The legendary Amazon is gigantic system of rivers and forests. The world's largest river basin, 6.5 million square kilometers (2.5 million square miles), but also the planet's greatest rainforest. The Amazon is a vast open-air greenhouse of global evolution and unsolved mysteries whose true potential remains largely unknown and untapped. It is possible to fly for hours over the Amazon region and see no break in the carpet of greenery except for the sinuous curves of the region's rivers.

Though it is not the longest river in the world, there can be no doubt that the Amazon is the world's greatest river. Of the twenty largest rivers in the world, ten are in the Amazon Basin. Ocean-going vessels get to nearly the other side of the South American continent.
At the end of a 6,570 km (4,080 mile) journey that begins in the Peruvian Andes, the river's massive mouth discharges a fifth of all the world's freshwater into the Atlantic, permeating the saltwater over 100 km (60 miles) from the shore.

The Amazon River dominates Brazil, covering almost half of its territory, yet Brazilians are only just beginning to discover it. To this day, major tributaries of the Amazon are unexplored.

In the Amazon Basin a tenth of the world's 10 million living species make their homes. A diversity of life richer than any place else on earth, including 500 mammals, 175 different lizards, 300 other reptile species, tree climbers of every kind, and a third of the world's identified bird species. Many animal species still are undiscovered until today.
Over the last decades the increasing deforestation of huge arts of the Amazon Bassin has raised major concerns, both in Brazil and abroad.

Today, the growing awareness of the importance of the rain forest - both locally and globally - and the development of novel approaches to managing tropical forests provide reasons for hope that this incredible region will be maintained as one of the true vast natural paradises of our planet.

Travelling to the Amazon is an experience that should not be missed and one that must be part of your journey to Brazil. Being in the Amazon is feeling like in primordial times of the planet.
Two of the best places to see some of the incredible wildlife and be close to nature, better said, right into it, are the Acajatuba and Tiwa lodges. Both to be reached from Manaus.