Tabatinga

Introduction

Tabatinga wouldn't be known if it wasn't for the fact that this is the end (or the beginning) of your Amazon River trip in Brazil. This little city borders both Colombia and Peru, and there are onward connections to Iquitos.

Getting There

By Plane

Tabatinga International Airport has flights with TRIP to Manaus, always via Tefé. Some TRIP flights might make additional stops at the towns of Carauari and Coari.

Alfredo Vásquez Cobo International Airport (LET) near Leticia offers flights to/from Bogota and several smaller towns like Araracuara, La Chorrera, La Pedrera and Tarapacá. There are seasonal flights to both Iquitos and Pucallpa in Peru.

There are sometimes flights from the Peruvian town of Santa Rosa to Iquitos, with small 15-seaters.

By Boat

Brazil
Although not from Leticia itself, there are connections by boat from nearby Tabatinga. Slow boats to Manaus leave from the Porto Fluvial on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons, usually around 2:00pm or so, with a stop at Benjamin Constant. Sometimes there are extra boats, so it's worth asking. Arrive in the morning to stake out good hammock space, as boats can be quite crowded. The trip to Manaus takes three days and four nights and costs around US$65 if you bring your own hammock, or around US$240 for two people in a double cabin. Food is included, but you're best advised to bring snacks and bottled water. Traveling upstream from Manaus to Tabatinga, the trip usually takes six days, and costs about US$110 in your hammock or US$330 for a double cabin.

Speedboats operated by AJATO (Porto Manaus Moderna 3622 6047, 9984 9091, Tabatinga 3412 2227; 8:00am-5:00pm Monday to Friday, 8:00am-noon Saturday) leave Tabatinga for Manaus (R$360, 31 hours) once a week, generally in the morning. The boats have airplane-style seating and TVs playing movies, and good meals are included. To get to Tefé, take a Manaus-bound slow boat to Fonte Boa or Jutaí, and transfer to a regional boat that enters Tefé proper. AJATO has a once weekly speedboat service to Tefé (R$300, 20 hours).

Peru
Transtur runs high-speed boats between Tabatinga and Iquitos. Boats leave from Tabatinga's Porto da Feira at 4:00am Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and arrive in Iquitos about 10 hours later. The boats call at Santa Rosa's immigration post in Peru. The journey costs US$60 in either direction, including breakfast and lunch. Don't forget to get an exit stamp in your passport from at Leticia's airport the day before departure. Note that from Iquitos there are no onward overland connections. You have to fly or continue by river to Pucallpa (five to seven days), from where you can go overland to Lima and other places.

Getting Around

Taxis and moto-taxis abound; just avoid the taxis at the port - they overcharge 2 to 4 times. The city is pretty large, walking in the heat of the day is something one might want to think twice about.

Eat

• Fazendinha - good pizza .
• Restaurante Três Fronteiras, 398, R. Rui Barbosa, 308, Tabatinga - AM, 69640-000. Has a beautiful garden and a romantic atmosphere. The venue is specialized in BBQ and Peruvian food and known as the best restaurant in Tabatinga.
• Sao Jorge, Av da Amizade 1941. Peruvian restaurant. Great ceviche and a good selection of Peruvian beers. A portion easily serves two. R$25 to R$40.

Drink

• Vinicius bar, main street.

Sleep

Note that the neighbouring town of Leticia has a much greater and better choice in accommodation. You don't need to pass Colombian immigration to stay there.

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet cafes (Lan houses) are increasingly common, and even small towns often have at least one spot with more or less decent connections.
An increasing number of hotels, airports and shopping malls also offer hotspots for Wi-Fi with your laptop computer or of course smartphone. Sometimes it is free, sometimes you need to register and there is a time limite and sometimes you need to pay a small amount for (day) use.

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

The country calling code to Brazil is: 55. To make an international call from , the code is: 0014. All cities use the following emergency numbers: 190 (police), 192 (medical) and 193 (fire department). However, if you dial 911 or 112 while in Brazil, you will be redirected to the police.
Brazil uses two-digit area codes, and phone numbers are eight digits long. Numbers beginning with digits 2 to 5 are land lines, while eight-digit numbers beginning with digits 6 to 9 are mobile phones.

Public payphones use disposable prepaid cards, which come with 20, 40, 60 or 75 credits. The discount for buying cards with larger denominations is marginal. Phone booths are nearly everywhere, and all cards can be used in all booths, regardless of the owner phone company. Cards can be bought from many small shops, and almost all news agents sell them.

Brazil has 4 national mobile operators: Vivo (Telefónica Group), Claro (Telmex/América Móvil Group), OI and TIM (Telecom Italia Group), all of them running GSM and HSDPA/HSPA+ networks. Pay-as-you-go (pré-pago) SIM cards for GSM phones are widely available in places like newsstands, drugstores, supermarkets, retail shops, etc.

Post

Correios is the national postal service of Brazil. It is a government run postal service and overseen by the Brazilian Ministry of Communications. Post offices are generally open from Monday to Friday from 09:00am to 5:00pm, although post offices located in shopping malls have their own opening hours, usually from 10:00am to 10:00pm. There are no set opening hours at weekends and as post office owners can choose when to open and close. More and more post offices are open until 1:00pm on Saturdays though. You can check things at the nearest post office.

Sending postcards, letters and parcels is a rather straightforward process and services are reliable, though not overly fast when sending post internationally, mostly taking about a week to the USA and Europe, and there is a track-and-trace service for this as well. Domestically, there are both next day as well as more expensive same day delivery options. Stamps are available at post offices, as well as some kiosks or other places where they sell postcards.

For sending packages internationally, you can also used competitively priced private companies like TNT, UPS or DHL. They are generally much quicker and not much more expensive.

External Links