I had the worst tourist experience of my life in Manaus – 11/09/2023 – Guia Negro

I have three prides when traveling: being good at directions, connecting with people and local culture and not falling for tourist scams. The last pride was hurt during a trip I took to Manaus in September. I really wanted to see the meeting of the waters, where Rio Negro and Amazonas (here called Solimões) meet, but they don’t mix at first.

Manaus was already experiencing extreme drought and smoke from the fires that hung in the air, as well as heat that it had never felt before. But none of that took away the sparkle in my eye of being there for the first time, wanting to know more about its history and local culture.

In Porto and at the Manaus Public Market, several agencies sell tours to the attraction I wanted to visit, but it also included swimming with dolphins and a visit to an indigenous village.

In 2016, I went on a backpacking trip in which I visited 25 countries on five continents, most of them new to me and I didn’t fall into any tourist traps. I avoided, for example, going on a tour with elephants in Thailand, as I knew that the animals were there in captivity and that the tourist activity caused them stress and suffering.

This was the case with the trip I took, which included swimming with the dolphins. I didn’t go down into the water, but my fellow tourists were amused to see the dolphin so close, being fed fish to be there. The scene was bizarre and my shame at having to go along with it was enormous.

But how complex life is: one of the people who worked at the enterprise reported how important that activity was and that life before was extremely difficult as he worked on the rubber plantation. Tourism was, therefore, a decent source of income.

The worst was yet to come: the visit to the indigenous village. When we arrived at the place, it was not a village, but a place in the forest behind the restaurant where we had lunch, where indigenous people came to perform for the tourists. We didn’t talk, we didn’t know what indigenous language they spoke, we didn’t understand their culture, we weren’t in their house, but they danced in a circle and painted the tourists.

Women with uncovered breasts had feathers that partially covered them. They had an ancestral shame and looked down all the time. None of them were happy to be there. My shame was now sadness: I wanted to cry profusely over that situation.

One of the tourists next to me said that they looked innocent and that she wanted to take them home. A colonizing thought that comes from the lack of knowledge of the different ethnicities that inhabit the Amazon perpetuated by the tourist experience that does not allow us to actually exchange with those people, restricting itself to just observing something that seems exotic to the people of the city.

As the group headed to see a royal victory, I spoke to one of the indigenous women who said how much the activity was saving the community from hunger. Then, two more groups of tourists arrived and the indigenous presentation was repeated again and again.

Mass tourism does this. Those visitors will leave saying that they visited an indigenous village and how beautiful the original peoples “are”, without knowing about their struggle, culture and worldview, without trying their food or experiencing their rituals.

The difficulty of survival for some of the original peoples without needing help from governments is enormous, but I also questioned how much the value of that trip I paid for reaches them.

If afrotourism is still new and challenging, I realized that indigenous tourism has even greater complexities. I don’t have a conclusion, but it’s a very controversial experience and one I didn’t want to have to go through.

I just wonder if government tourism bodies agree with this type of tourism and I know that there are more responsible alternatives for getting to know the animals and people of the forest. We, as tourists, are responsible for looking for them and preventing practices like this from being perpetuated.

Tourism can and should be sustainable and an ally of communities, producing transformative and diverse experiences. These are the practices that I want to seek out on my next trip to the Amazon, this place that all Brazilians need to know and contribute to preserving.

OTHER SIDE

The State Tourism Company (Amazonastur) informs that it works to raise awareness among guides and tourists in favor of implementing conscious tourism through the protection of wild animals and respect for the space of indigenous peoples in the Amazon.

The process, according to the company, takes place through working groups and campaigns. Among them is “Do not touch. Observe”. “Tool to promote respect for wild animals that cannot and should not be touched during visits. The action aims to keep animals within their natural behaviors, thus avoiding the possibility of animals living a routine that is beyond their nature “, he reinforces.

Furthermore, Amazonastur states that it carries out the Tourist Planning Plan (POT) with indigenous communities, where it seeks to promote the strengthening of Ethnotourism in the State. The action was initially carried out in four indigenous communities – Cipiá, Tatuyo, Diakuru and Tuyuka – and with joint work, the communities and Amazonastur established objectives to organize tourist activity, in a way that respects the culture and tradition of the communities.

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