Experience the Amazonian wilderness

Cruising on Brazil's Rio Negro is an ideal way to experience the Amazonian wilderness, says Chris Moss in the Daily Telegraph. One of the Amazon's 17 great tributaries, it is in a far better condition than that "blighted, deforested" waterway. Within a few hours of leaving Manaus - where a wedding-cake like 19th-Century opera house sits incongruously amid shacks and ugly residential towers - you'll feel a world away from civilisation, alone with the caymans on the river's tea-dark waters. Seeing the jungle from your "rather luxurious" riverboat becomes frustrating after a while - at which point you can strike out on a guided trek. Big mammals and reptiles are often evasive, but there's a spectacular variety of avian and plant life on display; and if you're lucky, you might even disturb a bird-eating tarantula. Last Frontiers has an eight-night trip to Manaus from £1,995 per person, including flights.

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