The festival comes in August, and the town reshapes itself around it. The Festival de Cirandas de Manacapuru fills a purpose-built circus - the Cirandódromo - with dancers, drummers, and audiences pulled from across the Amazon region. Each night two groups perform, spinning their traditional circle dances for a panel of judges. The winner is named, the losers return the following year, and Manacapuru earns for another season its self-given title: Terra das Cirandas, the Land of Cirandas. The city of 102,000 sits on the Solimões River about 93 kilometers west of Manaus, a working Amazonian port that has come to depend on the festival the way some European towns depend on their saints. It is, outside the ten days of Cirandas, a quieter kind of jungle town - genuinely one, compared to the cityscape of the state capital.
The main approach from Manaus runs about 93 kilometers overland, crossing the Rio Negro on the Jornalista Phelippe Daou Bridge and then following the Manoel Urbano Highway - state road AM-070 - into Manacapuru. The trip takes about an hour by car. Buses run hourly from Manaus at 15 reais, completing the journey in two hours. Shared taxis cost 20 reais to the city limit, with drivers willing to take passengers further into town for an additional fee. Once in Manacapuru, the city is walkable from end to end. Mototaxis circulate at 2.50 reais per ride, and proper taxis cost up to 10. The only state roads are the AM-070 east to Manaus, Iranduba, and Manaquiri, and the AM-254 north, which connects Manaus to Novo Airão by way of Manacapuru. Beyond that, the Solimões and its tributaries do most of the moving.
The Cais do Porto - the docks of the city center - is one of the main attractions, and its historical and regional function as a port is the reason Manacapuru exists. Boats headed upriver toward Colombia and Peru save hours by departing from Manacapuru instead of Manaus, and local ambitions hold that the city could grow as an alternative hub for that traffic. The Igreja Matriz de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré, the centenary mother church dedicated to Our Lady of Nazareth, is the city's most recognizable landmark. The building has been extended and renovated over generations. Inside, the altar is carved in the shape of a canoe - an unusual design that commemorates the mass Pope John Paul II celebrated in Manaus in 1980, when the canoe-altar was used. It is a specific memory tied to a specific day, and the people who were children at that mass are grandparents now.
The old Câmara Municipal building - the City Council chambers - housed Manacapuru's executive branch during the 1930s, along with the state collector's office and the justice forum. In 1976 the permanent council settled into the building, which took the name Palácio Antero de Rezende. The Colégio Nossa Senhora de Nazaré, a school built between 1946 and 1951, shows strong European architectural influence - a reminder that Amazonian cities were not only built by and for the Amazon. The Restauração building, inaugurated on January 1, 1898, is named for the 1640 conspiracy of 56 Portuguese patriots who moved to free Portugal from sixty years of Castilian rule. For decades after its inauguration, Restauração was the most important trading house in Manacapuru. After a period of abandonment, the Social Service of Commerce renovated it, and since 2003 it has served as a cultural center housing a library, a gallery, an amphitheater, and a range of social projects.
Ecotourism brings thousands of visitors to the municipality each year. The Manacapuru Ecological Reserve, on the left bank of the Solimões, protects typical floodplain vegetation including the giant sumaúma trees - Ceiba pentandra, the kapok of Amazonian legend. The reserve functions both as a migratory bird area and as a center for sport fishing, particularly for piranha and aruanã. A floating hotel offers lodging, and an observation structure watches for birds, alligators - caimans, technically - and more birds. The Sahu-Apé Indigenous Community nearby hosts visitors interested in indigenous plant knowledge and medicinal herbs. Santo Afonso Island, sitting on the Solimões itself, is one of the most-visited natural attractions in the area. The Rio Negro Right Bank Environmental Protection Area, a 1,140-square-kilometer sustainable use conservation unit, controls use along the Rio Negro above its junction with the Solimões. All of these sit within day-trip distance of Manacapuru's center.
The music of Manacapuru is ciranda and forró, two traditions that have Brazilian national recognition but take specific regional form here. Ciranda is the group circle dance whose festival shapes the city's year. Forró - the name comes, according to one etymology, from the phrase for-all that British railway engineers painted on signs for their parties - is dance music structured around the accordion, the triangle, and the zabumba drum. Beyond the festival stage, ciranda is danced in municipal markets, at the 16 de Julho square, around the Ingá Park, and at the Miriti Spa. The old Tourist River Terminal and the Tourist Service Center welcome arriving visitors. The Municipal Market - one of the oldest in town - sells fish, manioc flour, river fruits, and the crafts of the region. On a normal weekday, Manacapuru is quieter than Manaus and more Amazonian than the capital has been in decades. On Cirandas nights, the Cirandódromo fills, and the town becomes the center of something that does not exist anywhere else in quite the same way.
Located at 3.3 degrees south, 60.62 degrees west on the Solimões River, 93 kilometers west of Manaus. Cruising altitudes of 10,000 to 20,000 feet show the confluence of the Solimões with multiple smaller tributaries and the archipelago of floodplain islands. Nearest airport is Manaus-Eduardo Gomes International (SBEG) to the east. Expect strong afternoon convection year-round and peak storm activity during the March-to-September wet cycle.