Brazil 2003

Sara treated me to a wonderful trip to Brazil for my 60^th birthday. 

She tried to keep the country a secret but there were too many preparations required to allow that.  We asked the nurse at my HMO not to tell me where we were going and she noted that the form instructed her not to tell.  But we also had to go to George Washington University Hospital for Yellow Fever shots and the form I had to complete had typed on it: “Do not tell him he is going to Brazil .” Since I learned the country, I got our visas.

Then Sara, concerned that the hotel staff at our first stop would not speak English and thought my Spanish would be better than her Portuguese, had me make a hotel reservation for our day of arrival, since we arrived early and left late in the day.  While on hold, I heard the recording say it was convenient to the São Paulo airport.  It turned out English was better than Spanish, so she could have made the reservation.

Other than São Paulo , Brazil , being our first stop, I knew only that we would be horse back riding and canoeing in the tropics.  Sara did ask at one point if I preferred to sleep with or without air conditioning – what she did not tell me about this question was that without air conditioning meant sleeping on a boat’s deck in a hammock for a week!  She chose air conditioning, which meant a proper room and bed – a very good decision!

When we checked in at Dulles Airport for the non-stop flight to São Paulo I was in for another surprise: Sara had booked Business Class tickets for most of the trip!  While we were enjoying the executive lounge, she told me our itinerary and gave me an excellent bird book.  We were to spend a week in the central Amazon area on a boat, a weekend in Brasilia with friends of hers, and a week in the Pantanal and Chapada in western Brazil .

So, we spent the night in comfort flying to São Paulo , which straddles the Tropic of Capricorn, enjoyed the day at the hotel near the airport where I saw 20 birds and a Capybara (the world’s largest rodent) at a pond and a sewage treatment plant, and continued to Manaus late in the day. 

Amazon: Manaus is on the Rio Negro a few miles upstream from where it meets the Amazon (known only in Brazil as the Solimoës until the Rio Negro joins it).  It is a little over three degrees, about 220 miles, south of the Equator – hot and steamy! The city is not very attractive but we spent little time in it.  We were met at the airport by Mark Aitchison, whose parents live on Cape Cod , and were taken to our hotel.  The next morning he introduced us to another U.S. couple and our guide. Our guide took the four of us through the market, whose buildings were modeled after Les Halles in Paris , and to the boat.  Mark’s company, with whom Sara reserved our boat trip, is called Swallows and Amazons (www.swallowsandamazonstours.com, e-mail swallows@internext.com.br), after the name of a series of children’s books he read and enjoyed, one of which was on the boat.  I read and enjoyed it.

Accommodations on the boat were basic: our double bed took up all of the room except for about two feet at its foot, lukewarm showers (not heated, lukewarm due to the river water temperature) in the ceilings of the men’s and women’s small bathrooms, and AC electricity (and air conditioning) only during the evening when the very noisy generator was running (DC current lights and fans otherwise), but, with only two or three couples aboard, the boat was comfortable enough.  If all twelve guest beds had been occupied, it could have been rather crowded.  The 3 person crew and guide slept in hammocks on deck.

The other U.S. couple, Bob and Theresa, arrived in an interesting manner.  While we had to fly four hours beyond our destination and back (Sara could find no flights directly between the US and Manaus), they flew non-stop from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Manaus – he is a pilot for the parent company of Amway and flew one of the owning families to a city east of Manaus to join a cruise ship.  Bob and Theresa then had three days to spend as they wished before returning the family to Michigan .

We first traveled downstream to take a short walk into the jungle to see Victoria water lilies, which have pads a yard across, where we saw several more birds.  Then we picked up a young Spanish couple who were to be with us for the full week and proceeded to the ‘Meeting of the Waters,’ where the Rio Negro joins the Amazon.  The Rio Negro is dark tea colored, the Amazon is light tan and for several miles after they meet the color difference is very evident.  Very dramatic!

Language onboard was interesting: the boat crew spoke only Portuguese, the guide spoke Portuguese and English, Bob and Theresa did not speak Portuguese or Spanish, the Spanish woman (Pili) spoke almost only Spanish.  The Spanish man (Josera) spent a year in Manaus several years ago and so had a command of Portuguese. I was able to communicate well enough with the boat crew and with the Spanish couple using Spanish. Sara had been studying Portuguese and understands some Spanish. Sometimes the same thing was said in English for our benefit, Portuguese for the Josera’s understanding, and Spanish by Josera or me for Pili’s benefit.

From the Amazon we proceeded up the Rio Negro for several hours, docking after dark at Mark’s wife’s parents’ house.  Much of the operation and most of the stops were family affairs.  Her brother is the boat’s captain, his wife the cook.  We stopped at the cook’s parents’ and the guide’s wife’s parents’ houses other nights.  During the week, we went about 150 kilometers north of Manaus .

We took a four hour hike into the jungle one day and camped overnight in hammocks in the jungle one night. Dinner in the jungle was chicken cooked using a roaring fire and served with rice on palm leaves. Our guides called it a night immediately after dinner, about 7 p.m. and they did not stir until after sunrise shortly before 7 a.m.   We, on the other hand, tossed and turned in the hammocks all night, but did manage to get enough sleep.

Our guide was continually stopping at trees to get the sap flowing and then asking us to touch or taste it and told us the tree’s uses, medicinal and otherwise. We also drank water from a vine.  Lots of jungle plants have serious thorns, but our guide did not warn us of any that are poisonous to the touch as is poison ivy.

A few times we went out in a small boat.  Once we fished for Piranha, going after three different species.  I fed far more than I even teased out of the water and I caught none.  I turned to bird watching instead.  Sara caught a few of the smallest species. While we were out, the sun set and hundreds of bats came flying down the river right at us.  It was fascinating to see them aiming right at our heads and veering right, left, or up at the last second as their sonar detected us.  The bats did far better at avoiding us than did the insect hunting nightjars, but nothing actually hit us.  We hunted Caiman (crocodiles) by flashlight and the guide caught and brought into the boat a couple of two foot long Caimans.

Another time we went up a tributary and swam beyond the Piranha range and once we tried to reach a waterfall, but the water level had fallen too much for us to get there by boat, so we played in the stream instead.  It was the beginning of the rainy season so we had ‘man’ (short and strong) rain most days and ‘woman’ (long and gentle) rain once or twice. Returning to the boat a couple times, ‘man’ thunderstorms challenged our return (in an aluminum boat!), but we made it back safely.

I would recommend that river trip to anyone looking for a bit of adventure.  Our trip here and in the Pantanal were classified as ‘soft ecotourism;’ ecotourism with a degree of comfort.

Brasilia : We flew to Brasilia on my birthday (and I lost two hours of it due to time zone changes!#!) and enjoyed the luxury of Maria and Gustavo’s lovely house on the outskirts of the capitol city. While driving from the airport to their house, I had the impression that we were continually making U turns – and we were!  The original city was laid out without the need for stop signs or traffic lights.  All intersections are either traffic circles or one has to reverse directions to make a left turn.  Most of today’s traffic lights are at pedestrian crosswalks.  The city was designed with shopping/eating centers surrounded by residential areas with the idea that the people living in that area would shop and eat within walking distance, so there is, even today, little parking.  The city now is four times the design size, everyone has to drive to do anything, and people do not confine themselves to their neighborhood for shopping and eating. 

Our friends gave us a nighttime tour of the federal government area.  I thought the various ministry (like our federal departments) buildings were ugly by night but they don’t look nearly as bad by day.  Only foreign affairs and justice are in differently designed buildings.  Interestingly, the Treasury Ministry building is between Defense and the army, navy, and air force buildings – I wonder if someone is trying to tell someone something!

Mango trees are planted along the medians of most roads, with the idea that anyone could help themselves to the fruit.

We had coffee with a friend of Sara’s from the U.S. Embassy and lunch with two of Maria and Gustavo’s three sons and their girlfriends, followed by a boat ride on the lake that meanders across the city.

Pantanal: We flew from Brasilia to Cuiabá, in the geographic center of South America .  We were met at the airport and taken to the Araras Lodge (www.araraslodge.com.br), 32 kilometers down the Transpantanal highway and surrounded by the Pantanal.  The Pantanal is the largest contiguous wetland in the world, an area the size of France that floods about a yard deep during the wet season, primarily from runoff from the Andes to the northwest.  It is near the Bolivian border and drains to the south to Paraguay and Argentina .  We were there during the dry season, but we saw pictures of people horseback riding in water up to the horses’ bellies (and over the riders’ feet!).  We spent one morning riding, other times tramping through the open and wooded area, one afternoon canoeing on a very still river, and generally enjoying seeing wildlife that we could only hear in the Amazon plus species such as the beautiful Hyacinth Macaw (over four feet long from beak to the tip of the tail with yellow at the base beak and eye, royal blue otherwise – I’ll have a picture on the web when I upload photos). 

Our guide, João, was born in São Paulo of German parents and so spoke Portuguese, German, and English equally comfortably as well as being very well versed in the flora and fauna.  He worked on the Trans-Amazon highway years ago, which he said today exists only in isolated sections.  Other than the fact that the Frommer’s guidebook said every party would have its own guide (instead, we were grouped by language and thus had from three to twelve people in our group), I think the lodge is worth recommending.  We had a private bath (complete with frog and spider at different times), Red Capped Cardinals right outside our door, and wildlife all around.  One morning we saw a Lesser Anteater in the backyard, a Capybara outside the dining room and a Tarantula in the dining room in the evening, Caiman (crocodiles) in the ponds on both sides of the lodge, and wonderful birding from a shaded seat. 

Each day started with a 5:30 a.m. breakfast, a tour at 7:00 , lunch, rest, and a snack from about 11:00 until 3:30 , another tour in the afternoon, and sometimes an evening tour.  There are two viewing towers, the taller one inhabited by Howler Monkeys, that were wonderful places at all hours, but especially interesting at dawn.  One afternoon I was at the tall tower by myself and a Howler Monkey family (father, mother, two young children, and a nursing baby) joined me just a few feet away.  Another time Sara and I were watching three Hyacinth Macaws in a tree when I noticed a Rufescent Heron nearby.  We moved to watch the heron and a Jabiru (a five foot tall stork) walked up to join the heron just a few yards away from us. We enjoyed seeing and hearing dawn (noisy!) arrive from the small tower. I thoroughly enjoyed the place.

Also with us at the lodge were 12 Swedes on tour who were followed by 19 Poles. The Swedes were very organized and stayed at two tables in the dining room, the Poles (who were booked by an Argentine travel agency so the lodge thought they were getting Spanish speakers and thus arranged for a Spanish speaking guide) were much less inhibited.  Among the other English speaking guests were Tom and Nancy, birders from Colorado who have been traveling around South America for five months with another month to go, Ian, a meteorologist from Australia who had been participating in a weather seminar in Brasilia, John, an immigration lawyer from Los Angeles, and two families of three each from New York City.  Among the three bird books Tom and I had we found most of the Pantanal birds, but there is no single bird book for that region.  The lodge did have a four page list of bird and animal sightings, but I found one bird species the second day that was not on their list (it was in my book).

Chapada:  After finishing our time in the Pantanal with an afternoon birding walk including just John and ourselves during which we had a good view of a Rhea, South America’s flightless bird, we were driven to the Chapada, an area of raised flatlands about 1000 feet above the level of the Pantanal.

We stayed in the small town of Chapada dos Guimares in a lovely B&B called the Solar do Ingles (www.chapadadosguimaraes.com.br/solardoingles, e-mail solardoingles@vsp.com.br) because the husband is from England, who hunted big game in Angola and Brazil before turning to hunting with a camera.  This was a luxurious place in which to end our stay in Brazil .  The owners have seen more than 50 species of birds in their backyard and have planted a wonderful variety of tropical plants in the yard.  We enjoyed a lovely tea and a delicious breakfast on nice china.

We spent one afternoon hiking among fantastic rock formations at the edge of the raised mesa and a morning hiking in the wetland below the mesa.  Birding was again quite good and easy.  Our final afternoon we had the guide, Noam (naomcerrado@hotmail.com), to ourselves and we spent it walking through what he called a forest on top of the mesa – more like a North American forest than the jungle we had been in, but with many of the same jungle plants and their thorns.  After two weeks of no mishaps, Sara managed to get a thorn in her leg and I attracted a couple of tics during our last two days – with no adverse affects yet.

We flew home via Brasilia and Peter, a fellow Sara had known in language school 20 years earlier, took us for a few hours of intensive birding during our layover between flights.  He showed me 20 species faster than I could look them up, most of them new to me and to this trip.  He has a birding life list in excess of 7,000 species, with only 1,900 left to see to have seen every bird species in the world.  That is far greater than anyone else’s life list, in my experience.  I saw 150 bird species in Brazil , almost all of which were new to me, making my own life list about 900 birds long.  I have a ways to go!

Curiously, some parts of Brazil (even different buildings) have 220 volt electricity, others 110 volts; some states or cities observe Daylight Savings Time, others nearby do not.  I don’t understand why any make the change, since daylight varies by only an hour or two over the year in the tropics.

Astronomy: Two one-time events occurred while we were in Brazil .  A total eclipse of the moon occurred while we were flying to Manaus .  We were sitting on the wrong side of the plane to see it, so a few minutes before totality I asked the stewardess if I could look out the door window by the galley.  She invited me instead into the 737 cockpit where I had a great view of the moon out a starboard window. As I left, she asked if Sara would like to see it, too, so Sara also saw it from the cockpit.  Not a thing one can do in the US these days! (There was absolutely no security when we flew out of Cuiabá, but everyone has to reclear security at Brasilia .)

The second event was the Leonid Meteor Shower on November 19.  Unfortunately, we had cloudy skies nearly every day and night and the early morning of November 19 was one of the many cloudy nights.

We had excellent view of the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds one night in the Pantanal.  Orion was lying on his side (he stands on his head further south).

We returned home in comfort (Business class from Sao Paulo to Washington ) but found that our house had suffered an electrical surge that tripped one circuit breaker, burned out a few surge protectors, fried our printer, blew a fuse, and destroyed several transformers.  We filed a claim with our electric company for compensation!

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