Amazon River Trip of a Lifetime

Sometimes the thing we are looking for takes a combination of dedication, effort, and a healthy dose of luck. To finally have Brazil happen it took all of those things for sure. The first time Joe and I had booked the Brazil trip, we planned it for about a year and a half since it was such a long duration and a big deal to be gone from our families for 10+ days. In 2023, we had everything packed and ready and literally five days before the trip it got cancelled due to flooding on the Amazon River. That was a heartbreaker but we were able to quickly put together a trip to El Salto which ended up being completely epic. I’ve mentioned before that being flexible on trips can really pay off and that time was no exception.

Leading up to the departure for the trip this time, it was chaos. After getting back to town from a post-Christmas family trip, I knew I had limited time to get everything done and had no room for error. I had four working days until I left for Brazil and as fate would have it, my home town got hit with tornadoes the day before I was supposed to leave. While my personal assets were ok, there was a fair amount of destruction in the town and my office was without power for the day. Welp…I guess no work was to be had that day.

Traveling to another country involves a fair amount of preparation and there was a point in which the trip didn’t look like it was going to happen. The country of Brazil had recently implemented a policy for requiring visas for US citizens and when the announcement was made, all of our party immediately applied for visas since the requirement started on our day of arrival. The process was difficult and Brazil had asked for some strange and off-putting things like a bank statement and one week out from the trip happening, only three guys had received their visas. I called Joe one night and recall saying to him, “The only way this trip is happening is if they postpone the requirement for the visas.” There just simply wasn’t enough time for everyone to receive theirs. A few days later we got our dose of luck and Brazil ended up postponing the visa requirement for another 90 days. TRIP ON!!! (Note: I ended up receiving my visa the day before we left)

The day of departure I got the kids off to school and left the house early and drove to Ft Lauderdale. My flights from where I live were actually about $4,000 more than going through Ft Lauderdale so it was worth driving. I also rented a one-way rental for departure and return that saved me money versus parking my vehicle at the airport for the entire trip. Always good to keep the cost minimized when you can but it was also good for being able to control my schedule. I always worry about flights getting cancelled for departure. When you are doing a bucket list trip that starts at a certain time, I try to remove any risk factors if possible.

The arrival into Manaus was smooth and we got in around 3:30 am local time. Anglers Inn International does a great job of having someone ready to meet us when we arrive at our destinations so we met our bilingual driver and were off from the airport. We had a variation in plans which we didn’t know about until arrival that threw us off a bit but was a good thing. We found out that we were supposed to go directly to the boat which was in Manaus. We had originally planned to fly to another location after a day in Manaus but this was actually going to give us an extra day of fishing.

Upon getting out the van, I was excited to see the Amazon Lord III that we would be staying at during our trip. We were greeted by their staff at around 4am and shown our rooms so we could get settled and get some rest.

We woke up a few hours later for breakfast and I was delighted to see how nice the accommodations were on the ship. The Amazon Lord III is a modern, very well maintained, and clean ship that had great amenities. We’d be travelling for the day so we had plenty of opportunity to get familiar with the ship and support team. The staterooms were on the first and second floors and had two person occupancy with private bathrooms for each cabin. The cabin was equipped with it’s own air conditioning unit, drawer under the bed for clothing, clothes rack, safe for valuables, and stocked mini fridge. The cabins also had bins under each bed that you could put your dirty laundry, which was done daily during our trip.

The bathrooms were adequate in size and offered hot water showers. The toilet also offered a bidet as guests were asked not to flush toilet paper, which is common in Brazil. Toilet paper was placed in trashcans next to the toilets and was disposed of several times throughout the day. With my lack of familiarity in using a bidet, I had to get my aim right so I didn’t shoot myself in the balls. It takes some getting used to. The staff had also stocked each bathroom with bottled water so that when you brushed your teeth you’d not have to use river water and avoid potentially getting sick.

Read San Diego Fishing Trip – Part 3