Sunday, August 26thToday we had reserved for Alter de Chão
. At least we were hoping to go if we didn't have anything urgent to get done. And we got to go - woo hoo! It turned out to be a fantastic activity for my last day in Santarém. We took the bus from town, which was very cheap. When you get there you walk down the hill through a little town to the beach, where you find lots of vendors who want to sell you things. I had expected their prices to be jacked up, since we were in a touristy area, but they really weren't bad. I bought a beachy dress as well as some yummy snacks to take on my long trip back home.
Posted by: Jesse Brown in Santarém, JBTrip, Brazil, Amazon on
Aug 25, 2007
Saturday, August 25thToday we attempted to get a hold of several people back in Santarém, but didn't have a ton of luck. We ended up not being very productive but having some fun instead! First of all, we got up at 2:30 in the morning and got our bus around 3:30am (okay, so not very fun). The bus was a little late. By the time we arrived in Santarém it was around 6 am. This is just the way the schedule is all the time, which must suck for people like Arimar who seem to take the bus multiple times per week. We went out for breakfast at a random little place across town where our taxi driver took us. (We have our own personal taxi driver now - he gave Angela his number when she took a taxi to go meet the Magnolio from PSA the other night, (with whom she had an appointment but never showed or called to apologize). Pretty much anytime we call he comes and gets us in just a few minutes. It is nice if you don't happen to be on a busy street where you can hail a cab. By the way, taxis are pretty cheap here compared to the US. I would avoid taking one for longer distances, but in town it is not a bad way to go if you are in a hurry or don't know how to get where you are going.
Even though we were really tired after breakfast, we couldn't go back to our hotel because check in wasn't until noon. So we did some shopping for a couple hours. When it was finally noon we went back to our hotel for a nice nap.
In the evening we went to a restaurant out by the water where I had a couple of traditional Brazilian things. One was a really strong drink made from sugar cane, and for food we had some sort of fish thing.
Posted by: Jesse Brown in Santarém, JBTrip, Brazil, Amazon on
Aug 23, 2007
Thursday, August 23rdToday we went to Eunice Sena and Father Leão's house. Father Leão is an American priest who has lived here for several decades. Now that I think about it, I am not sure about Eunice's background, other than I assume she is Brazilian. On the way to their house we picked out some giant fish from a guy at a little stand. Father Leão was nice enough to drive us to his house, which was a very good thing because it turns out their house is about 30 minutes by car from downtown, and much of the route is on somewhat dubious dirt roads. Father Leão seemed to know just about everyone along the way, including an Italian expat and the ex-nun he was with who were broken down on the road to their houses.
We had the fish for lunch when we got there and we talked about all sorts of things. For one, I had no idea how involved they are in the issue of micro-hydro. They are part of a micro-hydro coop and they know the engineer who is proposing to do the project with Suruacá. He is actually the engineer who designed the original micro-hydroelectric dam in the region. Now there are quite a few in the rural communities and even more on the local farms. Surprisingly, the engineer only has a 4th grade level education, and no formal training from what I am aware of. Despite this, though, he and some friends experimented with different designs and came up with one that worked better and was cheaper than the existing technology available. And his design is now being replicated throughout the area.
We mentioned the 2 communities that Angela is considering visiting in order to observe the micro-hydro that already exists. I can't remember their names - one was São Jorge and the other was one that someone in Suruacá recommended, but apparently it is really far away. Eunice suggested a different community because they have a better model of the community managing the dam themselves. In fact, she is going to be going to this community in the coming weeks, potentially even with the engineer. She offered for Angela to go with them which she is definitely planning on doing. This will be a fantastic opportunity for Angela not only to see a model of the dam but also to get to know Eunice better and hopefully the engineer as well.
Wednesday, August 22ndThis morning we got up and got ready to go back to Santarém. When I went over to Djalma's house to have breakfast, it was quite scary because I saw Djalma's wife, Magarete lying in the hammock with her face and arms all covered in mud. Djalma told us that she had been burned by an explosion in the oven earlier that morning. We didn't know how serious the burns were, since she was covered in mud, but I was very worried seeing as we were so far from a hospital. After I had been up for an hour or so, she washed the mud off. Thankfully it turned out to only be a first - or maybe second-degree burn. But still it was really creepy and she was obviously in a lot of pain.
The boat ride on the way back was quite a bit rockier - we were going against the wind and it was quite a windy day, which meant some pretty hefty waves. We couldn't even stay in our hammocks because they were rocking so much.
This evening we attempted to get organized for our trip to Maguary, which was supposed to be tomorrow. However, we weren't able to contact several people that we were trying to contact so we decided to stay another day in Santarém and join Arimar on the bus to Maguary on Friday.
Later in the evening we went to a local cultural festival. We had no idea what to expect, but we thought it would be interesting to check it out. It seemed to be organized by local schools. There were examples of houses from different regions within the Amazon, and examples of their crafts and clothing and such. There was also an outdoor performance space where dancing of various kinds were going on. When we first came in the gate to the concert, there was a very large group of kids performing some African style dances. Only as we were leaving did we notice that these were all local kids (mulattoes) who had painted their skin black!
Friday, August 17th Today we took the boat from Santarém to the small community of Suruacá. It was a small riverboat with about 30 people and about 15 hammocks strung up across the deck on top of one another. Angela and I brought our own hammocks which we stayed in for the majority of the six hour boat ride. The boat goes from Santarém to Suruacá only twice per week, so people really need to plan around the schedule.
In addition to the ice and groceries which they had purchased in town, many people on the boat bought gasoline as the boat passed the gas station on the way out of town. They handed empty 2-liter coke bottles to the gas station attendants to fill up. Apparently this is illegal, as it presents a fire hazard on the boat. But it appeared to be the accepted norm, as energy sources are very limited once you get out of the city.
Being out on the huge river with a nice breeze and under the shade of the boat's roof the weather was really almost ideal. It did rain twice during the six hour trip, which meant that people had to pull tarps down to cover the open sides of the boat and prevent everyone's belongings from getting wet. But the rain starts and stops very suddenly. And when the sun came back out it was truly a beautiful scene. We passed by many sandy beaches nestled between the rain forest and the river. There were several people out on the water in canoes who flashed the "thumbs up" sign to us. Which reminds me that here in Brazil hand gestures are very important for communication. Thumbs up can mean anything from "okay" to "thank you" to "that's good!"
