This museum recreates life on a rubber plantation during the height of the boom that made Manaus rich.Map of Manaus, Brazil You can see the daily work of tapping trees, collecting the latex, forming it into marketable alls and and transporting it to market. There is also a general store that provided supplies to the workers and and to neighbors.The beautiful home with fine furniture and a piano is unexpected in the middle of the rain forest. From Marina Davi near the Tropical Hotel, take a water taxi or small ferry to the plantation. Tickets are available at tourist offices in Manaus, including at the Tropical Hotel.
Manaus is a city in the northern part of Brazil and capital of Amazonas State. Located on the Rio Negro near its confluence with the Rio Solimões (also known as the Amazon River), it is the chief port and a hub for the region’s extensive river system. It is also a common point of departure for tourists visiting the rest of the Amazon region.
Between 1890 and 1910, thanks to the exportation of natural rubber, the local businessmen and rulers brought in from Europe hundreds of architects and landscape painters, for the execution of an ambitious urban plan that would result in a city with European architectonic profile, though embedded in the middle of the jungle. Modern and innovative, Manaus was one of the first Brazilian cities to have electricity, pluvial drainage system, water treatment, sewer system and electric streetcar service. The floating harbor, built to adapt to the tidal water level of the rivers, was totally imported from England. Several other public buildings were also imported from England.
The old rubber barons dreamed of transforming Manaus into a European style city and called it “The Paris of the Tropics”. With the end of the rubber boom, Manaus went into decline and only entered a period of renewed development in the 1950s. A turning point was reached in 1967, when the Manaus Free Zone was established by the federal government. From that date on, the capital of Amazonas has passed through great changes, becoming an important industrial centre for the manufacture of electrical and electronic goods (nowadays, Manaus is the supplier for the entire country of items such as DVD players and computer monitors).
(Text and map of Brazil adapted from: Manaus in Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia)
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