Off to Amapá

Tuesday’s Theory of Human Rights class was postponed, so I don’t have class until next Thursday. I am taking advantage of this unexpected vacation not by working on job application essays or a paper due next week, but by heading north to the state of Amapá. The plan is to visit Laranjal do Jari in the southwest to check out the forest and a waterfall and then spend some time in the capital of Macapá and environs.

Trouble at the Top

There must be something going around that is causing prominent politicians to step down. In Brazil last week, Severino Cavalcanti, the President of Brazil's lower House of Deputies, resigned his role as President over charges that he accepted bribes related to a restaurant operating in the Congress. Today, Tom DeLay was indicted on conspiracy charges for funneling corporate money in the 2002 elections and forced to temporarily step down as Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Both Mr. Cavalcanti and Mr. DeLay maintain they are innocent. I'm sure they are. They're probably both victims of partisan witch hunts.

Oficina do Corpo

I joined a gym. The place is a bit pricey but is conventient to home and work. The equipment is in good condition and more importantly the building is well air conditioned. I had my obligatory initial physical this morning and was shocked to learn that I am skinny (6% body fat) but not flexible.

I had hoped to find a gym with a semi-olympic pool but no dice. The one gym in town with such a pool is outrageously priced (R$290/month). The state university has a pool but they're on strike. My gym has a pool, but at only 10 m, it is not practical for me to do laps as I'd spend half of that underwater after turns.

Worst Belém Bus Ride To Date

I just had a maddening experience on Bus 323. It thankfully didn’t reach the level of “Ônibus 174,” and I had far worse bus/taxi rides in Cameroon. Even last summer’s daily commute in Brasília, with the running “stops” for me to jump out into opposing traffic, was probably worse. But this was still pretty bad.

I had dinner with two friends at the Amazon Beer Company (post forthcoming) and left the restaurant complex around 10 PM for what should have been a 10 - 15 minute ride back up to my apartment in the São Bras neighborhood. Catching a bus in Belém can be a bit tricky since I’m only familiar enough with the numbers between my house and the university. The huge lettered end points on the main window are essentially meaningless since there are only a few start and stop points in the city; at least half say "Presidente Vargas," which is downtown. So, to indicate the route, all buses have a list of streets the bus takes located on the side by the door. What you have to do is read the list really quickly, recognize something close to your destination, and then hopefully flag the driver down before the bus peels away.

Since the first two buses that went up Mundurucus, the street I wanted, blew past the stop without slowing down, I decided to take one that said “Gentil,” a street about two blocks from my house. The ride was fine until we passed the city docks, but then we took a turn towards the river and into the Jurunas neighborhood. I thought, “great. This IS going to be like ‘Ônibus 174.’ I don’t want to be here.” In Jurunas, the bus driver picked up two extremely annoying girls who would not shut up but at least took my mind off getting robbed. At this point the driver turned the lights in the bus off and ripped down one of the avenues. The driver then headed close to back to where I boarded, turned the lights back on, did a loop or two, and then finally headed in the right direction, but very . . . . .very . . . . . slowly, with the doors of the bus open and no one getting on or off. I could have popped out for a snack and returned had I wanted to as there were several snack shacks by the bus stop. After a route that looked something like this:


I got off the bus two blocks from my house, 35 minutes after leaving the restaurant.

Sorvetology I

One of the great things about living in the tropics is the fantastic variety of cheap fresh fruit available. In addition to mango, banana, papaya, guava, pineapple, passion fruit, tangerines, limes, and oranges, Belém has all kinds of exotic fruits from the Amazon that don't have English translations. Even better, these fruits are sometimes made into juices. Even better than that, a Belém-based chain called Cairú makes these fruits into awesome sorvete, or ice cream. Cairú has about 15 stores in Belém in malls and as free-standing shops. Apparently there is also a store in Rio de Janeiro.

In the interest of cross-cultural understanding, I have taken it upon myself to try as many different flavors of Cairú ice cream as possible. The rule, which I may alter as I go along, is simple: I have to eat an entire one scoop cone of each exotic flavor made by Cairú. A taste on a little wooden spoon does not count. This task isn't as easy as it sounds; Cairú makes more than thirty flavors. A cone costs R$2.30, which means that I will spend more than US$30 in this endeavor. * For the time being, I'm skipping the standbys of chocolate and vanilla. Also, I already have some favorite flavors that I would like to repeat but can't since there are still untried flavors. I may skip the electric blue ceu azul (blue sky) or whatever the shocking pink one is (bubble gum?) since both look too synthetic.

Anyway, here is the first installment of the ice cream study:

Murici: wild mango, has a hint of banana. Canary yellow.

Cupuaçú: no translation, the fruit looks like breadfruit with pulpy white flesh and big black seeds. Sweet and slightly tangy, can't describe the flavor better than that. Awesome as a juice and jelly. Off white.

Pavê do Cupuaçú: cupuaçú + chocolate chips. The chocolate distracts from the fruit.

Bacuri: no translation, relative of cupuaçú with a pleasant wooden taste. Also good as a juice and jelly. Off white.

Açaí: no translation, Amazon fruit slightly larger than a blueberry. Flavor hard to describe. Dark purple/brown.

Paraense: açaí + tapioca. Tapioca adds texture and not much else.

Castanha do Pará: brazil nut in vanilla. Really good but ground nuts make texture a little less creamy than other ice creams.

Araçá: no translation. Lemony-cocunut flavor. Off white.

Taperabá: no translation. Citrusy, really good as a juice. Yellow-orange.

*If interested in underwriting this study or would like sponsorship information, please send me an email.

IX Feira Pan-Amazônica do Livro

The big event in Belém for the past two weeks has been the 9th Annual Pan-Amazon Book Fair.* Under a big white tent in the eastern part of the city, about thirty vendors have piles and piles of books for sale. Books in Brazil, and Belém in particular, usually are not cheap, with most being comparable in price to books in the U.S. Belém also has few book stores when compared to other cities like São Paulo or Porto Alegre. The fair provides a convenient place for people to shop for discounted books and has a variety of cultural events as well, such as readings and book signings by notable Brazilian authors.

I went on Wednesday around noon between classes. While there were lots of vendors, I didn’t find any particularly good deals on the nerdy books I like to read. I had also recently bought some books on my recent trip to the U.S. and when passing through the Brasília airport. So after dodging hordes of children on school field trips, I had lunch and then went back to class.

A side attraction of the book fair was a free series of Brazilian films. There was a glitch in the schedule and the films being shown were one day behind the program, so I ended up seeing two crappy films instead of just one. I could briefly describe the plots of “Bens Confiscados” and “Viva Sapatos,” but I won’t waste your time as I did mine. In any case, they were free. Speaking of movies, both “Dukes of Hazzard” and “The Amityville Horror” opened up this past weekend. If anyone thinks that there are better ways to spend R$3, please advise me before Monday evening.


*Like the movie schedule, the internet information site is a bit behind, except in this case the delay is two years.

Comparative subway study, part 2

Porto Alegre has a subway as well, so I feel like I should say something about its system. Porto Alegre followed São Paulo’s boring lead and chose the name of Metrô but adds the hopeful “Linha 1.” The above ground single route is useful and carried me from the airport to downtown, but as far as I know, there are no plans for Linhas 2 or 3.

Festa do Açaí

Almost four weeks ago, some friends and I took to trip to the 8th Annual Festa do Açaí in Inhangapi, a small town about 80 km northeast of Belém. For the uninitiated, açaí (ah-sigh-EE) is an Amazon fruit slightly larger than a plump blueberry that grows in swampy areas on trees that look like palms.

açaí

The food is extremely rich in vitamin C and in most of Brazil is made into a brown-purple sherbet served with granola and bananas. In Pará, açaí is more like a slightly chilled thick soup made with less sugar and served with tapioca. I prefer the version found in most of Brazil. I’ve seen açaí as a flavor option at Jamba Juice in the U.S., so evidently the idea of being an açaí importer has been taken and is no longer on my list of non-legal careers.

Despite, or because of, açaí’s export potential, the citizens of Inhangapi organize a big three day party where everyone gets drunk and eats insane amounts of the purple goo. Ten reais bought admission to the festival, a commemorative ceramic bowl (500 mL), and two servings of açaí. I only managed to eat about half of the first bowl. The best part about the festival was the bar that was located under a bridge. The second best part was that the four of us (three Americans and a Spaniard) were the only foreigners there. I made a point to sign all the exhibit guest books to one-up the people from the nearby state of Ceará. People running the exhibits were excited to see us and gave us special access to view the açaí-making process up close. After removing the hairy exterior and washing the fruits, workers dump cleaned açaí into a gigantic chipper that grinds everything up, pits and all, into the ready-to-eat liquid. The buckets containing the liquid are then transferred to freezers and is served by a line of açaí scoopers to customers redeeming their free tickets.

açaí chipper

We also had our picture taken in front of an exhibit on Amazon River fish; I would not be surprised if the photo features prominently in next year’s promotional material to prove Inhangapi’s international tourist appeal.

Ilha do Marajó

I’m a little behind on the things that I want to blog about. I visited Marajó for the second time in mid-August shortly after arriving in Belém when a friend from the Corps came up from São Paulo. The first was when I was in Brazil in 2003.

Marajó is a three hour ferry ride north of Belém. The fluvial island is the size of Switzerland and is bathed by the Amazon River and the Atlantic Ocean. The island has been inhabited for thousands of years, and descendants of the indigenous marajoarans still produce ceramics whose style and production method haven’t changed for 3,000 years. Most of the terrain is flat and about half the island is submerged during parts of the year. The island has beautiful river beaches with white or yellow sand, like Praia do Pesquiro:

The staples of marajoaran cuisine are river fish, crabs, shrimp, and buffalo. Islanders also produce a cheese made from buffalo milk that is often served with meals.

Buffalo getting a bath on Praia Grande

Simply said, I love Marajó. The exotic environment makes it unique among places I’ve visited. There is very little to do except go to the beach and eat, but what else do you need?

Serra Gaúcha

Cambará do Sul was chilly but the trip was totally worth it. I was in the Serra Gaúcha region for two days and was able to visit Cânion do Itaimbezinho in Parque Nacional de Aparados da Serra and Cânion da Fortaleza in the neighboring Parque Nacional da Serra Geral. The hikes were pretty easy as I only had time to walk along the rim . With another day, I would have liked to hike along Rio Boi which runs through the bottom of Itaimbezinho.

Cânion do Itaimbezinho

Cânion da Fortaleza

The national parks preserve some of the last stands of araucaria trees, which are relatives of pine. Araucaria needles are stubbier, triangular, and sharper.

Araucaria trees at Itaimbezinho

Apart from the beautiful countryside, there is not a lot happening in Cambará do Sul.

Porto Alegre

I´ve been in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil´s southernmost state, since Monday. I´m here visiting the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) at the request of my scholarship coordinator. The facilities at UFRGS are much nicer than those in Belém, although I am glad to be in Belém as it is more exotic and less developed. Porto Alegre is a very nice city - it reminds me of a saner, smaller São Paulo with a stronger European influence. The state has a strong German heritage, and many people grow up speaking German and Portuguese at home. I even ate at a German restaurant on Wednesday and had a heart-healthy steak covered with cheesy pasta followed by ice cream cake. Rio Grande do Sul has lots of cowboys and cows, so I have helped myself to plenty of beef that does not come from pasture formerly known as rainforest as the beef does in Pará.

I have not been a fan of the cold and rainy weather. Although it is early spring, I froze my ass off and found myself missing my sweaty home for the semester. On Thursday, a five hour bus ride took me to Cambará do Sul, where I visited some amazing national parks. I´ll post photos of the canyons later. Cambará was very chilly at night, and I had to sleep in my thermal underwear beneath two heavy blankets. I returned to Porto Alegre this morning and will fly out tomorrow.

Comparative subway study

A number of cities in Brazil have subway systems, and I recently had the pleasure of riding those in Recife and São Paulo.

Recife’s is called TIP, which stands for Terminal Integrado de Passageiros (Integrated Passenger Terminal) and in Portuguese is pronounced “tippy.” The integrated system combines the city’s bus and subway systems with one low fare of R$1.40 (about 60 cents). At the integrated stations, the buses pull into a fenced off section to enable bus passengers to enter the subway without paying an additional fare; subway passengers enter the same area to board the buses. Not all subway stations are integrated, and not all bus routes connect to a subway station. The most interesting thing to me about Recife’s TIP is that each subway stop has a name and a symbol or picture. Like much of Brazil’s north and northeast, there is a large illiterate or semi-literate population, and the name/symbol system lets all people get where they need to go. Most of the names have obvious pictorial connections, such as “Recife” (downtown) and a picture of a city or “Rodoviaria” (bus station) and pictures of buses. But there are a few tricky ones, such as “Wernick.” What the hell is a wernick? Is that someone’s name? Wernick’s symbol is a W, which was a good choice for people who can’t read. I wonder if it is referred to as “lightning” since the W is slightly slanted.

São Paulo’s subway system has the boring name of metrô. The system is much more extensive and has three lines with more on the way. Integrating the bus/subway was one of the few accomplishments of the city’s former mayor, although to my knowledge the metrô does not have the fenced off areas like Recife and uses a single-ticket system where a ride is valid for 2 hours. A trip on the metrô costs R$2.10.

Recife

It took twelve hours to get from the door of my apartment in Belém to the door of the pousada in Carapibus, Paraíba, but the trip was totally worth it. I had three fantastic days on the beach featured in the previous post and its neighbors. My activities consisted of walking along the beach, staring at the beach, playing in the waves on the beach, read-napping on the beach (sometimes without the read part), eating on the beach, and drinking beer on the beach. The area has seen a little more development since I was there two and a half years ago but everything was very quiet as it is the low season. Some hotels and pousadas were renovating in preparation for the December – February summer season.

I spent a day in Recife, which is one of the oldest cities in Brazil, the second most important city in the northeast after Salvador, and the capital of the state of Pernambuco. Recife is built on a lagoon and canals course through parts of the city. Because of this geography, some liken the city to Venice, but that comparison is a bit of a stretch. The oldest part of the city, Recife Antigo, has a redeveloped area called Polo Pino with some shops and restaurants. There is also a new (since 2003) mall with outrageously expensive stores. I spent the afternoon walking around the bustling commercial district and in the markets. For snacks, I had a coconut-sweet milk cake and braised corn, the latter of which was common street food in Cameroon.

Temporarily unavailable

I'll be away for a while. My first stop is in the state of Paraíba, where I'll be at this beach.