We are a Belgian family - me and my wife and 3 daughters aged 17,15, and 13 years old. One of the highlights of our trip was definitely the tour in the Amazon with Carlos the Jaguar.  Carlos  is one of the most reliable people you can count on. He was waiting for us at the airport as agreed and took us immediately to our boat and filled in all our wishes (we wanted some wine on the boat and beers and soft drinks, it was all there). Carlos has an amazingly nice crew on his boat, no nonsense.

Our  trip to Brazil was fantastic. We are a Belgian family - me and my wife and 3 daughters aged 17,15, and 13 years old. One of the highlights of our trip was definitely the tour in the Amazon with Carlos the Jaguar.  Carlos  is one of the most reliable people you can count on. He was waiting for us at the airport as agreed and took us immediately to our boat and filled in all our wishes (we wanted some wine on the boat and beers and soft drinks, it was all there). Carlos has an amazingly nice crew on his boat, no nonsense.

I knew Carlos in 1990, and decided to make a tour in the Amazon with him in the mid of the same year, starting from Manaus up the Rio Negro to the Anavilhanas, and then deep into the jungle. The trip was 9 days, and very special. He chartered a motorboat for me to cruise and sleep on it: Only he, me, the owner of the boat , and, part of the time, a native! The Rio Negro belonged only to us, and I was introduced in this spectacular habitat.

My family took a 10-day amazon cruise with Carlos and his crew, up the Rio Negro tributary of the Amazon. My wife, two grown children, fourteen year-old daughter and I, all enjoyed sleeping in hammocks swinging on the upper deck with cool breezes wafting across the river as we anchored in some region away from anything . Both younger and older kids enjoyed swimming with the pink dolphins. All of enjoyed fishing for piranha with hand lines. I enjoyed fishing for peacock bass. We all enjoyed eating food cooked by our chef. We particularly enjoyed excursions to remote creeks and canoe trips.

We were in Manaus for a tour in the Amazon with Carlos at the end of May 2012. He was very helpful with all of our planning questions, and the trip was wonderful. We visited the Amazon for a day and then went up Rio Negro for the next 7 days. We didn't see one other tourist until the last day. We had many canoe journeys through the flooded jungle, visited an isolated region along the river, Carlos and a jungle man  took us on a fascinating jungle walk. We visited an indigenous village, enjoyed magnificent sunsets, watched a crew member get açai fruit, and had excellent food.

Our 5-day adventure in the Amazon jungle with Carlos was the experience of a lifetime. We paddled through the flooded jungle in a hand-built canoe looking for sloths, toucans and monkeys, fished for piranhas, learned about indigenous medicinal plants and swam with pink dolphins. The food was delicious and nothing can beat waking up in the morning in a hammock hearing howler monkeys in the nearby jungle. Carlos is a wealth of knowledge about the flora and fauna of the Rio Negro region.