The last in the chair, at the end of the day

And I think this concludes the Amazon series for a while........

Pin It

Domino theory in action

Caroline just won those girls over, braid by braid. No sooner was one little girl sauntering through the bush with her new from-foreign-hair-do, then the next sister had plunked herself down on the stool for her turn.

Nary a word was spoken. At least nary a word that could be understood.

But really, what needed to be said?

Pin It

Have comb, will travel

Caroline took time with each of the girls, from youngest to oldest.

Except of course for the surly, sultry teenager.

But the little girls... what more can you say? They fall in love with you so easily.

Have Comb, Will Travel

Ink and watercolor on paper.

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It

The way to a girl's heart...

--- is often through her hair. Just ask any woman who's suffering through a bad hair day.

We were a group of 6 in all:

Myself and my friend, Ali

A married couple from Swizterland, Ursula and Jorg, who spoke very little English and so were just as isolated from the rest of our tourist group as they were from our Brazilian hosts

A twenty-something single woman from England, Alexandra, also known as Ali (source of some confusion), who'd been traveling solo for nearly 5 months

And a pair of twenty-something single women from New Zealand, Caroline and Fiona. They'd been away from home for nearly two and a half years. They alternated between working in whatever country they happened to be in at the moment and then shooting off on a traveling adventure. They'd just arrived in Brazil after living and working odd jobs for five weeks in Venezuela.

And it was the evervescent Caroline who warmed up the girl children in our host home. She whipped our her comb, brush and some colorful hair elastics and was an immediate superstar.

Solange is delighted with the french braid Caroline meticulously created for her.

No, really. I know she's not grinning from ear-to-ear, but, well, I don't think that she grinned form ear-to-ear very often.

She was shy and slow to smile, but delighted nonetheless.........

Pin It

Mixed Reviews

Delight coupled with trepidation.

Hmmmm - this was better than the outright disdain of their older sister.

Pin It

Amazon Adolescent

Despite the warm welcome from The Old Man, not everyone was delighted to have us as their guests.

Sullen and sultry, this 16-year old daughter of the family was less-than-pleased to have yet another noisy gang of foreigners descend on her home. It meant money for the family, yes, but it also meant more dirty floors to sweep, more meals to prepare in the outdoor kitchen and more dirty dishes to wash at the riverside.

And you know how teenage girls feel about housework.

She gave us the once-over as we clambered up on the verandah of their home, and then turned her gaze back across the lagoon from whence we'd come, stealing a few more private minutes to herself.

Pin It

A Cable Knit Sweater in the Tropics

Our plane landed in Manaus at 3:30am and we had neither a plan nor a reservation. A dog-eared guidebook and a little faith in the local taxi driver can make up for the lack of a meticulous itinerary. A 20-minute cab ride to downtown Manaus cost us about $8 US, and we were delivered to the door of the Pensao Sulista.

We woke up the young desk clerk -- well, I guess you'd call him the desk clerk. He was shirtless, and sleeping in a hammock in the cramped lobby. He showed us one of the two rooms available, it had AC, no private bath, and 4 twin beds. Although there were only two of us, we were bleary-eyed and exhausted, so we took it, much to the relief of the desk clerk who clearly was anxious to get back to his hammock. Total cost, 80 cruzados, or about $12 US a night.

It wasn't until we'd spent a few days exploring Manaus, then making our memorable riverboat ride on the Dejard Vieira down the Amazon, that we thought it fit to finally get back into the jungle itself. Our inimitable desk clerk directed us to an independent guide, who was making a pitch to several other guests one morning in the lobby. We were invited to live with a family in the jungle, rustic but comfortable accommodations, all meals, transportation, daily excursions, hikes, fishing in the jungle, all for $30US per person per day, 5 to 10-days tours available.

We didn't hesitate; we put our money down.

And this kindly gentleman was to be our host. We didn't meet him until the next day, after a long, worrisome journey beyond the city limits. We traveled first by boat, then by a local bus which brought us to another boat, which motored across lagoons and tributaries before we pulled up to the shore in front of a wooden structure on stilts.

The owner of the home, this man with the gentle eyes, invited us in to his humble home. He wore this soft, orange cable-knit sweater most days, which struck me as just a preposterous sartorial choice for living in the jungle. I don't recall his name; our guide simply referred to him as The Old Man..........

Pin It

Meeting of the waters, meeting of the blood

Just before we arrived at our destination of Santarem by the riverboat Dejard Vieira, we saw a spectacular natural phenomenon, known as The Meeting of the Waters.

There is the giant merging of the Rio Negro with The Amazon (aka The Solimoes), just 6 miles or so beyond Manaus but I expect we may have missed seeing it as we pushed out from the dock in Manaus after dark. But as we approached Santarem two days later, we saw the hauntingly beautiful mixing of the Tapajos River into the Solimoes. The Tapajos is an extraordinarily blue aquamarine while The Amazon here is a sandy brown.

And when the Tapajos tributary flows into the master river, the two typically do not mix, but rather run along, side by side for quite some time. There is a stark, striking differentiation between the two, visible as you lean over the side of the boat and look straight down into the water. It is almost impossible to believe what you are seeing, like oil and water in a salad dressing cruet, remarkably sliding against one another, without mixing.

And of course that is an apt metaphor for the people we met in Brazil, like this child on the riverboat. While in Rio, we saw Latin features nestled within African profiles, or in Manaus, the swimming of European features in the face of an indigenous Indian tribe -- and vice versa. Regardless of the sources, the features live stunningly side by side, creating a spectacular beauty of their own.

Meeting of the Waters, Meeting of the Blood
Ink and watercolor on paper.

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It

No cable in the jungle; we are the entertainment

No matter how many times Mother called, she stared at us. Who needs tv; American tourists in the flesh can't be beat. So she looked, just as we looked at her. And then she posed. And finally smiled..........

No Cable In The Jungle
Ink and watercolor on paper.

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It

Manioc and Malaria

I became addicted to "farofa", during my stay in Amazonas. It is derived from manioc (man-YOCK), or the cassava, a tuber root which is a plentiful crop in the Amazon jungle. This gentleman is a manioc farmer, a purveyor of farofa.

It is said that the cassava/manioc root gives the highest yield of food energy per cultivated area per day among crop plants, with the exception, perhaps, of sugarcane. A gift of the tropics.

Whether eating at a fine restaurant in Manaus, or at the humble table of a rural family, miles-deep into the jungle, a bowl of farofa sat on our table. It had the consistency of a coarsely grated, yet crunchy, parmesan cheese.

But it clearly was nothing of the sort; cheese would have congealed into a greasy, lumpy mass in that climate. Our farofa was always crunchy and firm. We sprinkled it freely upon our rice and beans, stews or soups or whatever else on our plates that called its name. It provided a distinct firm contrast to its food host.

But as this gentleman farmer advised us, you cannot consume manioc raw, as it contains a poisonous element easily converted to cyanide as it ripens. Our farmer friend showed us how he, working deep in the bush, carefully processed his manioc to remove these toxins.

First, he would peel away the outer skin of the the roots, grind the remaining tuber into a flour and then repeatedly soak the flour in water, using long, hand-carved wooden troughs filled with fresh water. He and his helpers then removed the flour from the troughs and squeezed it dry, soaked it again, squeezed it, soaked it, over and over again until all of the cyanide was, presumably, drained from the flour.

The certainty of this process gave me pause. Just how many times do you soak and squeeze? Shrug of shoulders. As many times as it takes.

Hmph.

Then he finally toasted the flour to a light, crunchy texture. By the time I left Brazil, I was sprinkling farofa on EVERYTHING. And brought bags of it home to New York.

This gentleman farmer lives amidst the plenty of the jungle, yet he is ashen and gaunt. Despite the abundance of his crop, which is a rich source of energy, he appears haggard and drawn. And much older than his years.

He confessed to us that he has been suffering from Malaria for quite some time, and because he lives so far away from the city, he is unable to obtain any treatment. Malaria is another plentiful by-product of life in the Amazon jungle.

Nature giveth, and nature taketh away..........

Manioc and Malaria
Ink and watercolor on paper.

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It

Amazonas Children

Despite their mother's call to go back inside their wooden board house, we were too much of a curiosity to resist. One glanced at Mother with annoyance, while the other stole a look around the door.........

Amazonas Children
Ink and watercolor on paper.

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It

Getting back to the hammock

So I was telling you about the decision to bunk in a cabin rather than sleep alfresco in a hammock aboard the Dejard Vieira. And what a mistake it was. Woulda coulda shoulda. Have you ever had those opportunities of a lifetime that you squander? Not to realize your mistake until it's too late?

That is how I feel about sailing down the Amazon.

This litttle girl was among the experienced locals who knew how "to flex." Have hammock, will travel.

As I said, I suppose it was just as well we chose to book a boat ride only for the few days it took to sail from Manaus to Santarem, rather than the much longer journey from Manaus to the port city of Belem at the Atlantic Ocean. Upon arrival, we hunkered down in Santarem for a few days before hitching a ride back to Manaus on a small aircraft that gave us a breathtaking view of the jungle from above. So all was not lost.

The sights, sounds and, as always, the people we met on that trip, as well as all of the other precious travel gems that fell in our laps while in the Amazon, were a gift. We did utimatley have a chance to sleep in a hammock deep in the jungle for days on end, under the watchful gaze of a portrait of the British Royal Family, no less

And did I tell you we fished for and ate our catch of piranha, shared table scraps with a tapir, and swam in Amazon tributaries we later found out were home to crocodiles? Or were they alligators? Or caimans? Aaahhh, I never can remember the difference.

And I expect if one had taken a bite out of me, it wouldn't much matter what it was called, eh?

Pin It

The Amazons - at Sunset

No, I'm not talking about the river this time, although it churned slowly in the distance beyond these young lovely girls.

Serious and curious, I think they were sisters. And like little girls anywhere, Amazons or not, they were combing and pinning up one another's hair as the sun fell slowly into the jungle.

Amazons at Sunset
Ink and watercolor on paper

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It

Changes in Latitudes, changes in, hmmm, where do I begin?

Well maybe, there aren't so many changes after all, now that I think of it. But more on that later.

This is a young girl I met on the "Dejard Viera," a hulking, 3-tiered wooden riverboat. I don't know if I ever learned her name, but she couldn't get enough of me and vice versa.

We spent a few days together as the Dejard Viera steamed down the Amazon river, ferrying us from the city of Manaus to the smaller port city of Santarem in Brazil. We would have liked to make the journey all the way to the ocean at the city of Belem, but budgets and time prevented us from doing so.

Probably just as well.

We foolish gringos had paid for Nice Cabin on the mid-deck, with the promise of comfortable bunks, privacy, security and perhaps a functioning air conditioner. A toaster oven would have been more comfortable. None of the aforementioned-amenities were as promised.

All the locals on board, of course, knew better; pack a hammock and suspend it from the many upright poles supporting the upper deck and sleep al fresco on the broad open mid-decks. The massive Amazonas roiling beneath the hull cooled the hot sticky air to a comfortable sleeping temperature. A breeze, if you will.

Unlike Nice Cabin.

Never forget: when in the Amazon, do as the Amazonas............

Changes in Latitudes
Ink and watercolor on paper.

Purchase a print of this painting here.

Pin It