Brazilian Tourist Blog – Part 5, Belterra and the Amazon Rainforest

The Zero Impact Brazil sawmill

Tiled floor under the kitchen sink

Our delightful tour guide Karim had an ambitious agenda laid out for getting to know the region and the Amazon rainforest.  We left our hotel a little after 8 am and drove to the Zero Impact Brazil (ZIB) sawmill on the outskirts of Santarém.  There we met Rick, the owner of ZIB, BigTreeAdventures, the mill and the forest we would visit.  


Karim introduced us to everyone – the fellows who ran the mill and – most importantly – the man who cooked us an incredible breakfast of locally grown food and sawmill-raised eggs.  I think the pineapple we ate that morning was the sweetest one I have ever tasted – and that is saying something.  Breakfast was complete with tapioca crepes, fresh cheese, scrambled egg, fresh fruit juice, fresh rolls, sweet bananas, grapes and locally made jams.  Everything was delicious.  Later, our cook-for-the-day prepared an equally delicious jungle lunch – pink beans, rice, meat from a sustainable local farm and salad.  We did not go hungry.  After breakfast Karim gave us a tour of the sawmill – it is an impressive operation and reflects a great deal of thought on the part of its owner, Rick.

A beautiful piece of hardwood at ZIB

In terms of age, background and physique, Rick is a complete contrast to Karim but that does not matter.  The two men share more important traits including a belief in environmental sustainability for the Amazon ecosystem – the rainforest, the rivers, the culture and the people who live there.  While I already knew that this giant ecosystem is at risk, Karim and Rick explained more about the impacts of deforestation, illegal logging, agribusiness and other problems associated with development in the region.  The Amazon ecosystem is not only important regionally, it is important globally, influencing natural systems in multiple ways from climate to ocean chemistry to species diversity to medically important plants.  Despite some environmental laws, there are not enough protections.  The ecosystem is fragile and it is at risk from exploitation and ignorance. 

A rooster struts his stuff at ZIB

Rick is the diametric opposite of an exploiter.  He is well into middle age and has the strong body of someone who has benefited from a lifetime of physical fitness.  He is an avid kite surfer, hiker, skater and a very skilled lumberman.  He moved to Brazil from Michigan to develop a sustainable hardwoods company.  His interest in Brazilian hardwoods came from running a lumber mill and forest products business in Michigan.  Now he owns a large tract of undisturbed rainforest about 70 kilometers south of Santarém and manages it by taking only those trees that are dead, dying or down.  Rick explained the philosophy behind his lumber business, Zero Impact Brazil.  In the rain forest, he told us, trees are continuously recycling.  If your goal is sustainability, Rick said there are a lot of trees, often very large trees, that fall over in wind storms, or become diseased and then fall, or are choked by vines and eventually die.  It is these dead, dying and down trees that Rick harvests and mills in his lumber mill.  He showed us samples of the more than twenty hardwoods he sells.  The samples ranged from black to purple to red to gold to multi-hued stripes and every shade of brown found in nature.  Most of his product is raw wood that he ships to the United States.  He also manufactures custom-made furniture out of the beautiful woods.  Rick tries to grow or raise most of the food he and his employees eat – at the lumber mill we saw raised vegetable beds and many types of fruit trees.  He lamented his lack of success with tomatoes which he explained simply get too much sun on the equator to grow successfully.  He is still trying and had some of his raised beds covered in shade cloths.  At the sawmill chickens run around everywhere and multiple roosters compete for the best crowing.  We ate the hens’ eggs for breakfast and they are delicious.  Rick told us that he was going to have to cull the rooster population.  It turns out they compete for the prettiest hens also. 

The water tower in Belterra

After touring the sawmill we piled into cars and drove to an old American town.  That’s right.  There are two old American towns near Santarém – one, Fordlandia, is pretty much abandoned, but the other, Belterra, is still a working town – although it has never had the economic success from rubber production that its founder Henry Ford imagined.  Ford started the towns in 1928 and 1934 respectively, hoping to grow rubber trees in large plantations and harvest enough rubber to meet the growing demand of his automobiles.  He arranged to have everything necessary to support a comprehensive town shipped from Michigan.  But unfortunately he did not consult any botanists – only engineers.  His first attempt, Fordlandia was a complete failure.  The town was too far away for any kind of reasonable access; the fields were challenged by flooding and soil loss; the trees were plagued with a deadly leaf fungus and destructive insects; and the Brazilian workers protested the enforced mid-western life style.  

Checking out the fire hydrant in Belterra

Ford’s second attempt in Belterra fared better but never produced at the level Ford expected.   After the end of the Second World War, Ford sold his rubber interests to the Brazilian government and wrote off millions of dollars of loss.    The few remaining trees do not produce at commercially viable levels but, with the exception of the hospital that burned to the ground a few years ago, the mid-western buildings, homes, schools, churches and community center are all still in use today.  The town, complete with American-style fire hydrants, looks as if it should be located in the upper Michigan peninsula – not in the middle of the Amazon.  

After touring Belterra and enjoying its small museum, we drove out to Rick’s forest.  We parked at his next-door neighbor’s farm and met the family.  The farmer is a charming, small-scale manioc producer who, unlike many of his neighbors, did not sell his land to the big soy producers.  Like Rick and Karim, he respects and protects the forest.  One of his sons works at Zero Impact Brazil and another son was our guide in the forest.  He seemed to know everything there is to know about the properties of the various plants that grow there.  

Rick's swimming hole in the forest

We hiked from the small farm down a well-built trail to a groundwater fed stream – a black water igarapé that rises on Rick’s land.  Rick has built a series of platforms and walkways over the stream to create a swimming hole – perfect for a refreshing swim.  It was an amazing experience to jump in water in the middle of the jungle and find that the water is cool and free of insects.  The water’s natural acidity keeps it free of many undesirable insects while its groundwater origin keeps it cool.  After a good swim, and a quick look at the nearby cabin and bathroom Rick built for overnight guests, we explored the forest in earnest.  It was beautiful – more open than I expected and full of light that filtered down from the sky.  We saw an infinite variety of trees and understory plants in every shade of green imaginable.  As we went along, our local guide cut back branches and vines so that the trail was easily accessible.  

Buttresses on a giant kapok tree in the forest

Karim had promised us big trees and big trees we got!  Virtually all the trees in the forest are so tall we couldn’t see their tops but some are so big we couldn’t even see around them.  The tall root structures of a Kapok tree we saw were perhaps the most impressive – the tops of the smooth wooden buttresses growing outward from the giant main trunk were high above my head.  Here and there along the trail, Rick showed us examples of weaker trees that he might harvest in the future.  Sometimes the weakness was the result of invasive vines he explained and sometimes it was due to a lightning strike or a very strong wind.  

A wind blown down tree in the midst of harvesting

We saw a huge tree that had fallen over in a recent storm.  Zero Impact Brazil is in the midst of harvesting this tree.  Its sheer biomass was mind-boggling.  


Our guide showed us large seedpods that he and his family use to attract wild animals.  Part of their livelihood comes from hunting.  

As the afternoon wore on, we realized we were more than ready for lunch.  We returned to our starting point to find a delicious lunch ready and waiting – prepared in the outdoor kitchen that belongs to Rick’s neighbors.  We tucked in and sat together at a wooden picnic table, relaxed and happy and certainly more knowledgeable about the rainforest.  When it was time to leave, we bade our new friends goodbye.  As we drove back to Santarém, we looked at the cleared land along the highway, land that was waiting to be planted with soybeans, with a great deal of sadness.

The outdoor kitchen where our delicious lunch was prepared

Brazilian Tourist Blog – Part 4, Santarém and the Amazon River

The Santarém Cathedral as seen from the riverfront

We arrived in the Amazon in the middle of the afternoon.  As we approached the airport, we could see the huge milky brown channel of the Amazon River flowing below us, bordered by a the seemingly endless canopy of the rainforest.  We had left Belo Horizonte before sunrise but it is a long way to Santarém.  When we walked down the stairs from our airplane, a wave of equatorial humidity and heat hit us.  It was hot in Minas Gerais but it is even hotter in the Amazon jungle.  Santarém is an old (founded by Portuguese explorers in 1661) port city located just south of the equator at the confluence of the clear water Rio Tapajós and the silt laden Rio Amazonas.  Prior to Portuguese colonization, the Tapajós Indians, a successful and sophisticated agricultural tribe had inhabited the beautiful area for centuries.  My husband Jeff had already arrived and he picked us up at the airport.  We checked into our hotel and immediately put on swimsuits and jumped into the hotel’s large pool.  Jeff fell asleep on the chaise while I did my laps – I tried to sprint every other lap in the warm water to at least imagine I was getting some exercise.  After the hikes around Inhotim and the long trip from the south I was tired too.  I don’t think my sprints amounted to much more than a leg stretch but it felt great to swim.

The Asa Dourado II at its dock in Santarém

After our tours of Brazilian art and history, we were ready for the Amazon – the river and the jungle.  Soon after our arrival, we spent a bright sunny Sunday aboard an Amazon riverboat, the Asa Dourado II.  We arranged for a full day river excursion with a local company BigTreeAdventures, http://www.bigtreeadventuretours.com

ZIB welcomes us

I highly recommend this company to anyone traveling in the Santarém area.  They are experienced professionals who specialize in unique Amazon eco-adventures.  The folks at BigTreeAdventures are very knowledgeable and their trips are exceptional.  More importantly they are creative and just plain fun to be with.  BigTreeAdventures is an offshoot of a lumber company, Zero Impact Brazil (more about this company in my next blog).  We contacted them following a recommendation in Lonely Planet.  It turned out to be a great lead – in addition to the river excursion we spent a second day with them exploring the rainforest and the history of the region.  Our first meeting with our tour guide was great.  Karim, a pencil-thin, twenty-something Russian arrived at our hotel on our first morning.  He wanted to make sure everything was arranged to our satisfaction.  But he did not look like a forest ecologist at all – he looked like a Russian intellectual.  It turns out he might be both.  Karim moved to Santarém four years ago from Russia.  He was en route to French Guiana but like lots of travelers never got to the place he’d originally intended.  Instead, he took a side trip to Santarém, met his boss, Rick, an American expat who has lived in Santarém almost twenty-five years and stayed put.  Now Karim knows more about the rainforest and the history of Santarém than most people who were born there.  As one of his friends, a fellow who works for the Santarém Bureau of Tourism told us – “I hired a Russian guy (Karim) to explain the history of rubber farming in the Amazon to a group of Brazilian teachers and students who were visiting.  Why would I hire a Russian?  He knows more than anyone else.”  Karim speaks five or six languages, including flawless English and French.  He eats books as far as I can make out.  He never stops talking and it is not clear he ever sleeps.  He is a wonderful host.

We didn’t meet his boss Rick, the owner of the company until a couple of days later when we visited his sawmill and forest.  I will describe our river trip first in this blog and our forest adventure in the next blog.

Hand washing station on the Asa Dourado II

The Asa Dourado II is a traditional flat-bottomed Amazon riverboat with a partially covered upper deck and a full kitchen, a bathroom and other accommodations below.  The wheelhouse in front is enclosed allowing the boat to be driven safely regardless of the weather.  There isn’t a drought in the Amazon!  2014 saw the highest discharge (total amount of water flowing in the river) on record.  We left the dock in downtown Santarém late morning and motored west towards the Tapajós.  Along the waterfront we passed a huge warehouse and loading dock belonging to Cargill, the multinational agribusiness.  The facility is used to store and ship soy and corn – two crops that are increasingly covering land around Santarém that used to be rainforest.  

Cargill Facility in Santarém

Karim told us that when Cargill built the facility, it displaced the best and most heavily used public beach in town.  Unfortunately it is not only the rainforest that is lost when large-scale agriculture expands.  Soon we left the port behind and, after a pre-lunch snack of iscas de peixe, small pieces of fresh fried fish, we arrived at a remote white sandy beach.  The captain drove the boat up onto the sand, anchored it with an iron rod and rope, and set up a portable grill.  He gave me a big grin as he took the fresh tambaqui out of garlic, lime juice and herb marinade and placed it on the hot coals.  He definitely knew what he was doing. 

Sunday afternoon on the Tapajós River

While the fish grilled, Jeff and I walked down the beach, stretched our limbs with a few Yoga exercises (very important to remember to stretch when you are over sixty) and went for a relaxing swim in the soft water.  We passed other folks relaxing in the water on Sunday afternoon.  We got back just in time for lunch.  

The captain brings fresh grilled tambaqui on board!

After lunch we left the beach and drove to the confluence of the Tapajós and the Amazon – the Encontro das Águas or Meeting of the Waters.  There, fingers of café com leite-colored water and clear deep blue water intertwine, mixing together in endless eddies as they flow downstream together.  As we drew near the Amazon, Karim interviewed each of us, asking what our hopes about being on the biggest river in the world were.  I answered that my hope was to see a pink dolphin.  As if on cue, a large bright pink dolphin rose out of the waves in front of the boat.  The captain slowed and we all watched in awe as a school of dolphins swam playfully in and out of the mixing of the opaque brown and clear waters.  Karim joked that he had the botos on retainer – as much fresh fish as they wanted!

A small side channel or paraná on the Amazon River - our afternoon fishing spot

Later that afternoon we had a chance to go fishing ourselves – in a paraná (a small side channel to the main stem).  There as we deployed our fishing lines, we watched a herd of cows swim across the water.  Who knew cows could swim?  My brother-in-law caught a red-bellied piranha but I caught nothing – just a few bites. 

Setting nets along the river

Along the banks we saw small farms and fishermen’s houses, white egrets and a host of other pretty colored birds, swooping down from the trees and diving to catch fish in their long beaks.  We saw families and fishermen traveling in small boats, setting nets or bringing supplies back from town.  On the way back to the docks we munched freshly fried banana chips and drank strong sweet coffee out of little blue glass cups.  

All the while Karim regaled us with stories about the culture, the history, the politics and the ecology of the greater Santarém region.  As we disembarked and thanked our gracious captain, the cook and crew, Karim promised us an equally good adventure the next day in the forest.

Brazilian Tourist Blog – Part 3, Inhotim

Saudade (nostalgia) for Inhotim at the Rio Botanical Garden

We left Ouro Preto and returned by bus to Belo Horizonte.  We had booked a hotel close to the bus station since we planned to spend the next two days traveling by bus to Inhotim – a unique venue that combines world-class botanical gardens with outstanding contemporary art.  It is located in the countryside west of Belo Horizonte.  There is only one public bus a day that goes to Inhotim.  It leaves the bus station every morning at 8:15 am and returns every afternoon, leaving Inhotim at 4:30 pm. The next day, after an early breakfast, we took a taxi to the bus station and discussed with the driver the safety of walking the distance (~1.6 km) in the evening.  The cabbie assured us that the short walk would be safe in the daylight.  For the rest of our visit we walked to and from the bus station.

Like the bus to Ouro Preto, the bus to Inhotim is comfortable and modern with reclining reserved seats and air conditioning.  The trip is long – it takes one hour and 45 minutes to travel one way.  Part of the time is spent just getting out of Belo Horizonte traveling through clogged roads bordered by seemingly endless commercial areas and sprawling suburbs.  Everything looked poor.  Many of the houses were made out of crude bricks and cement with no plaster or paint – reminiscent of the favelas (slums) around São Paulo; skinny horses grazed along the roadsides; even the commercial establishments looked as if they’d seen better times – empty parking lots and signs that were falling apart.  We saw closed restaurants and abandoned, derelict buildings.  We passed a series of paper recycling facilities where the workers appeared to be homeless people who slept on the pavement outside the metal shuttered doors.  Here and there a gated residential complex advertised a better life with pictures of brightly painted houses and trees and swimming pools.  Eventually we came to a more rural landscape – but it too was poor – dirt roads, small, impoverished farms, skinny cattle and unkempt patches of scrub forest.  We passed through the nearest small town, Brumadinho, itself looking somewhat depressed.  Then we arrived in a completely different world.  Even the Inhotim parking lot is smartly paved.  I was reminded again that Brazil is a country of extreme contrasts.

Inhotim is an extraordinary institution.  To call it a park is an understatement.  The place was first conceived by Minas Gerais businessman Bernardo de Mello Paz in the 1980’s and designed by the late great landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx.  It opened to the general public in 2006 and has significant collections of both contemporary art and botanical species from around the world.  I refer you to their website www.inhotim.org.br for more about the collections, the institution, its history and philosophy.  My blog records only my own personal impressions – all in words with no photographs.  Inhotim requests that all outdoor photographs be only for personal use.  No photographs are allowed inside the galleries.  In honoring this request, I must say that the combination of landscape and art at Inhotim is impressive.  The few photographs I include are from other places.  Hopefully my words will “paint a picture” of Inhotim and the interactions between its plants and art in all its forms!  Let me know!  I highly recommend a visit or, at minimum, perusal of Inhotim’s website.  Burle Marx’ landscape designs alone are stunning but when combined with the architecture of the pavilions, the winding paths and wooden benches set in shaded glades throughout the grounds, it is a brilliant space unlike anything I have ever seen before.  Paz keeps the park accessible to all by personally subsidizing its operations.  Inhotim supports multiple school and community programs (we saw many groups of school children during our visit) and the continuous development of knowledge in all its dimensions.

We entered Inhotim by following the first of many paved wide walkways.  We called them the red brick roads since the interlocking brick pavers are a light terra cotta color.  The first path led to the reception area where we bought our tickets and received a map.  The map is excellent and includes an accurate schematic of all the paths, numbered art installations and galleries as well as the important botanical plantings, restaurants, snack bars, bathrooms and lakes.  The park is divided into three areas that are color coded (pink, yellow and orange) for ease of identification.  Small directional signs with numbers and artist’s names help guide you.  We found that virtually everything is clearly marked and it is pretty easy to find what you are looking for.  The good map and signage are important because Inhotim is very large (almost 5,000 acres) and the paths wind up and down hilly terrain, through tropical woodlands, around lakes and into hidden gardens.  During a day’s visit, we walked several miles, often over fairly steep grades.  For those who are less fit or unable to walk easily, Inhotim provides chauffeured golf carts for a reasonable fee.

Tree in bloom at the Rio Botanical Garden

Flowers and trees are in bloom everywhere.  Interspersed among the gardens and woodlands are art installations, often by a single artist, sometimes outside, sometimes in purpose-built pavilions.  Sometimes a gallery includes work by several artists pursuing a single theme.  At lunch we sat outside on beautifully molded white plastic chairs and ate hot dogs and drank ice-cold water.  We opted not to take the time to eat at one of the full service restaurants.  We wanted to conserve our time to see more art.  We only had two days at Inhotim and that is not enough.  Each installation is different – many are inspired and inspirational; some fun and funny; some disturbing and even haunting.  The very first installation we entered was by Lygia Pape.  The gallery is set in a leafy glade; as we entered, I realized it was completely dark – I followed the wall trying to adjust my eyes to the darkness and trying to keep close to my brother-in-law.  I was in complete blackness then, suddenly, I was in a large open space filled with tiny parallel lines of luminescent wires set at angles that started somewhere in the darkness above me and traveled to the floor in front of me.  The wires were strung tightly in sets of eight or ten spaced very close together like piano wires.  Their luminous quality stemmed, I presume, from tiny spotlights.  The installation was large and multidimensional.  Depending on where you stood, some wire groupings disappeared into thin air and others appeared crossing over or under another set at sharp angles.  I forgot the darkness and looked only at the mysterious glowing wires.  Afterwards, when we walked back out into the bright tropical light we had to readjust our eyes.  We walked up another path and entered a pavilion by Adriana Varejão.  It looked like a set of rectangular concrete bunkers one perched on top of another.  We began on the flat roof where simple benches ran along the edges of the geometric space.  The benches were made out of square white tiles, each with a unique graphic depicting one of the hundreds of species of Amazon birds.  At the end of one bench, a staircase led down into a large interior gallery. 

Azulejo Murals in Villa Viçoza, Portugal

Here the walls were covered with oversized tiles – each a separate graphic of baroque Portuguese painted blue tiles –azulejos – not in a picture but all jumbled randomly as if someone had taken an azulejo mural apart, then blown it up and scrambled the tiles into a nonsensical giant mural.  I love azulejo murals and liked this curious take on the Portuguese tradition.  Another staircase led to the next level down where an organized mural of a tiled room and pool in monochromatic grey felt modern and restful after the supersized jumbled azulejos.  Outside another tiled bench where each tile depicted one of the poisonous or hallucinogenic plants in the world sat on a platform in the middle of a series of rectangular reflecting pools.  The pool edges were full of tiny tadpoles and the tile bench was full of clamoring school children.  They entered the building and peace returned.  Another installation, Beam Drop by Chris Burden, was reached by hiking up a long hill to a wide-open meadow high above the surrounding landscape.  Beam Drop is dramatic – it consists of many iron beams of varying origin and size that were dropped from the air, on end, into drying concrete.  The sheer weight of each heavy rusted beam contrasts with the graceful ensemble of all the beams, almost dancing together, the whole thing silhouetted against a clear blue sky.

These are only three examples of many installations we visited – and there were whole parts of the park we did not have time to visit.  Every installation is different.  It is impossible to choose a favorite although perhaps, for me, the sound installation by Janet Cardiff comes close.  We saved it for the first and last visit on our second day having heard that it is impressive.  It is.  The installation is called Forty part motet – a motet (yes I had to look it up) is a short piece of sacred choral music, typically sung without accompaniment.  Cardiff’s installation is of a motet, Spem in Alium written by Thomas Tallis, a 16^th century English composer,  to celebrate Queen Elizabeth I’s birthday.  It is a magnificent piece of music, written for eight choirs of five voices each.  Cardiff recorded forty voices from the Salisbury Cathedral Choir individually and placed forty speakers in their eight groupings of five voices around a white open space. Tallis intended the piece to speak to transcendence and humility.  In my experience, Janet Cardiff’s installation does both.  The first time I listened, I simply lay on a wooden bench in the middle of the hall and just experienced the music.  Later, on the same day, I wandered around the hall, alternately listening to individual voices as they came into hearing and then, listening to all the voices together.  It is an experience I will not forget. 

 

Bromeliad at the Rio Botanical Garden

In describing just a few of the installations we experienced, I haven’t even spoken about the plants and their infinite variety.  But that will have to be another blog.  It is not possible to know Inhotim in only two days.