So, that’s that. I fly back to Boston today (Wednesday), arriving in the early hours of Thursday morning. I’ve been here ten days, but it feels like much longer - and much shorter. The days have been so packed, so different, that time has both stretched and compressed. I’m leaving with a better understanding of the Amazon, of Amazonas, of Manaus. But these aren’t places you understand in a week and a half. It’s hard even to get a grip on what the Amazon is.
I’ve been told that some Brazilians (not all) think of the Amazon as, well, a purely Brazilian entity. But the forest respects no border and spills into neighboring countries like Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia. Also, the rainforest here around Manaus represents a totally different ecosystem to the rainforest in the southern Amazon. It’s just too big and too complex to boil down to something simple. And I haven’t even mentioned the rivers.
Manaus itself is a contradiction. It’s the heart of a long-cherished national program of investment, growth and territory marking. When the free trade zone was established a few decades ago, it was in part to establish a federal presence - and a business presence - in Amazonia.
Business ambition remains sky-high. Brazil, not unlike China and India, is a country of massive resources and an underwhelming record of economic achievement. And, like China and India, Brazil is now beginning to move full speed ahead.
But there’s an opposing force in these parts, one recognized by the State Government in Amazonas. The rainforest is an indispensable component of the global ecosystem. It must be protected. Programs like the Bolsa Floresta (a small subsidy paid to families living in the forest not to cut down trees) are showing how legislation could be catching up with the demands of the world’s environmental community. Still, such programs have their critics and any successful system will have to find a way to balance the demands of environmental stewardship with economic growth.
Thanks for joining me throughout this trip. I’ll be back in The World’s newsroom next week (I’ll be celebrating the marriage of two friends from Friday through the weekend) and I’ll continue updating this blog as the radio stories from the Amazon start to shape up. And listen out for a special day of Amazon broadcasts from the BBC World Service on May 15th.
Beyond that, you’re very welcome to check in here from time to time. While you’re at it, make sure you pay Clark, Jeb, Matthew, April, Patrick and Marco a visit too (they’re all colleagues at PRI’s The World) - you’ll find their blogs to the right.
A trip to the moon today. I was at Urucu, an oil and natural gas facility some 600km west (and south a bit) of Manaus. It sits above massive reserves of natural gas, and smaller fields of high-quality oil. And those reserves are in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.
If you don’t believe me, take a look at the final approach into Urucu, as seen from my airplane window early this morning.
The Urucu facility itself is a strange, strange place. It operates much like an offshore rig - workers come for fourteen-day stretches, followed by weeks off. The regulation uniform is an orange jumpsuit (which produces immediate associations in the mind). Identikit gas-powered Petrobras 4×4s move at speeds no greater than 50kmph. And everywhere you look there’s a stern series of bins reminding you to recycle everything that can be recycled, lest the pristine state of the place be disturbed. I couldn’t help but think of one of those Bond villain lairs circa 1978. A remote location. Men in monochrome uniforms and hard hats, motoring around at purposeful, pedestrian speeds. And no visible trash.
Only there doesn’t seem to be much that’s villainous about Urucu. The environmental procedures and processes are deeply impressive, especially since the business of the place is the exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels. They even have a nursery for forest seedlings, ready for planting over closed wells. But whether there are lessons for energy strategies in other environmentally sensitive parts of the world - Alaska, say - well, that’s another matter. I hope to produce a radio story about Urucu for PRI’s The World before too long. Stay tuned, as they say.
Tomorrow’s my last full day in Brazil. Two interviews lined up: the first with someone from SUFRAMA, the organization behind Manaus’ free trade zone (the principal motor of the city’s growth in the last few decades). And then I’ll meet a representative of some of the Brazilian Amazon’s indigenous communities. So much is going on in this place, and fast. His is a perspective I don’t want to miss.
Oh yes, one other thing. Here’s a short audio slideshow of a bustling local market from yesterday morning in Manaus. I’d gone out with the hope of taking shots of the city’s faded architectural glories. But clouds and rain didn’t make for the best conditions. So I tried a bit of an experiment and concentrated on photos of umbrellas - the colors, the patterns, the owners. Let me know what you think. Thanks to my colleague at The World, Julia Kumari Drapkin, for putting it together at a moment’s notice.
Just a short update tonight, I’m afraid. I’ll be up again in about six hours to go to the airport. Not to return home - that’s on Wednesday - but to catch a flight to Urucu. It’s a offshore oil facility, only the ocean in which you’ll find it is green and full of trees. Urucu is run by Petrobras, the state energy company. And they make big claims about being conscientious stewards of the forest. So I’m going to take a look.
There could be one hiccup, though, and that’s the weather. The daily hour+ flight to Urucu has been cancelled a number of times recently thanks to downpours in Manaus. Hopefully I’ll catch a break.
Caught an opera tonight: Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel. It was performed at the Teatro Amazonas, a glorious reminder of the Saudi-like riches that swamped Manaus during the nineteenth century rubber boom. H & G were Portuguese in this production and renamed Joao e Maria. But there was still an evil witch, dancing gingerbread and an exploding oven.
Listen out for a story about the opera house in the not-too-distant-future on PRI’s The World. It’ll include clips from a young American double-bassist who until January was living in Indiana and had never heard of Manaus. Now he’s playing with the Amazonas Philharmonic. I do believe that’s what might correctly be regarded as something of a curveball, no?
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Finally, some grim news from not far away. The BBC reports that at least fifteen people have drowned and many more are missing after a ferry capsized in the Solimoes river. That’s the river I wrote about a couple of days ago, the one that joins up with the Rio Negro to form the greater Amazon.
The capsizing happened near Manacapuru, only 80km (50 miles) from here in Manaus. It’s thought the ferry was overcrowded.
The BBC report says ‘Most of those on board the boat, which went down in a sudden rainstorm, were young people returning from a party.’
Amazonas State has a big ticket project to curb deforestation. Trees aren’t cut down here to the same extent as they are in, say, Mato Grosso (where soy is a passport to profit) - but even so Amazonas governor Eduardo Braga is adamant that the rainforest in his state be preserved.
I spoke with Braga back in Boston. And on Wednesday - just before I catch my flight home - I’ll meet Virgilio Viana, who leads the Sustainable Amazon Foundation. Before taking up that role, Viana was Braga’s Secretary of State for the Environment. Together, they’ve come up with something called the Bolsa Floresta, which loosely translates as ‘forest subsidy’.
The idea is that families in certain areas of the rainforest be paid a monthly sum of money not to cut trees down. The Bolsa Floresta is making waves: it’s been highly publicized here in Amazonas, and in the environmental community. So - is it a good idea? Depends who you ask. I’ll examine the program in one of my radio stories for PRI’s The World (which I’ll write when I’m back in Boston, and when I have the expertise of my editor William Troop to call on).
But today I met someone who’s firmly against the program. He runs a guitar workshop for disadvantaged teenagers in Manaus. The specifics of his criticism will have to wait - I want to put that criticism to Virgilio Viana before writing anything else. But here’s a quick look inside the workshop, fresh off the laptop.
Before we left, I traded Jobim names with the workshop leader. You say Corcovado. I say Wave. You say One Note Samba. I say Desafinado. And then he beckons me to play one of the newly-minted guitars. Now by this stage I was sweating buckets from running around grabbing video and still photos and pure audio and - oh yes - interviews. But he was insistent.
I spare you the resulting cacophony.
Tomorrow should bring music of another order. I’m off to the opera! (Really? The opera? Yes, really. The opera.)
I’m trying to get stuff out as soon as possible, but video production is slow, slow, slow. At least, it is if your laptop has a habit of seizing up and your expertise is negligible. (These things are true of me.) But I’m happy to present the fruit of many hours labour today: a peek inside Manaus’ extraordinary fish market.
The benches overflow with the morning’s catch: pacu, tambaqui, bocachico and many more. Knives flash across slippery scales. Wooden stakes skewer a dozen fish at once. A merchant assembles dried rolls drawn from the giant pirarucu. And, just outside, pans sizzle with whole fish crisped up in hot, pungent oil.
You can be assured that this will be the last fish-related post from the Amazon. That is, unless I suffer an encounter a local piranha. (Assuming it’s kind enough to leave me some fingers, of course.)
If you want an even more up-to-date sense of where I am and what I’m doing, you’ll find me twittering away here: http://www.twitter.com/gallafent
By the way, for a succinct look at the way reporters at PRI’s The World work from our base in Boston, check out a post from my friend and colleague Jeb Sharp.
And, while I’m at it, The World has launched a new blog exclusively about global sports. There’s some great stuff there already, so do drop by.
A friend asks: what does the rainforest smell like?
I’ve been trying to formulate an accurate (albeit subjective) answer, but it’s a tricky one. The truth is that it doesn’t really smell of anything, or at least of anything that I can directly label ‘rainforesty’. Shower gels can be rainforesty, for sure. But actual rainforest? Not so much. Now, there are people in the world with far better noses than mine. I’m sure they’d be able to pick out a multitude of woody notes and leafy tones. And maybe that’s the point: the rainforest is such a complex ecosystem - it’s thought countless species remain undocumented - that the smell, such as it is, turns out to be a complex affair too. It’s certainly not pungent. If anything it’s the moisture that acts on your senses (that and the sound.) Humid air creeps up the nostrils, latching on to vulnerable nasal hairs. It’s as if the rainforest won’t be contained: your nose is fair game for colonization too.
One curious experience today: I observed the Confluence of the Rivers (which, to my ears, sounds a bit like observing the anniversary of a medieval peace treaty.) It’s a natural phenomenon that occurs when two major Amazonian tributaries meet before becoming the broad Amazon beyond Manaus. The first river is the Rio Negro, so-called on account of its filmy, black water. Up close it’s not really black - it’s dark and grainy, the water logged with particles released from the tree-lined riverbanks.
The second river is the Rio Solimões, which is what the Amazon river is called before it joins up with the Negro. I’m sorry - it’s a bit confusing. There are countless tributaries of the Amazon and a variety of names throughout. Perhaps there’s someone who can clarify all this. Any takers?
Yes! [updated Friday morning] Thanks to Jesse N, a Brazilian now living in the States who writes:
In Brazilian geography we are taught that the Amazon river is born in Peru under the name Ucayle. When it crosses the border into Brazil it becomes the Solimoes river and when it passes Manaus and becomes very large it is called the Amazon the rest of the way until it reaches the Atlantic ocean. Basically it is the same river with three names - don’t ask me why!
Regardless, the confluence of these rivers - the Negro and the Solimões - is interesting because they flow at different speeds. That means they don’t merge, at least not immediately. You can tell just by looking because the Rio Solimões is a light brown (’café au lait’, everyone says) in stark contrast to the Rio Negro. They don’t mix. They simply flow alongside each other, divided and united.
Jesse N adds:
One other thing, the Negro and Solimoes waters have different densities (Solimoes with more suspended particles), and different temperatures (the Negro river is a lot colder than the Solimoes.) These are also factors that keep them from mixing.
Here’s a nice moment from yesterday, when I met a group of local musicians. (I’m being secretive about them at the moment so that I can save some good stuff for a Global Hit on PRI’s The World.) So this is something to thank you for your understanding: an interesting sound followed by an interesting explanation. The voice you can hear (in addition to mine) belongs to my fixer in Manaus, Ursula Alonso Manso. Mobile post sent by gallafent using Utterz. Replies. mp3
I’m here in the Brazilian Amazon for PRI’s The World and the BBC World Service. But BBC colleagues are currently in another extraordinary place: Chomolungma. Sagarmatha. Mt Everest. (The first two names are those used in Tibet and Nepal respectively.)
Here’s a neat video from Jonah Fisher, a tour of the purpose-built media center just short of Everest Base Camp. Members of the media are there to cover the next stage of the Olympic torch relay, an event that’s caused much controversy this year.
[Thursday note: the people have spoken. Trout mask replica it is and shall remain. By the way, I learn that one of the principal sources of food for your average tambaqui is fruit that falls into the river. No wonder the fleshy fellow tastes so delicious.]
Cognitive dissonance on the plate this evening. I was chomping away on barbequed tambaqui, an Amazonian river fish that sits on your table like it owns the thing. But eating it, all I could think of was trout - in particular rainbow trout, a delicate morsel happiest in the company of lemon, English new potatoes and roasted almonds. So here I am, in a fantastic roadside fish restaurant somewhere on the edges of Manaus and all I can taste is something I associate absolutely with Blighty. Don’t get me wrong, it was scrumdiddlyumptious - and far meatier than the faintly wimpy trout - but the experience was a little odd.
Nothing wimpy about Mototraxx. It’s a Chinese-owned motorcycle company here with big plans for expansion. The motorbike market is massive across South America, and the bosses say they expect growth to continue. That means there’s room for newcomers like Mototraxx, who are competing with the Japanese giants, Honda and Yamaha. But the Chinese ambition is extraordinary: I was told that Mototraxx’s plan is to export bikes from Brazil.. to countries in Africa. I think I’ve got some good moments from my trip to the factory this morning, but something important was missing. Federal customs officials are on strike, at least in some parts of the country. And that means Mototraxx’s supply of new parts has dried up. So instead of the mechanical thrum I expected to hear from a full-throated production line, there were subdued groups of workers in spotless white overalls simply sitting and waiting for the gears to start moving again. At PRI’s The World, we’re in the sound business so the absence of interesting, descriptive sound is frustrating - especially when ordinarily you’d be in the money.
So, a small disappointment there, but nothing that can’t be overcome. And whatever worry I may have felt about the sound of silence was washed away by a remarkable afternoon with some local musicians. I’m not going to give away the name of their band quite yet, but I will say that they make beautiful, gentle music with one eye on rainforest preservation. They treated me to a private performance in a small home studio - and there wasn’t a pan pipe in sight. If the good burghers of The World’s Global Hit approve, I’ll get them on the radio when I’m back in Boston.
(By the way, I seriously considered titling this post ‘trout mask replica’. Think I should’ve gone with it?)
Just a little thing, something that was playing in a cab here in Manaus. You should recognise the song in seconds. Apologies for the scratchy audio - a problem with the settings on my mini recorder, now resolved. Also, take a look at these tasty fellows: an armo(u)red spider, and the longest earthworm I’ve ever seen.
Alex Gallafent is a reporter and producer with PRI's The World. He's just completed his assignment in the Amazon. Listen out for his radio stories on PRI's The World.
