Back in the 1800s, Manaus, which sits at the confluence of the Amazon River’s major Brazilian tributaries, was South America’s wealthiest city – built on the rubber that flowed from the Amazon’s indigenous rubber trees.
In typical style, the profiteers weren’t the locals but the European settlers, and with their booming economy came great excess. French ladies sent laundry back to Paris to get washed in the Seine (believing the Amazon too dirty); in the old part of town, inhabitants built an opera house. The steel was imported from Glasgow, marble columns and chandeliers from Italy and the tiles came from Alsace – no mean feat given it took weeks just to sail when the show came to town.
