Pretty fruit from the Amazon

Normal

On Monday I saw escaped flock of guinea hens pecking away in the street.

The fan in my living room is on high, constantly blowing directly on me.

Three buses ran red lights today.

I had a passion fruit and cachaça cocktail with my dinner of rice and beans.

Going to the Movies

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" opened in Brazil on Friday. Belém has five movie theaters with a total of fifteen screens, and the film is playing at four of the theaters on eight screens. I saw the movie this afternoon. I made the trek via bus from my apartment in sort-of-central Belém to the Castanheira Shopping Mall on the (one) highway heading out of the city because the best theater and only one with stadium seating and decent sound, Moviecom, is located there. I usually go to the theater in my neighborhood or the one downtown since they are much closer and I can walk.

I had hoped to see the 5 PM show, but that sold out before I arrived and the 6:30 PM show sold out while I was waiting in line. I was not about to kill 4 hours in the crappy mall waiting for the 8:30 PM show, so I sacrificed my high cinematic standards and walked across the food plaza to the other movie theater chain and saw the 5 PM show. The sound and seats were fine, in case you were worried. The person sitting next to me answered his cell phone twice during the screening. The movie was good, too, although I think I liked the earlier installments better. And of course, the book is better.

Most movies here are shown in the original language with Portuguese subtitles. Some movies, particularly those aimed at children, are dubbed. Those with cross-generational appeal like "Harry Potter" can usually be seen either dubbed or with subtitles.

Going to a movie in Belém is extremely cheap by U.S. standards. I use my student ID card and get a meia, or half admission. Today I paid R$5 to see the movie, which is a little more than US$2. I also bought a Diet Coke for R$2.50, which was a nice contrast the the $4 bottles of water sold in U.S. theaters. Each theater usually has a discount day during the week where I can see a movie for R$3 with the meia.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of the food fest, I'm posting some pictures of food I took on Monday's trip to the Ver-o-Peso market. While the open air market is a more interesting place to shop, I usually buy my groceries at the supermarket that is six blocks from my house, and not Ver-o-Peso, which is a 20 minute bus ride away.

Filets of fish

Shrimp, differentiated into piles based on size and quality

In case you are wondering, I had chicken and beef shishkabobs instead of turkey.

Mango Season

It’s here: mango season. A time of fear for car windshields unlucky enough to be parked under a mango tree, a time of pain for unwary pedestrians strolling along one of Belém’s many mango-tree lined streets, a time for breakfasts supplemented with two mangos.

Baskets of mangos at the Ver-o-Peso market

The fruit is ridiculously cheap right now. On Monday I bought a pile of 10 mangos for R$1, which works out to less than a nickel per mango. I am working my way through a pile of mangas amarelas, or yellow mangos.* Perhaps the next purchase will be a pile of manga vermelha, the larger red mangos that you can buy in U.S. supermarkets.


*Fo people wey sabi mango fo Cameroon, I chek se dem bi mango number 3: small wey no get rope. I don’t know why I’m writing in pidgin except for that it is fun.

Amazon at Dawn

The bad thing about my flight from Paramaribo to Belém was that I had to be at the airport at 3 AM for the 5 AM flight. The good thing was that with such an early flight, I was treated to seeing the sun rise over the Amazon rainforest through the plane's window. At first I wasn't sure if I was looking at two layers of clouds, but with the increasing daylight, the two layers resolved themselves into one of clouds and another of forest canopy. Here is a photo I took in flight, probably over the Brazilian state of Amapá:

Suriname

I should be writing a paper for tomorrow’s class, but I don’t want to. Instead, I choose to blog about this past weekend’s excursion to Suriname. Surinam Airways has direct, 1½ hour flights between Belém and Paramaribo for a reasonable price, so I figured I would check out one of the Guianas while it was relatively cheap and convenient to do so.

I arrived in Paramaribo at the lovely hour of 3:30 AM and took a van into the city, which is located more than 40 km north of the airport. I slept a bit and then explored Paramaribo on Friday. The historic city center is compact and pretty, and most of the older buildings are made from wood. Suriname’s Independence Day is this Friday (Nov. 25th), and many of the public areas were cleaned and spruced up with red, yellow, white, and gold, the colors of Suriname’s flag. I checked out Fort Zeelandia and the Central Markt and then had a very tasty lunch of something called tayerblod, which was like a buttery, overcooked and less bitter njamajama* served with awesome beef spiced with cloves and pepper. For dinner, I had some really good roti, which is an Indian dish that is basically curry (chicken, beef, whatever) served with potatoes and eaten with a dry wheat tortilla.

The Waterkant along the Suriname River in Paramaribo

On Saturday I rented a bicycle and rode around the Commewijne district across the Suriname River from Paramaribo. I was a little disappointed since the area was billed as being an old plantation district, which it was, but instead of plantations I saw fairly modern houses built along the road. Still, it was a nice excursion and let me see more of the country. Lunch was forgettable; dinner was much better and was like a jambalaya. I forget the name of the dish.

On Sunday, I thought about going swimming but decided that the hour bus trip and 6 km walk to get to the river was too much effort. Instead I stayed in Paramaribo and went to an Independence Day festival and had a good plate of rice with delicious pork and less than delicious but still good sweet blood sausage. Dinner was a repeat of roti, but at a different restaurant. My flight left at 5 AM this morning.

Overall, it was a good trip and Suriname was a nice change of pace from Brazil. The ethnic mix of Suriname (blacks, indigenous Americans, and Indians) creates a good variety of food.** I didn’t have a chance to explore the interior, but considering that I just spent several days in the Brazilian Amazon I didn’t feel like I was missing much. There were lots of Dutch tourists in Paramaribo visiting their former colony, and it was a little weird for everyone to assume that I speak Dutch (niet), which is the opposite of here, where people on the street assume I know no Portuguese but understand everything. I’m sneaky that way.

*spinach-esque vegetable, fo people wey no sabi chop fo Cameroon

**Despite Suriname’s varied cuisine, the McDonald’s in Paramaribo was packed on Sunday evening – the line for the drive-thru was 20 cars deep and people were flowing out the lobby doors.

Boat trip up the Amazon and Monte Alegre

The next segment of the mini-vacation to the Santarém region was a trip to see the rock paintings of Monte Alegre. To get there, we returned to Santarém and boarded a passenger boat for the 6 hour trip down the Amazon. Air travel is becoming cheaper and more affordable, but only the bigger cities are reached by plane and the majority of people still travel by boat, even along the major routes such as Manaus – Belém (5 days) or Santarém – Belém (2 days). Passengers sling their hammocks along hooks and camp out for the duration of the journey. The aft of the two story boat had a little bar with cold beer.


The town of Monte Alegre doesn’t have much going for it, but what it does have is very worthwhile. In the vicinity of the township are hundreds of rock paintings dating back 12,000 years, which means that they are the earliest known signs of human habitation in the Amazon basin.


You have to have a guide to visit the sites since they are only accessible with a 4x4 truck. The landscape was dry and hilly, very unlike the rest of the Amazon, and reminded me more of the cerrado around Brasília and the caprock of West Texas (except for the vegetation). After the six hour tour, we spent the rest of the day in Monte Alegre doing nothing and took the evening boat back to Santarém. The return trip was much more crowded but better for sleeping since the hammocks didn’t swing as much. Since we were going up stream, the journey lasted around 8 hours. After walking around Santarém in the morning, we went to the airport for the 1 hour flight back to Belém.

Floresta Nacional de Tapajós

On Sunday, the three of us went south of Alter do Chão to the Tapajós National Forest, one of the few preserved tracts of rainforest in the rapidly deforesting state of Pará. To get there, we rode in a motor boat for about an hour and a half down the white sand beach-lined Tapajós River. The ride there and back was extremely wet; think Splashwater Falls without falling. Our base was the village of Jamararaquá, where we left our stuff and then took a four hour hike through secondary and primary forest. After the hike, we had lunch in the village and then went snorkeling in an igarapé, or a branch of the Tapajós River. I felt like I was in an aquarium and saw angel fish, some guppies, those bushy aquarium plants that look like strings of pom-poms, and even a piranha with a little red belly. The piranha was probably a vegetarian and expressed no interest in me.

Afterwards, we walked back into the forest and set up camp for the evening. We cleaned the area of leaf litter to make it unattractive to cobras, and we found another creature that had to be removed:


This guy, who was about the size of my hand, was sitting on a tree about three feet from where my head was to be. Our guide said that while the painful bite is not poisonous, if left untreated it can cause gangrene and require amputation of the affected limb. After taking care of spidey, we got in the hammocks and slept until dawn.


The howler monkeys howled all night, and at dusk and dawn other animals, especially birds, were very active.

Alter do Chão

I spent the past few days in the vicinity of Santarém in the western part of Pará state, and I spent the first full day of my mini-vacation 35 km from Santarém on the river beach of Alter do Chão. Alter do Chão only appears in the dry season when the waters of the Tapajós River lower to expose the white sand beaches that line its banks. While there are many kilometers of nice beaches in the region, Alter do Chão is one of the best and most accessible. I’d say it is among my top five favorite beaches in Brazil.



The laid-back village is across the river from the beach. Normally, visitors take quick canoe trips to reach the sand, but because the Amazon is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, we were able to walk across the shallow river bed. Other than increased accessibility, the drought had no other effect on the beach. I had a fantastic lunch of tucanaré (peacock bass), rice, beans, salad, and beer at the beach shack shown above.

Tapioca

Perhaps the most common food ingredient in Belém's regional dishes is tapioca. Tapioca is made from ground manioc and is then transformed into a variety of foods, such as the snot-like goma in tacaca or as a tasty ice cream. The most common is simply called tapioca, which refers to what are best described as rolled Brazilian crêpes.

The imaginatively named Casa da Tapioca is a restaurant two blocks from my house where I pick up some take out dinner about once a week. In the photo below, you can see the process.

The ladies begin by scooping some finely ground tapioca from the big plastic container and then sifting it onto a hot round griddle, where it cooks for about three minutes and is flipped half way through. Once the manioc tortilla/crêpe is ready, it is filled with a variety of condiments. The most basic is butter. My usual order is one turkey, cheese, and oregano and one ham and cheese. I also get a dessert tapioca, alternating between a Romeo e Julieta (cheese and guava jelly) and coconut with sweetened condensed milk. They cost a little more than US$1 each, and three are quite filling.

Dinner

Proposition Two

For those who are registered to vote in Texas and haven't already done so, vote NO on proposition 2 tomorrow (Tuesday). It is a sloppily written, divisive, discriminatory distraction. School finance? What's that?

My prediction is that it will pass 65/35 with 13% voter turnout, and I'd consider anything less than 60% passage to be a victory for the no's.

Soccer fans

On the way back from Algodoal, I took this picture of a soccer fan and his buddy driving along a major road in Belém. The big white thing behind the roof-mounted speaker is a team flag for Club Remo. I gather there is a match today.

Algodoal

This past weekend’s beach pick was Algodoal, which is reached by a 3 ½ hour bus ride east from Belém to Marudá and then a 30 minute boat ride to the Atlantic island. There is not a lot to do on Algodoal except go to the beach, which is exactly what I wanted. The island is very quiet with only a few thousand inhabitants and no cars. To get around, you either walk, as I did, or ride in horse-drawn two wheeled carts. The windswept beaches have dunes created by the constant winds and white, crunchy sand.

Praia Princessa

Preparing for Bush's Visit

Just in case there was any doubt, I thought I'd clarify that President Bush is NOT popular in Brazil. After participating in the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, President Bush will stop in Brasília on the 5th and 6th before returning to Washington via Panama. The anticipated visit generated this graffiti:

From Agência Brasil

"Get out Bush the killer." From the Drudge Report.

I learned from the "Drudge Report" that these statements were spraypainted on the Indian Museum and the JK Memorial, both in Brasília. The two buildings are side by side along the Eixo Monumental, a major road in the Brazilian capital, and about a ten minute walk from where I lived last summer.

While anti-US graffiti and perpetual protesters are all over Latin America, these next few days will certainly be more active than usual. This past weekend I heard an announcement that there is to be an anti-Bush rally here in Belém this coming Sunday. The protest could be interesting to see, but I think I will go to the beach instead.

Sorvetology, part 5

The latest installment on the ice cream sampling. I've started to double up on the scoops because otherwise I won't make it through all 49 flavors and be able to return to my favorites.

Ameixa: prune.

Amendoim: peanut, but more like super creamy peanut butter. Very good.

Brigadeiro: type of chocolate.

Café: coffee. Almost excluded because it is too tame, I figured that after all this is Brazil, the world's #1 coffee producer. And there were chocolate chips.

Cairú: coconut with chocolate shavings. Tasty but I expected something more imaginative for the namesake of the ice cream chain.

Coco: coconut.

Floresta Negra: black forest, but with maraschino cherries instead of raspberries.

Queijo: cheese. Kind of gross and definitely too much for an entire scoop. Much better as part of the Romeo e Julieta flavor, which paired the cheese ice cream with guava jelly.

Manga: mango.

Sapotilha: not sure what this is, but it was fruity and tasted like banana.

Sorvetology, part 4: eliminated from consideration

In the interest of being able to eat a scoop of all ice cream flavors at Cairú and return to my favorites, the following flavors have been eliminated from the study. In some cases, the flavors are just too common (chocolate). In others, the flavors were sampled and deemed disgusting.

Baunilha: vanilla.

Ceu Azul: translates to "blue sky" and tastes like cheap oversweet frosting from a grocery store birthday cake. Disgusting.

Chiclete: bubble gum. Also disgusting.

Chocolate.

Cookie: cookies and cream.

Flocos Nevados: chocolate ice cream with chunks of white chocolate.

Menta: mint.

Morango: strawberry.

Morango do Amor: strawberry with crispy vanilla wafers. Not very good.

Pavê: chocolate-y something-not-very-interesting.

Tri-sabor: neopolitan.

Finados

Today is a holiday. Finados is best described as a very tame Day of the Dead without the candy, skeletons, or parades. People visit the recently cleaned and tidied cemeteries to honor the dead with candles and flowers. I’ve been meaning to check out one of the cemeteries since I arrived, so this was a good chance to do so.

Cemetery in Batista Campos with candle offerings

Most of the tombs and crypts are above ground; they remind me of the cemeteries in New Orleans. The Batista Campos cemetery was surprisingly empty considering that most of the existing tombs date from the late 19th century. Some of the more popular tombs were covered in candles and flowers, and a few had candy offerings which are certain to attract rats once night falls. From what I gather, certain tombs have followings and act sort of like patron saints. Two tombs with small children and one with a slave were very popular.

Amazon Beer Company

Every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 6:30 – 9:30 PM, the Amazon Beer Company at the Estação das Docas has an all you can eat and drink buffet for the bargain price of R$22. The food is decent – nothing spectacular – but the beer is excellent (at least one variety is). ABC makes three types of microbrews on the premises: black, forest, and river. Black is gross. It tastes like a sweet stout. Forest is a light beer and is pretty good. The best is river, which is an amber ale but not as bitter as those in the US. The beer is served in 300 mL glasses that are usually replaced before you finish the contents. I usually get my money's worth with three trips to the buffet and four or five glasses of beer.



Estação das Docas is a redeveloped area of Belém’s once busy port on the Baía do Guajará. A few years ago, the state government redeveloped a portion into a restaurant and leisure complex. The area attracts tourists as well as locals. Most of the restaurants are pricey, but the complex sponsors free events all the time, like movies, industry shows, and performances.