By: Tricia Welsh

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At daybreak, thousands of parrots take to the skies over the murky waters of the Amazon near Belém, the capital of Pará state, in northern Brazil. Just as the ink washes out of the night sky and an eerie dawn tinges it yellow, the parrots leave their favourite roosting trees en masse, blotting out the sky as they go and squawking to find their mates. 

Belém is not on everyone’s wish list when visiting the Amazon region.  Most head straight for the jugular city of Manaus, 1400kms northwest on the junction of the Amazon and Rio Negro, but for those who do make the detour, the rewards can be surprising. The city’s beautiful buildings include the famous Opera House modeled on La Scala in Milan, the Basilica of Nazaré built after the style of St Peter’s in Rome, and the fresh fruit and produce market, Ver-O-Peso, with its decorative wrought-iron turret that was transported in sections from Britain and is now an icon of the city.

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