Brazil Part I, 1989 (w/Manaus, Belém, Fortaleza, Natal, Recife & Maceió)

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This is a continuation of my putting our old travel journals onto this blog site. See previous ones: (1) Guatemala 1988, which is the first in this series; (2) Costa Rica 1989 (w/Christmas in Cozumel, Mexico and last days in Guatemala); (3) Cuba & Mexico 1989; (4) Argentina (w/Uruguay, a bit of Brazil & Paraguay) 1989; (5) Chile & Bolivia (including Mendoza, Argentina & Tacna, Peru); (6) Peru, Ecuador & Galapagos Islands 1989; (7) Ecuador Part II & Bogotá, Colombia; and this will be the eighth.

Again, I am relying on the internet, photos I happened to have scanned and ones people have sent to me as I do not have access to my original photos. Thank you all who sent me photos - much appreciated! (This blog entry was prepared in Germany where we were living - July 2009 - Oct. 2010).

YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT, THEN GO BACK TO THE JOURNAL OR GO THROUGH THE PHOTOS (CLICK ON THE NUMBERS AT THE TOP) IN THAT ENLARGED FORMAT. TO RETURN TO THE JOURNAL, JUST CLICK YOUR BACK BUTTON OR ON THE NAME OF THE BLOG ON THE RIGHT OR BOTTOM OF PHOTO - DEPENDS ON YOUR COMPUTER.

NEAR THE TOP ON THE LEFT ABOVE OUR PHOTO, CLICK ON 'Kathy & Bernie Dougherty' AND YOU'LL GET A PAGE LISTING (BACKWARDS CHRONOLOGICALLY) OUR BLOGS, WHICH YOU CAN SCROLL THROUGH AND CHOOSE ONES YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN. IF YOU CLICK ON 'Previous Entry' TOP LEFT, OR 'Next Entry' TOP RIGHT, YOU'LL GET ONLY ONE ENTRY. WHEN OFF THIS SITE, YOU CAN GO TO: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Kathy---Bernie/ WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO THE PAGE LISTING ALL OF OUR BLOGS.









Recap: From the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific to the west of Ecuador (they belong to Ecuador) we flew back to Quito, then by bus to Baños and Cuenca, and back to Quito. By plane to Bogotá, Colombia and then on to Manaus, Brazil on the Amazon.

Brazil, 1989

July 14 - 18, Manaus, Brazil. It was 85˚ F./30˚ C. with 99.9%!h(MISSING)umidity at 2:30 a.m. when we landed in Manaus, and I knew immediately I was in big trouble. This may come as a surprise to a few of you (very few), but I don't 'do' humid heat well. I have decided my friend Don Edwards is right in holding that wine country is God's country. First, it has to be warm during the day and cool at night. Second point and the salient one here - my favorite beverage is made there. Ergo, perfect.

Manaus is NOT God's country.

We managed to exchange money and find a taxi without too much trouble. Lacking any ability to speak Portuguese, we felt out of our element. Brazil is a very self-contained, inward looking country, much like the United States, and few people speak anything other than Portuguese. Most don't speak Spanish either, even though they are bordered on three sides by Spanish-speaking countries.

Our taxi driver didn't know the first hotel we wanted, but did know the alternative hotel we'd selected. So off we sped at 90 mph/145 kph on a dark highway with no headlights on. Few people use headlights here, only parking lights, and not always those. Many drive like irresponsible teenage boys - aggressive and reckless.







We were very tired and looking forward to a nice hotel and sleep, but to our disappointment, the hotel didn't seem to exist, at least not any more. The taxi driver was very nice and drove us to several other comparably priced hotels. We found one that looked clean and nice and since it was nearly 4 a.m., we decided to take it. The lobby was much nicer than the rooms. Suffice it to say that it was the kind of room you don't go barefoot in; you turn on the bathroom light and wait awhile before going in. The only light in the room had a 10 watt bulb. Having said that, the bed was comfortable, the sheets clean, the air-con kept the room cool and the humidity at bay - we slept like babies.

The following morning we scouted and found a nicer hotel, so moved there even before breakfast. This new, nice hotel was managed by Valerio & Lizette. Valerio spoke some English and Lizette some Spanish, so we could converse pretty well. They also ran Amazon River trips that we were interested in.











This particular Sunday was a big day for Brazil as their soccer/football team was playing Uruguay in a championship game. The winner would go on to compete against the European champion. The excitement was tangible.


Valerio & Lizette had invited us to their home to watch the final game and then for dinner and dancing. Prior to that we went with Alberto, Valerio's friend and our guide for the Amazon trip, to the zoo and a public beach.

The zoo was run, not very well, by the army. It had your standard jungle animals and birds. The animal enclosures were cramped and the whole place stank something awful. There were some areas I could not take even for a few seconds. Bernard kept saying "Sure is ripe, yep, sure is ripe." An understatement.












The public beach was interesting. It was a river beach with retaining walls and some carted-in sand, but mostly just rocks, and was about 20 feet/6 meters wide. The area along the beach was lined with cafes and food vendors. The river as it runs through Manaus is amazingly filthy. Even at the beach people were swimming in water full of garbage and with gas and oil slicks floating on top.











After the beach we hopped a bus to Valerio's home. They were not there yet, but we had a key. The final part of the soccer/football game was on so we watched Brazil win the championship. The people of Manaus went nuts. Neighbors all ran out and embraced, fireworks exploded. I'm sure the same scene was taking place all over Brazil. At that point, Brazil had not won that championship in many years.

Valerio and Lizette came in shortly after the game ended having had to work late. We headed out to a local restaurant where we had a great fish dinner.

Dinner conversation focused on the treatment of the indigenous tribes around Manaus in the areas where oil had been discovered. Lizette is from such a tribe. She was very passionate in describing the mistreatment and discrimination she and her family experienced even to that day. We learned a lot from that dinner.

The plan was to go dancing, and Bernie was up for it, but I was tired, hot and we had to get up early for our jungle trip. I still cannot believe that Bernie wanted to go dancing and I said no.

The Amazon River. Our two guides, Alberto & Cleo, collected us at our hotel at 6 a.m. We walked a few blocks to the local river dock. I think I was horrified and in a state of shock because I didn't get any photos of that place. The stench and filth were overwhelming. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of local river boats that ply the Amazon and her tributaries docked at that pier. They all used the port as a garbage dump. Actually, that is what it looked like, a landfill with boats in it. I am not exaggerating when I say that in not too long, new land will be created because the garbage is that dense. In most places we couldn't see water at all. In the garbage people had set up stands for selling fish - they would reach down, move the garbage aside and clean (?) the fish in this polluted water.











Through this maze of garbage, boats and people we located our boat and boarded crossing an intricate system of planks, logs and climbing through other boats.







Our boat was big - 50 ft./15 mt. long and as tall as a single-story house. Goods and gear were stacked in the middle (away from the open sides), and there were benches all around the sides. The locals had brought hammocks and hung them the width of the boat. They were by far the most comfortable as the engine vibrated so much we could see the whole boat shaking. My ears started tickling immediately and pretty soon my whole face was tingling. Out of desperation I made myself a home among the gear, notably three huge sacks of wheat. This enabled me to read, which had been an impossibility on the vibrating bench. I could also keep my eyes on the scenery as I was now facing out of the boat. My luck was good in that the man whose wheat I was sitting on did not get off the boat until one of the last stops. We stopped about ten times unloading people and so got wonderful views of the local communities (mostly three to five houses, but some were just single dwellings).

For six hours we went upstream on the Solimoes River, which mets the Rio Negro in Manaus to form the Amazon. These rivers are immense, carry incredible amounts of water and are so wide they look like lakes instead of rivers. Not hard to understand how the Amazon can carry one-third of the world's fresh water.

Going up-river the boats have to hug the shore and stay out of the strong middle current. This is great for sightseers. We saw all kinds of birds and got close-up views of everything along the river. The rivers were very high and many houses were flooded. The smart money had been put into floats or balsa-wood logs. These floating houses were occupied and seemed to be functioning normally. They all had dug-out canoes tied to them. Out there the river was clean and the air fresh and cool.

We did not see any gardens or fields along the river, but were told that the people had fields and orchards farther into the jungle.











The first leg of our trip terminated at the end of the riverboat run at Lake Janauaca. We got off at a floating house that had a 'cottage industry' attached. In this cottage a family was busy refining farina. Farina is a national food. It looked like sawdust and tasted worse (to us, obviously the locals love it). It was fascinating to watch the complicated process of peeling the manioc tubers (look like long, dark brown potatoes), grating them, hand-squeezing the oils from the pulp, pressing the pulp, shifting it, and then drying it in the world's biggest wok. That sucker was eight feet/2.5 meters across and the young man cooking was constantly moving the mixture around with a six-foot/two-meter long paddle. There were six people in the building (five women in addition to the young man) and two men who brought the tubers from the fields by boat. It was back-breaking work, but they talked and laughed while they worked and looked very healthy. Their home was very nice - clean, airy, battery operated TV.

After about an hour a boat (dug-out canoe with motor) came to fetch us and take us another hour across the lake to our destination - Valerio's country house.

Valerio's house was simplicity itself, but nicely done and had a wonderful setting on the lake. The house was basically a raised platform, half open with only railings around it, and half had plank walls. There was an inside wall separating the bedroom from the kitchen - the only rooms. The bedroom had a double bed and a hammock. The kitchen had a stove, plank table and benches. There was one wooden chest that held blankets and cooking utensils.

Unfortunately our stay was not long enough as we were there only over night. We had a wonderful dinner prepared by the wife of the boatman, Manuel, who had taken us across the lake. Their home was a minute away by boat. Mrs. Manuel cooked us a local fish - looked suspiciously like piranha - but was delicious.

Before dinner Albert & Bernie took a canoe to the middle of the lake and had a swim. This is the same lake we went out on later that night in search of crocodiles. We took a canoe and flashlight for spotting the crocs. They stay along the shoreline at night, so we paddled close-in. We did not find any adult crocs, only a few little guys. Manuel speared a small one and immobilized it in the boat so we could get a good look at it. He unhinged its jaw so we could see the teeth and small tongue. He then released the croc who swam away apparently unharmed. Manuel must have speared him in a reasonably harmless place. We did not know he was going to spear the croc or we would have asked him not to. Usually you can stun a croc with the light and get a good look at him, and that's what we had expected.

I have to comment on the lack of bugs. Being elevated even a few feet from the jungle floor helps tremendously in staying out of reach of many insects. We slept pretty much in the open and yet were not bothered by mosquitoes or any other insects. There are, of course, ants and many other crawling bugs on the jungle floor, but they stayed there. Now I understand why Tarzan lived in a tree house.

The Trip Home. Possibly one of the hottest days we had experienced was the day we went back to Manaus. We canoed across the lake (one hour), walked through dense jungle (15 minutes), and then onto a dirt track (45 minutes) through the jungle where much had been slashed and burned. In fact we saw a man clearing land with a chainsaw. Cleo said it was for agricultural purposes; the man was destroying rain forest so he could plant on the land for a maximum of two years. From what little we saw (there and on the bus ride into Manaus) the world's fear of Brazil destroying its rain forest was justified. The soil is obviously poor - mostly pure clay. In the burned-out areas the ground is reddish and the roads and paths are clay.

One part of the path on our trek was flooded, so we donned bathing suits and waded through hip deep water holding our packs over our heads. Wet clay is very slippery, so the going was slow. Bernard managed to find a hole the rest of us missed and went totally under. I heard a yelp and looked back to see arms coming out of the water holding up a pack. As I said, it was slippery so by the time I got turned around and headed back toward Bernie, he had found his footing and slowly his body reappeared. I had to bite my lip so as not to laugh. A little farther along Alberto, Cleo & I slipped into a hole of chest deep water while Bernie daftly stepped over it. Bernard's turn to chuckle.

The water cooled us down, but we were still pretty sweaty by the time we reached the main road and our bus stop. We had a two hour wait for a bus back to Manaus. Not a pleasant two hours I might add as we just sat and sweated.

The local bus that finally came was actually quite nice - high upholstered seats and lots of leg room. It was so hot that even with all the windows open and the air moving through, we continued to sweat. It took three hours and two ferry crossings to reach Manaus.

In Manaus we caught a local bus to the city center (another 1/2 hour) and our hotel. I was soaking wet, tired, thirsty and starving. It was 14:30 and all we'd had for breakfast was fruit. We had shared a bottle of water in the jungle and had a soda and some bread at one of the ferry crossings; we had sweated out much more liquid than we'd had taken in. Not surprisingly, we had not urinated all day.

Our plane to Belém (near the coast) was at 20:00, so we only had time to shower and repack. They like passengers to check-in at the airpot two hours ahead of time even for local flights. The airport had a good restaurant fortunately, so we had a big dinner and LOTS of water.

July 18 - 20, Belém (85˚ - 90˚ F./30˚ - 32˚ C. & Sunny). Belém is 100 miles/161 kilometers upstream from the coast in the mouth of the Amazon River. One of our fondest memories of Belém was our wonderful hotel - huge room and lovely pool. Amazing how a cool dip in a pool can revive a person physically and mentally.

*Meeting Camila. By far our best memory and experience in Belém was getting picked up by seven kids at a museum. I think I must have an approachable face and/or demeanor. A boy about fourteen approached me in the museum and asked in halting English if we were North Americans. His English was slow, but we managed a short conversation. He then asked me if I would like to meet his friends and family. Sure enough, behind a nearby partition were six giggling kids (ages eleven to seventeen), two of whom spoke good English. The other kids studied English and could understand most of what was being said, but were too shy to speak. The three English speakers were full of questions and enthusiasm. We soon caught up with Bernie, so now they had two of us to talk to. It was funny. At first they would speak one at a time with the listeners helping provide a word or verb tense. After about ten minutes they were all jabbering at once and vying for our attention.

As we walked through the museum they explained many things to us. The museum had a good display (pictures mostly) of the devastation going on in the rain forest. The children told us how Brazil had a responsibility to protect the rain forest. There were photos of indigenous people and depicting how civilization had impacted their lives. One photo showed a child of about three, naked except for intricate body paint and holding a Fanta pop can. When I laughed, one of the girls said to me, "I know it is funny, but it is tragic also." Sounds to me as if Brazil is doing a good job of educating the young about the problems of the rain forest.

We spent the morning at the museum/zoo with the kids. We left them at noon to run errands, but not before exchanging addresses. It will be interesting to see if they write. I will drop them a postcard now and again to try to get a correspondence going. They double-cheek kissed us goodbye (I got dizzy) and we went our separate ways.

*NOTE: Some of you will recognize the above as the story of our meeting Camila de Castro, who came to Alaska and lived with us for two years. So, yes, the correspondence did continue and our lives made so much richer from a chance encounter in a museum! Also significant and interesting is that Camila works (actually is No. 2) in a NGO in Brasilia that works with sustainable businesses in the rain forest (among many other things), but I love that a childhood passion became an adults vocation - one that is working to improve our world. We are very, very proud of our Camie.

Belém airport for 25 hours. Not realizing how difficult it would be to get seats on a plane, we headed to the airport at 17:15 to put our names on the stand-by list for a 18:30 flight to Fortaleza. The travel agent at the hotel had told us that the flights were booked solid until July 23. Since we couldn't get a reservation we hoped to luck-out and buy a ticket at the airport. There was also an 23:30 flight, so we figured if we didn't make the 18:30, for sure we'd make the 23:30. Wrong. Coupled with not knowing Portuguese was our lack of knowledge about how the stand-by system worked. We most definitely were not treated fairly. The stand-by list is just a joke - the person who yelled the loudest or had connections got on first. Not that different from any place else in the world I guess.

To make a long, boring story short, we did not get the 18:30 nor the 23:30, nor any of the other three flights on different airlines that day. Fortunately for us we met a girl from Oklahoma who had been to the bus station and found out that all the buses to Fortaleza were booked solid for three days also. We had thought we would try a bus after not making the 23:30 plane.

We finally got confirmed tickets on the 6:30 NEXT morning flight, so spent the entire night at the airport. We met a young man from Britain (doctorate student in physics) who was having the same problem the girl from Oklahoma and we were, so we became a foursome and had quite an interesting time. The time went by quickly mostly because there was good conversation interspersed with times of high tension when we were trying to get information or on a plane.


Fortaleza, Natal, Recife and Maceió. For you map people, from Belém we hopped down the coast stopping at each of these beach towns/cities for a few days. Since most of these places differed little from each other, we won't bore you with descriptions of the white sand beaches, azure waters sparking in the every-present sun, and firm brown bodies in string swimsuits. Instead here are some comments and observations.

Racial Mixture. One of the first things we noticed in Brazil was the incredible racial mixture of the people - Caucasian, Negro, indigenous. It appears to be a most compatible mixture, not to mention beautiful. The mixing must have begun immediately after the Portuguese conquerors settled and started bringing in African slaves. It was not customary at the beginning for the Portuguese to bring their wives or families to the New World, unlike in North America. Because of this and other reasons, the Portuguese, indigenous peoples and Negroes mixed easily. This begot a wonderfully colorful Brazil.

From what we can gather via observations (not speaking Portuguese has limited us incredibly) there doesn't seem to be much racial discrimination based on skin color. There is evidently class discrimination and that affects the rural indigenous most. In the cities and on the beaches we saw every shade of skin imaginable and all interacting easily. Few people were identifiably white, indigenous or black because most were some combination of the two or even three. All very refreshing.

Recreation. Brazilians are into beaches and bodies. Recreational Brazil revolves around the beaches and from the look of some of the bodies, the gym too. There are exercise places all along the boardwalks (sit-up benches, exercise bars), and there is a constant stream of people running or walking on the beach and boardwalks. There were innumerable soccer/football games always in progress. Every half mile or so there is a beer stand; incredible numbers of vendors selling their wares (from sun tan lotion to jewelry).

To show off these wonderful bodies both men and women wear the world's smallest swimsuits. I am not exaggerating when I say the women's bikinis cover only anus, pubic area and nipples. Unfortunately a lot of women with not so great shapes also wear these tiny suits.* The men's suits are minimal too; unfortunately the beer gut is also prevalent.

*I actually envied these overweight, out-of-shape women for being so at ease with their bodies that they didn't think twice about 'baring' it all.

Clothes. This preoccupation with bodies is not only seen on the beaches. The style of everyday clothing for women is predominately short, very tight and sparse - halter tops as skimpy as possibly, miniskirts as short and tight as possible, jeans as tight as possible, extremely low-cut blouses, shorts so short almost whole cheeks were exposed. All this is a country that must rival the US for most overweight people. Don't get me wrong, most of the bodies were great, if they were young. Fifty percent of the population of Brazil is under 25 years old. The problem came with age. The Brazilian seem to like voluptuous women. The American preference for tall, thin women doesn't play well down here. So the already well-rounded young woman soon becomes a little too well-rounded when the blush of youth has faded. The men, meanwhile, have continued to consume mass quantities of beer, so their already protruding middle soon overlaps their belts and their pants are worn a little lower every year.

Language. As it stands now, I would *not recommend vacationing in Brazil for non-Portuguese or less than fluent Spanish speakers. It is just too darn hard to communicate. We've reached levels of frustration in Brazil unknown to us thus far. We'd been told that Spanish would be useful, and I guess it was to a limited extent. The written Portuguese is decipherable, but the spoken is very hard to understand; very few Brazilians speak Spanish.

*Remember how many years ago this was written; English is spoken more widely now and everything about Brazil has improved with their improved economy.

Our approach was to just speak Spanish and hope enough words would be similar to Portuguese to get the idea across. It often worked; it frequently failed. One of the funniest failures was at a restaurant. Bernie asked the waiter in Spanish how a certain dish was prepared. The waiter seemed to understand and gave us a long, involved answer of which we understood not a single word. I burst out laughing. When the meal was served, only I received a dish. We surmissed that because of my outburst, the waiter thought Bernie didn't want the described dish. I shared my meal and we had plenty of starters, so really had plenty to eat.

Another time we ordered what we thought was a ham, onion and tomato sauce pizza. What we got was a pizza with tomatoes, corn, carrots and what we think was tuna fish. Well, healthy anyway if not exactly what we wanted.

Food. The portions in Brazil are huge. Usually we can get one meal for both of us. All meals are served with rice and french fries and sometimes mashed potatoes or pasta too.

Seafood is fresh and available at most restaurants and cafes. Unfortunately, they like to fry food. As mentioned above, french fries come with everything. I never want to see another french fry! Their salads are strange in that a mixed salad, for example, is a plate of cooked vegetables with a tiny bit of lettuce. If any salad dressing is used, it is simply oil and vinegar. I was soooo craving a crisp green salad with a nice Caesar dressing, for example. Having said that, we came to enjoy all the veggies and the different ways they were prepared and served.

The soups are wonderful. There is a Brazilian soup made with tons of vegetables, spices, seafood, chick and rice. It is a meal in itself.

Breakfasts were outrageous and best of all, included in the price of a hotel room. It was usually buffet style with fresh fruits of all kinds - melons, citrus, papaya - breads, cakes, cheeses, ham and other cold-cuts, juices and a concoction they call vitamina, which is fruit blended with milk (e.g., banana and milk; pineapple and milk). They were wonderful. Eggs cooked anyway you want were also on offer. We often had a late breakfast feast and then only one other meal per day, usually in the late afternoon.

Thieves. We had traveled through South American unscathed by thieves for over a year. Then in Recife on the beach a boy tried to steal my daypack. It only had sun screen and a comb, but of course he didn't know that. He was very clever. He walked by us and caught the shoulder strap with his foot and kicked the pack in front of him. We did not even see him do it because he was so smooth. Ever-alert Bernie, however, recognized my pack when the boy bent to pick it up. Bernie yelled at the boy who then acted all innocent - oh, is this yours? What could we do? Nada.

The following day as we walked in the city center a man tried to take Bernie's watch right off of his wrist. Bernie managed to pull away, the thief failed and ran away. The thief looked healthy and had on nice clothes - go figure.

Poverty. I'm sure it is here, but since we didn't go into the falfellas, we didn't see much. Quite the contrary. We were usually the only non-Brazilians in the hotels, which were mid-range. These are not just business people either, in fact it was mostly families. The people everywhere are well dressed and looked healthy. The majority of cars were new or not so old and the traffic was considerable. Business seemed to be thriving with people buying everything from A to Z. Restaurants were crowded, bars hopping, discos jumping. These people are not all traveling by bus either as we discovered during our 25 hour stay at the airport in Belém.

Do our newspapers and magazines do a lousy job of keeping us aware of the world or what? From what we read before visiting, Brazil was on the verge of *economic collapse. As one of the world's largest debtor nations, I know things are not rosy. But the lifestyle here sure belies collapse. Particularly when compared to the Latin American countries (Peru for instance) where the poverty is so obvious. What is obvious here is that the unemployment rate must be very high; idle young men are everywhere.

*Of course now Brazil has one of the world's healthiest economies! Hooray for workable austerity measures, some good politicians with foresight, but mainly hard working people. The currency in 2011 is the Real: 1.00 USD = 1.62 BRL

Money. The inflation in Brazil in the last seven to eight years was amazing. They took six zeros off their currency and have had two new currencies. The problem is that they have all three currencies still in circulation: the cruzeiro, the cruzado and the new cruzado. Example: A 100,000 cruzeiro note is now worth .10; a 1,000,000 cruzeiro note is worth 1,000 cruzados or 1 new cruzado. Confused yet? We've been in many countries that had experienced hyper-inflation, but they stopped printing the old notes, so had only one currency. I cannot fathom why Brazil still prints cruzeiros - we've gotten crisp new cruzeiro notes.

Noise. As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, the noise level of Latin America is truly phenomenal. Hard to imagine that Brazil could be noisier, but I think it is. There seems to be an attitude of disregard for others, as if making noise is a person's right. For example, the man cleaning the pool at our hotel at 6:00 will turn his radio on full-blast, even though all the rooms have windows opening onto the pool area. Children are allowed to be as obnoxiously loud as they want, which includes playing ball in the hotel lounge and using our door as a backstop. And I thought North American children were *indulged - not compared to here!

*They are doing something right because these out-of-control children grow into well-behaved, non-rebelling teenagers and lovely adults.

NEXT INSTALLMENT WILL PICK UP IN SALVADOR DO BAHIA - ONE OF OUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE PLACES IN LATIN AMERICA.

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Photos

Camila de Castro 1997
[b]This is the journal that relates our meeting Camie, so I thought it should be a photo of her that literally 'puts a face' on our 1989 Brazilian adventure. This photo was taken after she'd returned to Brazil, having lived 2 years in Alaska with us (1990-92). In 1997 we and Marcela (Argentina) visited Camila in her home town of São Luis for Carnival - wow, good times, good times[/b]

Manaus Opera House
[b]This magnificent structure was still under construction when we visited.[/b]
Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/
13786369@N04/5304603727/
Renato Ribeiro

Manaus Harbor
[b]This is a recent photo of the harbor where we caught our barge up the Amazon. As you can see, it is VERY clean - wow, what an amazing transformation![/b]

Rio Negro & Solimoes (aka Amazon) Rivers
[b]Confluence of the Amazon/Solimoes River and the Rio Negro. Guess which is the Rio Negro, 'black' river?[/b] Attribution: Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz Mariordo

Amazon Region
[b]The Amazon River is also know as the Solimoes, and has another name in Peru, etc. - indicated in purple. Rio Negro comes in from the north.[/b] Attribution: Digital Chart of the World

Giant Leaf Frog
[b]Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest threatens many species of tree frogs, which are very sensitive to environmental changes. [/b]
Attribution: Cburnett

Manioc/Cassava,
[b]Cassava (Manihot esculenta), also called yuca or manioc is the tuber from which Farina (and tapioca) is made.[/b] Attribution: David Manniaux

Indigenous People
[b]Many groups of indigenous people still live along the Amazon - some adopting western ways, others not so much.[/b] Attribution: http//:www.agenciabrasil.gov.br/
media/imagens/2007/09/20/
1750JC0015.jpg

Route Map
[b]Click on this map to enlarge.[/b]
This journal is an account of only a portion of our time in Brazil: We flew from Manaus to Belém, then Fortaleza, Natal, Recife and Maceió, and then Salvador do Bahia (covered in next blog)

Ver-o-Peso Market, Belém
[b]An amazing market - lovely setting. [/b] Attribute: Flickr by Mauricio Mercer at http://flickr.com/photos/99747838@N00/595278767

Camila de Castro & Family
[b]We visited Camie (second from left) in her home town of São Luis in 1997 and met her parents for the first time. Her brother and sister (also in photo) were part of the gaggle of kids we'd met in 1989 in Belém.[/b]

Natal City Hall
[b]Natal was colorful - many of the buildings were pastel colors. [/b]
Attribution: Patrick-br, pt:Usuário:Patrick

Recife
[b]As I said, one beautiful beach town after another.[/b]

Fernando de Noronha
[b]Can't get much more beautiful than this![/b]
Dois Irmãos - Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. Attribution: Roberto Garrido from Salvador, Brasil