Brazil

The boat carried cargo and about 200 people. It had three floors and was about 60 feet long. I am guessing though. At night, there were so many stars, including my favorite southern hemisphere constellation, the Southern Cross. We are very close the to the equator now, only 3 degrees south and will cross over to the northern hemisphere to get to Venezuela and see Angel Falls. It will be only the third time in 10 months that I will be back in the northern hemisphere!

Trying to think of what else I wanted to write..... I never wrote about my birthday which was an excellent day! During the day, Kate and I were swimming and saw a dolphin about 5 feet away - a great birthday gift. Then after in our pousada, Kate surprised me with a birthday cake and presents. At that time, we had made friends with a group of about 10 people and we had lots of laughs that evening while carousing about town. Also spoke to my family who sang happy birthday to me over the phone - a nice treat!

Let's see, what else..... nothing else comes to mind. Need to extend my stupid visa for Brazil, only Americans actually need a visa, Kate needs nothing, and that is proving difficult because no one actually seems to know where the Federal Police station is and when it is actually open. We tried to do this in Belem and ended up taking two very expensive taxi rides to find out that we were in the wrong place anyway! Very frustrating and it is on those days that I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO SPEAK ENGLISH!!!

We are heading to Venezuela, a 36-hour bus ride, sometime this week, as soon as I sort out my visa that is. Tomorrow we are heading to a river beach nearby with some guys we met on the boat. Not much time left and lots of distance to cover!!!!!!!!!!!

May 19 - Foz do Iguacu, Brazil

Back in Brazil and have covered tons of ground. We are in Foz do Iquacu which is on the border of Argentina and Paraguay and has waterfalls that are bigger than Victoria Falls and Niagara Falls together. Kate's parents arrive tomorrow for a two-week stint in Brazil so we will wait until Monday to see the falls.

We just finished a tour in the Pantanal, huge wetlands in the center of Brazil. No one, including me, has ever heard of this area and it is the least explored place in South America. It does, however, contain the most flora and fauna of any place in the Western hemisphere. The word Pantanal means swamp in Portuguese but this is a bit misleading because the land is only a swamp for half a year. The other half it is completely dry. The water level raises over 6 metres in the wet season, covering 70 percent of the land and leaving only high-level places exposed which makes travel to the area impossible. Now it is the beginning of the dry season so we were able to travel down the Transpantaneira, the only 'road' in the Pantanal.

The Transpantaneira is a pothole-filled, dusty road that only covers half of the Pantanal. Along the road are 118 wooden bridges that are in various stages of disrepair. The wood is eroded and rotted and if the wheels of the vehicle go off the narrow wooden plank then there are big problems. We witnessed a truck which had its wheel half way through the bridge and all the stopped trucks (3 of them including us) stopped to help out. The men were jovial and not really concerned and were more content to chat with us then to attend to the problem at hand... ahh, Brazil.

The Pantanal is 210,000 square kilometres, about the size of France. Most of the land is privately owned farms called fazendas. The area should be owned by the government and be untouchable to all developers but, sadly, that is not the case. Illegal hunters, gold miners using mercury, and commercial fishermen are all taking a precious fortune away in skins, gold and fish as well as taking rare birds to sell to people in First World countries for pets. The government does nothing to enforce the laws and the Pantanal may be something you only can read about in 30 years. There is a market in Rio called Duque de Caxais that sells the animals that are smuggled out of the Pantanal, all illegally. Our Pantanal guide gave me a book to read by Vic Banks about the Pantanal and the problems it is experiencing. The author went to the market and saw the most hideous things being done to the animals. For example, "Two men holding a large toucan down on the table, trying to fix a chain to its leg, and the bird is frantically flapping its wings with everything it's got, letting out a high-pitched scream, defecating and vomiting at the same time. One of the men, visibly angry, dumps the helpless, fabulously beautiful creature in a sack" (The Pantanal pg 244). Unreal how humans can treat animals. It makes me sick.