North by Northeast

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A quick update of the following months from which I seemingly vanished:

I leave Pernambuco and head North into Paraíba, traveling through
small dusty towns of the deep interior and into the state of Ceará.
Greeted as a curiousity, as always I recieve loads of stories about
whatever person from another country once passed through. I never once
meet another foreigner or tourist. I make a beeline to Fortaleza and
pass a week scoping out the city before recieving my parents. We pass
a week along the coast, experiencing the coastal strip of tall dunes
and one church towns and a bout of violent food poisioning and two
flat tires. My parents depart, I remain in Brazil, without itinerary.
I wander to São Luis, then depart without looking back to a quieter
place across the bay, the crumbling ruins of Alcântara.

...


It would be an excercise in futility to attempt and describe the
summation of events of the lapse in writing. On torn pages of map
there´s a clear route; a black pen that traces the highways and roads,
through the capitals and the small towns, dated with departures and
arrivals. One night I retrace my path in my head and try to place
every name of place and person that I have met.

For one month, the date hasn´t changed, and I´ve made no marks on
the map. I arrived in São Luis on new years day, without resolution. I
had spent the holidays with my parents; now I was sans destination.
For two weeks I drift the streets of the capital before arriving here,
Alcântara.

The municipal has 20,000 people - but covers a large area and the city
itself has only some 6,000 habitants. The city faces a large bay
across from the distant capital of São Luis whose hazy highrises seem
to float on the ocean breeze. The bay is a short distant to the ocean,
and the north winds constantly buffet the city with wind and respite
from the searing equatorial sun. The horizon is a murky sea with
behemoth barges inching across the plain. But before the sea lies the
mangue, mangrove swamps of mud that fill the coastal stretch.

I travel by canoe with Peó, a fisherman. The boat slides over the
still glass. The bank of the river is incremental. Vibrant mangroves
burst through the water which slowly turns to a think mud paste - a
brownish grey riveted with the dark holes of the 'carangueijos.' The
crabs cautiously inch by as we pass, or with fear, dart into their
homes that mark the thick, waist deep mud. One morning I return from
camping on the beach of Itatinga and watch as hundreds of small crabs
of faded red stomp and wave their claws in unison. They are named
'chama mare' (calling the sea), Geysa explains, and we speculate to
the anthropological nature of rituals of the crab. Mudskippers jump
along the water, their heads straining upward, poking out.

To fish is to survive and to survive is to fish. The ocean gives life
and even the poorest do not go hungry. Fish, shrimp, mussels, crabs -
and the seemingly millions of variations of each - are livelihood and
hobby. Various methods are used - lines, nets, nets with lines, nets
that are dragged, traps - all to ensure that something will be gained.
Their boats are canoes; the larger possess sails. Sometimes they pass
days at sea. I meet Antôntio, a fisherman and father of a friend of my
neighbor, Nicelly. They have a vulture for a pet, a young black
creature, it lurks around the yard with the chickens,
indistuguishiable from a distance but for it's enourmous beak. There
is a monkey, a young female of small size but with piercing eyes of
wild intelligence. She has learned how to break open cashews by using
stones and how to wash them to remove the oil.

Alcântara is a decaying memory of an important city. Once flooded with
wealth borne on slave labor, now a quiet city of forgotten importance.
Boats arrive with loads of tourists during the day; by night, they
vanish. At night I walk among the ghostly ruins, complete silence save
the crackling sound of the wind rustling palms. The homes of wealth
and prestige lie along the street of stone, now completely overgrown
with grasses, the houses no more then open foundations of stone of
high arched windows and tall pillars. The moon, a brilliant white
turns the clouds into shadowed phantasm skating through the sky.

The mosquitos are understandably terrible. Incessant, they arrive at
dusk in swarms, sometimes in such numbers that together they produce
an audible buzz. It's not even worth attempting to kill one, rather
one is forced to accept the inevitability. One night I awake from
sleeping on a hammock with more then 50 bites across my back.

After a rich time in the city I depart. I´ve accrued a map of the
interior, which is scattered with at least 100 small villages. And one
day I depart, say the heartfelt farewells which are a familiar sting
of traveling and take to the road. I have decided to cross the
municipal on foot, and load my pack with crackers and canned meat. In
total I spend some 8 or 9 days in what is really a 3 day trek. Every
place I arrive I am greeted with a hospitality and invited to stay
within local homes and given food and end up staying longer then I
plan. I only once get lost in the jungle, a harrowing affair that
seems timeless as I charge ahead relentlessly pursued by a swarm of
mosquitoes.

The villages across the municipal are examples of sustenance living -
many of the people I meet are poor, technically speaking. Essentially
they live outside of the market system and don´t gain or spend money.
They fish with nets strewn across the saltwater inlets and work on
plots of land planting corn, rice, mandioca (cassava). They raise
chickens and pork and ducks which have a tendency to run through the
house and have gardens filled with fruit in abundant numbers that they
are often left to rot. I have volumes I could speak about the journey
and the towns and hope that perhaps pictures can do the explaining
that I cannot.

I arrive on the opposite side and hitch a ride on a fishing boat and
travel overland to a seedy port town, Apicum-Açu. The town is new, 9
years old, and is a conglomerate of small interiors like those
previously visited. Only the place deals in commerce. Planked wooden
houses sit on stilts above swamp and the stretch is covered in dark
bars blasting reggae. Glaring shadowy figures and large eyed painted
women gaze out from around corners. It´s the type of place to become
an alcoholic, fall in love with a prostitute and die in a knife fight.
But I have a boat to catch.

We sail far out to see on a rickety boat and out along the coast,
throughout the night and well into the day, battered with waves into
Pará. I spend a few days touring the area before catching a ride on a
truck, sitting high on top of a load of shrimp destined for the
capital, clinging to the sides of the truck lest I go sailing over the
edge.

Hopefully photos can do more justice then my words. I hope you are all well.

photos here

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