TO VENEZUELA: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23
My guide book warns that a visa is obligatory for those entering Venezuela overland. Further requirements are a $75 banker's certificate and, for drivers, an International Driving Permit.
I possess none of these. I don't even have the original papers for the bike. Neither Brazilian nor Venezuelan officials give a damn. The Venezuelan immigration officer points out that the month I request will be insufficient if another truck hits me. She writes sixty days in my passport. The Customs Officer gives me a transit permit for the bike for the same period. Thirty minutes later I am in the Venezuelan border town of Santa Elena. I have ridden 1600 kilometres in three days and need a cold beer and a good rest. The Hotel Lucretia is run-down but has a pool and the owner is flirtatious. I am content.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
MY SISTER-IN-LAW IS IN BOA VISTA
BOA VISTA: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23
The owner of the Hotel Colonial dispatches the help to lead me across town to the Honda agency where I have a new rear tyre fitted and buy a new pair of goggles. Back at the hotel I discover that my sister-in-law has dropped by. She has a document for me. Bernadette has three sisters. All three are working in London.
I question the receptionist at length in a language he doesn't understand. He replies in a language I don't understand. However the Spanish for sister-in-law is too similar to the Portuguese for confusion.
With a document?
Yes, she had a document.
Is she coming back?
He doesn't believe so.
Could this be the woman who drew me into the Cathedral last night? Is she a religious sister-in-law, our relationship confirmed by the Spirit?
Was the document a Papal Bull?
Or a Plenary Indulgence?
Such mysteries usefully occupy the mind when riding a long straight road in the heat.
The owner of the Hotel Colonial dispatches the help to lead me across town to the Honda agency where I have a new rear tyre fitted and buy a new pair of goggles. Back at the hotel I discover that my sister-in-law has dropped by. She has a document for me. Bernadette has three sisters. All three are working in London.
I question the receptionist at length in a language he doesn't understand. He replies in a language I don't understand. However the Spanish for sister-in-law is too similar to the Portuguese for confusion.
With a document?
Yes, she had a document.
Is she coming back?
He doesn't believe so.
Could this be the woman who drew me into the Cathedral last night? Is she a religious sister-in-law, our relationship confirmed by the Spirit?
Was the document a Papal Bull?
Or a Plenary Indulgence?
Such mysteries usefully occupy the mind when riding a long straight road in the heat.
BOA VISTA, FUN CITY (WHEN OPEN)
BOA VISTA: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22
I ride into Boa Vista at dusk and follow signs to the historic centre. A main street is full of lights and kiosks down the central division selling cold beer and cold sodas. I ask an elderly gentleman for directions to a hotel. He directs me to a five star snake pit. I find a two star hotel on the next block, The Colonial, 40 Reales. The room is paneled in dark varnished wood. The towel is small. I bug spray and shower then collapse and sleep an hour. The hour is too long. I walk back to the great street with the kiosks and the lights. Everything has closed except for the Catholic Cathedral. The architecture is modern-peculiar. So is the service. A chubby white priest in spectacles appeals to the congregation to get with the Spirit. The congregation gets - arms waving above their heads, chanting and swaying.
Wow, where am I? Does the Pope know this stuff is going on?
A woman has grabbed my hand and drawn me into a chanting swaying group.
The priest is summoning the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. "Espirutu," he cries, "Espirutu, Espirutu..."
"Espirutu," cries the congregation "Espirutu, Espirutu..."
There is more, of course, but in Portuguese and I don't do Portuguese. Nor am I good at swaying and waving my arms in the air. Such behaviour isn't British.
I escape and watch football on TV at a corner kiosk serving fruit juice. Brazil are playing Uruguay. I support Uruguay out of loyalty to my dear cousin, Carmen, and because I don't much like Brazil. Four motorcycle cops pull in to check the score.
I ride into Boa Vista at dusk and follow signs to the historic centre. A main street is full of lights and kiosks down the central division selling cold beer and cold sodas. I ask an elderly gentleman for directions to a hotel. He directs me to a five star snake pit. I find a two star hotel on the next block, The Colonial, 40 Reales. The room is paneled in dark varnished wood. The towel is small. I bug spray and shower then collapse and sleep an hour. The hour is too long. I walk back to the great street with the kiosks and the lights. Everything has closed except for the Catholic Cathedral. The architecture is modern-peculiar. So is the service. A chubby white priest in spectacles appeals to the congregation to get with the Spirit. The congregation gets - arms waving above their heads, chanting and swaying.
Wow, where am I? Does the Pope know this stuff is going on?
A woman has grabbed my hand and drawn me into a chanting swaying group.
The priest is summoning the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. "Espirutu," he cries, "Espirutu, Espirutu..."
"Espirutu," cries the congregation "Espirutu, Espirutu..."
There is more, of course, but in Portuguese and I don't do Portuguese. Nor am I good at swaying and waving my arms in the air. Such behaviour isn't British.
I escape and watch football on TV at a corner kiosk serving fruit juice. Brazil are playing Uruguay. I support Uruguay out of loyalty to my dear cousin, Carmen, and because I don't much like Brazil. Four motorcycle cops pull in to check the score.
BRAZIL INVENTED ICE HOCKEY
TO BOA VISTA: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22
I am surprised at passing a monument acclaiming Brazil's invention of ice hockey. I look back and see a notice. The monument marks the equator. Why with an ice hockey stick projecting from a boulder?
I park and wait for a kindly truck or car driver to take my photograph. I wait twenty minutes in the heat. This is not heat that sun lovers enjoy basking in. It is a heat that makes you long for air conditioning.
I run with sweat. To hell with waiting. A photograph of the bike at the monument will suffice.
I should carry a tripod and read the camera manual so that I can photograph myself.
Or travel with Ming.
I would like to be able to down load the photograph of the hockey stick onto this BLOG.
I am writing this in Santa Elena, Venezuela. Venezuelan computers don't download photographs - not the half dozen terminals I've tried.
I am surprised at passing a monument acclaiming Brazil's invention of ice hockey. I look back and see a notice. The monument marks the equator. Why with an ice hockey stick projecting from a boulder?
I park and wait for a kindly truck or car driver to take my photograph. I wait twenty minutes in the heat. This is not heat that sun lovers enjoy basking in. It is a heat that makes you long for air conditioning.
I run with sweat. To hell with waiting. A photograph of the bike at the monument will suffice.
I should carry a tripod and read the camera manual so that I can photograph myself.
Or travel with Ming.
I would like to be able to down load the photograph of the hockey stick onto this BLOG.
I am writing this in Santa Elena, Venezuela. Venezuelan computers don't download photographs - not the half dozen terminals I've tried.
MOSTLY DIABOLICAL
TO BOA VISTA: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22
The road to Boa Vista comes in three grades: reasonable, awful and diabolical. The first and last sections are reasonable together with 80 Ks in the Indian Reserve. The rest is potholed. Try slaloming the potholes - three serves max then Wham! You've hit an elephant trap. Two hits and you give up slaloming. Creep is the only method. Better still, find a local driver to follow. On a bike that gets you grit in your eyes. I hit one pothole hard and lost the suitcase off the back rack. Two rubbers had parted. Clambering out of potholes wore the tread off my rear tyre.
The road to Boa Vista comes in three grades: reasonable, awful and diabolical. The first and last sections are reasonable together with 80 Ks in the Indian Reserve. The rest is potholed. Try slaloming the potholes - three serves max then Wham! You've hit an elephant trap. Two hits and you give up slaloming. Creep is the only method. Better still, find a local driver to follow. On a bike that gets you grit in your eyes. I hit one pothole hard and lost the suitcase off the back rack. Two rubbers had parted. Clambering out of potholes wore the tread off my rear tyre.
BRAZIL FOR OBESITY
TO BOA VISTA: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21
I take a room in an inn off the highway in Presidente Figueiredo. The room has a double bed with a good mattress, clean bathroom, hot water. Room rate is 12 Brit pounds, less than half the cost of a bug-infested cabana at an Eco lodge an insane distance up an Amazon tributary.
Before taking a shower, I hit the room with insecticide. Five minutes under the shower and I am ready to make a body count: six mosquitoes and one fly dead on the bed sheet.
I walk down to the town centre, drink cold beer, eat a cheese and ham toasty and people watch. A child attempts a runner to the ice cream parlor across the square. The young mother jerks the child back by the arm. The mother is not happy. I feel for her. In Brazil distances are so great, every small town has the feel of being the end of a line. I see it in this young mother's face and have seen it in the faces of other young women: a kid already, trapped, imprisoned, no way out. She could have gone to Sao Paulo, had a career, become someone (maybe).
Now she is condemned to be a mother and a man's chattel. A man who doesn't bother coming directly home from work. More fun to be had out with the boys. She only twenty and already waiting...screw it, eat another slice of chocolate cake.
No wonder so many Brazilian women are obese. Misery does it.
I take a room in an inn off the highway in Presidente Figueiredo. The room has a double bed with a good mattress, clean bathroom, hot water. Room rate is 12 Brit pounds, less than half the cost of a bug-infested cabana at an Eco lodge an insane distance up an Amazon tributary.
Before taking a shower, I hit the room with insecticide. Five minutes under the shower and I am ready to make a body count: six mosquitoes and one fly dead on the bed sheet.
I walk down to the town centre, drink cold beer, eat a cheese and ham toasty and people watch. A child attempts a runner to the ice cream parlor across the square. The young mother jerks the child back by the arm. The mother is not happy. I feel for her. In Brazil distances are so great, every small town has the feel of being the end of a line. I see it in this young mother's face and have seen it in the faces of other young women: a kid already, trapped, imprisoned, no way out. She could have gone to Sao Paulo, had a career, become someone (maybe).
Now she is condemned to be a mother and a man's chattel. A man who doesn't bother coming directly home from work. More fun to be had out with the boys. She only twenty and already waiting...screw it, eat another slice of chocolate cake.
No wonder so many Brazilian women are obese. Misery does it.
GOD HAS A MESSAGE FOR US
TO BOA VISTA: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21
God has filled the rain forest with bugs that bite, reptiles that bite, animals that bite and various lethal plants. God is sending us a message. The forest is the planet's lungs - KEEP OUT. This applies to both Brazilian farmers and Eco tourists demanding a real-life jungle experience.
I am riding in late evening towards concrete sidewalks, a paved square and air conditioning. I dwell for a moment on Victoria (she of the boat trip from Porto Velho). She is fighting for her life in a hut on the swampy shores of a lake 200 Ks up an Amazon tributary. Safely home in Cadiz, Spain, she will tell everyone what a great time she had.
Great for masochists...
God has filled the rain forest with bugs that bite, reptiles that bite, animals that bite and various lethal plants. God is sending us a message. The forest is the planet's lungs - KEEP OUT. This applies to both Brazilian farmers and Eco tourists demanding a real-life jungle experience.
I am riding in late evening towards concrete sidewalks, a paved square and air conditioning. I dwell for a moment on Victoria (she of the boat trip from Porto Velho). She is fighting for her life in a hut on the swampy shores of a lake 200 Ks up an Amazon tributary. Safely home in Cadiz, Spain, she will tell everyone what a great time she had.
Great for masochists...
STORM IN A GAZEBO
TO BOA VISTA: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22
My want-to-be host makes a run for a cabana. He opens the door, closes it quickly and dashes to the next cabana. I guess that the first has a leaky roof. Wind blasts the downpour in under the gazebo roof. I tip the table and shelter beneath it. Mosquitoes hate wind. My table is the only shelter. Drenched or devoured? That is the question.
My host returns triumphant. He has killed a snake. He drapes it over a chair. This is a man who wishes to persuade me to spend the night.
No, thanks. The rain is slackening. I'll be moving on.
My want-to-be host makes a run for a cabana. He opens the door, closes it quickly and dashes to the next cabana. I guess that the first has a leaky roof. Wind blasts the downpour in under the gazebo roof. I tip the table and shelter beneath it. Mosquitoes hate wind. My table is the only shelter. Drenched or devoured? That is the question.
My host returns triumphant. He has killed a snake. He drapes it over a chair. This is a man who wishes to persuade me to spend the night.
Rain has stirred the green sludge in the swimming pool. The lawn hasn't been cut in weeks. We are surrounded by trees. Bomb the place for a month with an insecticide cocktail and the bugs would giggle and dance a samba.
Am I ready to see the cabana?No, thanks. The rain is slackening. I'll be moving on.
HEAVENLY ASSAULT
NORTH TO BOA VISTA: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21
I ride back to Manaus and finally find the straight on road to Boa Vista which is a right angle left off what is clearly the main highway. I race a rain storm for 60 Ks before pulling in to a roadside restaurant for shelter. The owner insists on showing me a cabana out the back. We are mid way to the cabana when the storm explodes. We dash for shelter in a Brazilian poolside gazebo - tin roof, four posts, concrete base, garden table, four chairs. No gap between lightning and thunder - we are the focus of the assault. Is a tin roof sound protection?
I ride back to Manaus and finally find the straight on road to Boa Vista which is a right angle left off what is clearly the main highway. I race a rain storm for 60 Ks before pulling in to a roadside restaurant for shelter. The owner insists on showing me a cabana out the back. We are mid way to the cabana when the storm explodes. We dash for shelter in a Brazilian poolside gazebo - tin roof, four posts, concrete base, garden table, four chairs. No gap between lightning and thunder - we are the focus of the assault. Is a tin roof sound protection?
Friday, November 23, 2007
ITACOATIARA
EAST ALONG THE AMAZON: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20
Itacoatiara is a nice town, clean, tidy and safe. A double row of trees attempt to shade the main avenue which leads to the river bank. Teenagers in school uniform ride bikes and motor scooters. The Hotel Amazon stands above the river. A big freighter lies at anchor over near the far bank. A single with bath and a/c is less than 10 pounds. You can sit on the terrace and look down on the river and watch the ships and boats. Beer is cold. A variety of river fish are on the menu. Not a bad place to chill for a couple of days...
Itacoatiara is a nice town, clean, tidy and safe. A double row of trees attempt to shade the main avenue which leads to the river bank. Teenagers in school uniform ride bikes and motor scooters. The Hotel Amazon stands above the river. A big freighter lies at anchor over near the far bank. A single with bath and a/c is less than 10 pounds. You can sit on the terrace and look down on the river and watch the ships and boats. Beer is cold. A variety of river fish are on the menu. Not a bad place to chill for a couple of days...
STRAIGHT ON
EAST ALONG THE AMAZON: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20
The road north from Manaus divides at the city outskirts. Ask any Brazilian for Boa Vista and he will point and gesture and say, "Straight, straight..."
He or she will tell you this within a hundred metres of the police post that marks the division of the road. Straight on takes you parallel with the Amazon.
For Boa Vista, turn left ninety degrees.
No, there isn't a sign.
I headed straight on at 6.30 a.m. I would have known that I was on the wrong road had I seen the sun. Mist clung to the trees and I wore my leather jacket against the chill and damp. The knees of my trousers were soaked. I wiped my glasses every few minutes.
At around 8.30. the sun broke through the mist. I remained in self-denial for a further few kilometres before pulling into a gas station. "Boa Vista?"
The pump attendant points back the way I've come. "Straight, straight..."
I show him the map.
He can't read a map.
A truck pulls in. I show the map to the driver. I am headed for: "A nice town," the driver says. "Clean and safe."
A further 160 Ks to see a small town on the Amazon River, Itacoatiara: a nice town, a clean town, a safe town?
Sure, why not?
The road north from Manaus divides at the city outskirts. Ask any Brazilian for Boa Vista and he will point and gesture and say, "Straight, straight..."
He or she will tell you this within a hundred metres of the police post that marks the division of the road. Straight on takes you parallel with the Amazon.
For Boa Vista, turn left ninety degrees.
No, there isn't a sign.
I headed straight on at 6.30 a.m. I would have known that I was on the wrong road had I seen the sun. Mist clung to the trees and I wore my leather jacket against the chill and damp. The knees of my trousers were soaked. I wiped my glasses every few minutes.
At around 8.30. the sun broke through the mist. I remained in self-denial for a further few kilometres before pulling into a gas station. "Boa Vista?"
The pump attendant points back the way I've come. "Straight, straight..."
I show him the map.
He can't read a map.
A truck pulls in. I show the map to the driver. I am headed for: "A nice town," the driver says. "Clean and safe."
A further 160 Ks to see a small town on the Amazon River, Itacoatiara: a nice town, a clean town, a safe town?
Sure, why not?
BEACH VOLLEY BALL - SPORT OF THE PEOPLE
THE HOTEL PALACE, MANAUS. NOVEMBER 14 - 19
Guests at the Hotel Palace in Manaus enjoy TV at breakfast. The breakfast is good and comes free with the room. TV programs are either cartoons or beach volley ball. Beach volley ball is the sport of the people. The cost is minimal: a patch of sand, ball, net - and designer shades.
Guests at the Hotel Palace in Manaus enjoy TV at breakfast. The breakfast is good and comes free with the room. TV programs are either cartoons or beach volley ball. Beach volley ball is the sport of the people. The cost is minimal: a patch of sand, ball, net - and designer shades.
ART WORLD CAFÉS SUCK
MANAUS: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19
There is a type of bar, café, restaurant on the periphery of the art world. Maybe it includes a gallery or is owned by the younger sister of a critic. It is a place where knowing the help by name gets your served less slowly - though probably with the wrong order - and you pay more for being an insider somewhere a sensible person wouldn't want to be inside.
A New York editor took me to such a place some years back. I recall that the waiter was a Michael and wore a red shirt.
Such places are an invention of the US. A gypsy society without roots, North Americans crave the illusion of belonging and of friendships - hence their habit of abbreviating first names. My brother, Antony, becomes a Tone while I am Si.
The desire to belong fosters restaurant guides which our New York friends study eagerly to discover what place is IN? Then they trek right across town to eat the same food they could have eaten on their own block and pay twice as much.
Celebrity cooks are another menace.
I enjoy cooking. I read cookery books and watch cookery programs on TV.
I do not want to shake the hand of a celebrity cook at his restaurant. He should be in the kitchen. I want to eat his food and enjoy the company of my companions.
What started this rant?
The Café Galeria do Lago on the Square in Manaus...
There is a type of bar, café, restaurant on the periphery of the art world. Maybe it includes a gallery or is owned by the younger sister of a critic. It is a place where knowing the help by name gets your served less slowly - though probably with the wrong order - and you pay more for being an insider somewhere a sensible person wouldn't want to be inside.
A New York editor took me to such a place some years back. I recall that the waiter was a Michael and wore a red shirt.
Such places are an invention of the US. A gypsy society without roots, North Americans crave the illusion of belonging and of friendships - hence their habit of abbreviating first names. My brother, Antony, becomes a Tone while I am Si.
The desire to belong fosters restaurant guides which our New York friends study eagerly to discover what place is IN? Then they trek right across town to eat the same food they could have eaten on their own block and pay twice as much.
Celebrity cooks are another menace.
I enjoy cooking. I read cookery books and watch cookery programs on TV.
I do not want to shake the hand of a celebrity cook at his restaurant. He should be in the kitchen. I want to eat his food and enjoy the company of my companions.
What started this rant?
The Café Galeria do Lago on the Square in Manaus...
INWARD LOOKING
MANAUS: MONDAY, NOVEMER 19
A couple of middle-aged bikers park a big, decal-clad Yamaha trail bike on the sidewalk outside Armando´s Bar. I am drinking a cold beer. I ask how the road is to Boa Vista. They tell me the road is badly potholed. These are Brazilians, inward looking. They don´t ask what bike I ride or where I have come from or where I am headed. A minute kitten stalks a cowardly dachshund. The dachshund retreats between my feet.
A couple of middle-aged bikers park a big, decal-clad Yamaha trail bike on the sidewalk outside Armando´s Bar. I am drinking a cold beer. I ask how the road is to Boa Vista. They tell me the road is badly potholed. These are Brazilians, inward looking. They don´t ask what bike I ride or where I have come from or where I am headed. A minute kitten stalks a cowardly dachshund. The dachshund retreats between my feet.
Monday, November 19, 2007
PERFECT CITY SQUARE
MANAUS: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18
I sat in the theatre square this evening and watched dancers perform a program of folkloric ballet on an outdoor stage. The dancers had more charm than expertise. The Amazonian music, vocal and instrumental, was a delight. How can a people who produce such beautiful music delight in such loathsome pop?
As to the dancing - I am reminded of how difficult is the art of choreography. The human body is limited in its movements. Only the greatest choreographers avoid a repetition of motion or gesture that becomes mundane. The greatest performance of all? For me, the Cuban Ballet's version of Swan Lake. Sensual sadness is a winner and only the Cubans make me weep - this from an addict who has seen Swan Lake performed in Kiev and Saint Petersberg and Moscow and London.
As to the square in Manaus, ballet is only one attraction on Sunday evening. Toddlers speed on electric trikes, actors perform between the twin stairs, a double carriage bus modeled as a Toy Town train beeps on a circuit, the beer is cold and the café on the corner serves smoked fish tarts.
Take ten degrees off the temperature and Manaus would be a good place to live.
I sat in the theatre square this evening and watched dancers perform a program of folkloric ballet on an outdoor stage. The dancers had more charm than expertise. The Amazonian music, vocal and instrumental, was a delight. How can a people who produce such beautiful music delight in such loathsome pop?
As to the dancing - I am reminded of how difficult is the art of choreography. The human body is limited in its movements. Only the greatest choreographers avoid a repetition of motion or gesture that becomes mundane. The greatest performance of all? For me, the Cuban Ballet's version of Swan Lake. Sensual sadness is a winner and only the Cubans make me weep - this from an addict who has seen Swan Lake performed in Kiev and Saint Petersberg and Moscow and London.
As to the square in Manaus, ballet is only one attraction on Sunday evening. Toddlers speed on electric trikes, actors perform between the twin stairs, a double carriage bus modeled as a Toy Town train beeps on a circuit, the beer is cold and the café on the corner serves smoked fish tarts.
Take ten degrees off the temperature and Manaus would be a good place to live.
FOOD WITH THE CONSISTENCY OF SHARP SAND
MANAUS: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18
Most days I wake at 5.45. Today I sleep through to 9. I deserve a hangover. I feel grand. Nor have I suffered from cramp since taking the homeopathic pills bought in Porta Grossa - more than three weeks.
Sundays the main shopping street in downtown Manaus becomes a vast open air restaurant. I find a table. The cook brings me a plate piled mostly with things that I don't want to eat. A yellow pap is revolting. What I hoped were fried potatoes are a different and mildly unpleasant stringy tuber - and there is a flower ground from mandioca (what ever that is) that has the consistency of sharp sand. I eat a little and think of my friend and writer, Cliff Irving. Cliff took a five day trip down the Amazon and decamped after the first twenty-four hours. Was it mosquitoes, or the sameness of the jungle? Or the food? Above is a photograph of the food I left on my plate.
DRUNK AS A SKUNK - DO SKUNKS DRINK?
theatre of amazonia,
font and side
MANAUS: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17
I set out for the theatre and a concert this evening. I had high cultural intentions. My mistake was in sitting at a sidewalk table outside Bar Armando. I was hijacked by a young copywriter and his girlfriend in marketing. The girlfriend is a local girl. He is from San Paolo. They have been enjoying an Internet relationship for a while. The physical meeting has gone well. A squad of large empty beer bottles parade on their table. I ignore the warning. A few further beers and I welcome their invitation to visit the girlfriend's mother's bar over in the new city. The mother is in remission after chemo. Her bar has fifty tables outdoors on two levels and serves great fish. The mother judges her daughter drunk. The daughter is in no state to argue the point. Nor is the boyfriend. Nor am I. We sit next to a Japanese/Brazilian photo journalist and her novio, a print journalist specialising in and campaigning on ecology. What do we discuss?
Don't be dumb. This is Brazil. There are only two subjects. Endemic corruption and incompetent Government.
The two journalists drive me back to the hotel at 1 p.m. They warn that the area is dangerous. It is the area through which I have been wandering over the past few days.
I apologise to the copywriter and his girlfriend. This was their last night together and I was probably boring and obsessive.
A FEW COMPLAINTS
MANAUS: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17
I am in love with the Theatre square. Pollarded trees surround the square and shade stone benches. The pavement is a mosaic of white and black squiggles. A monument to the five continents commands the centre. There are joyful juxtapositions: a short-time hotel, a strip joint, the restored house of a music historian, a church, a bar with tables on the narrow sidewalk and in the road.
I have a few complaints.
Office buildings block the breeze from the river.
Musicians play competitively inharmonious noise on an outdoor stage.
Brazilians have little grace in their movements and few are beautiful - I compare with Cuba and the Dominican Republic. On the boat I found only one woman to photograph for her looks. A beauty? No, but attractive.
Perhaps all the beautiful people live on the coast...
I am in love with the Theatre square. Pollarded trees surround the square and shade stone benches. The pavement is a mosaic of white and black squiggles. A monument to the five continents commands the centre. There are joyful juxtapositions: a short-time hotel, a strip joint, the restored house of a music historian, a church, a bar with tables on the narrow sidewalk and in the road.
I have a few complaints.
Office buildings block the breeze from the river.
Musicians play competitively inharmonious noise on an outdoor stage.
Brazilians have little grace in their movements and few are beautiful - I compare with Cuba and the Dominican Republic. On the boat I found only one woman to photograph for her looks. A beauty? No, but attractive.
Perhaps all the beautiful people live on the coast...
THIS IS AMAZONIA
theatre square, monument to the continents
MANAUS: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15
I am invited to dinner by a young couple, friends of friends made in Porto Velho. We drive along a bluff above the Amazon. Apartment blocks for the rich line the shore side of the road. Apartments sell for upward of a million dollars. Where does the money come from? Hush...
We eat delicious fish at an outdoor restaurant above a river beach. Pale skinned dancers prance on stage. The dancers are dressed in Hollywood jungle outfits: bare feet, feather headresses, mini skirts.
I imagine a true indigenous family straying from the jungle in their canoe. What would they they think of the dancers and apartment blocks?
My young host claims that Brazilians are lazy. The country is so rich, people expect it to do the work for them.
He is a good Catholic and works for charities in his spare time. He ignores red lights and drives to my hotel the wrong way up a one-way street.
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