Tropical Manaus is the largest luxury hotel in Brasil. This deluxe resort property is strategically located on the shores of Rio Negro. It was projected and built intentionally in that area, just 16 km from downtown Manaus, but in the heart of the largest ecological reservation in the world - the Amazon Rainforest. This horizontal construction surrounded by 400,000 square meters of greenery encompasses 589 well-equipped, spacious and comfortable rooms and suites that form the residential wings of the hotel complex.

Open since 1976, Tropical Manaus Zoo Gardens consists of a menagerie of approximately 100 native species of the Amazonian fauna, housed in a green area of more than 20,000 square meters in the hotel grounds. Specimens include mammals, birds and reptiles, with emphasis being given to the jaguars, the only big cats and the biggest felines of the Americas, and the capybara, the largest living rodent in the world.

....Among the four endangered species - the "onça pintada" (Panthera onca), the "macaco aranha" (black spider monkeys) (Ateles paniscus and Ateles belzebuth) and the small cat jaguatirica (Leopardus pardalis) - the breeding in captivity of this last species has been a success and in 2004 the Tropical Manaus Zoo was ranked as the fourth Brazilian endangered jaguatirica breeding spot.

Another great attraction is that this is where the black Rio Negro meets the blue Solimões River. It is considered one of the natural spectacles of the world because they run together for miles without mixing.

The hotel also offers boat trips deep into the heart of the Amazon. That also was an incredible part of the trip. Amazingly, today rates start at just $117 a day.

From the link above on the history of Manaus:

Between 1890 and 1910, thanks to the exportation of natural rubber, the local businessmen and rulers brought in from the 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. For over a hundred years ago Manaus inaugurated the Amazonas Opera House which astonished the world for its luxury, refinement and architectonic beauty, and in 1909 the first Brazilian University was founded - the Universidade Livre de Manaus (Autonomous University of Manáos). 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. With the establishment of the Free Zone, in 1967, Manaus took advantage of the fiscal incentives to become the largest existing commercial and industrial sector on the Equator.

The main Brazilian industries of electric-electronic appliances, clocks and watches, bicycles, motorcycles, eyeglasses, etc., are concentrated here. Commerce offers a wide variety of high technology products, at the lowest prices and the hotels are equipped to efficiently receive people from everywhere in the country and overseas.

I hope this plane crash doesn't dissuade anyone from visiting Manaus and the Amazon. It's truly a great experience.