. Contact as many people as possible in order to have their opinions about the Amazons and lodges offering services.

$ 30 / 40 usd a day per pers. is more than a fair price to pay for most lodges in the Amazons. Except for 4 stars like Ariau Amazons Towers the rest are all shacks with run down wooden boats . To evaluate a fair price you should consider how much you would pay to camp in your country and take in consideration that services, wages and food are less expensive in Brazil specially shared water taxis and land taxis vans are part of the operation.
Do you think it is worth more than 30 usd per pers. /day ? Think twice, similar lodges right on the beach at Puerto Angel, Puerto Escondido, Sipolite or Chiapas, in Mexico are 10 usd per day. The Yucatan or Chiapas offer many eco-options with the added value of the Maya archeology near by.

June/ 05.