Sao Francisco

So for our first trip the program took us to Sao Francisco, a small town a couple hours south of Belem. The trip was meant to finally give us a good background in what the surrounding rain forest and farming communities were really like. Day 1 was spent traveling and checking out an old-growth forest near the hotel. We hiked for awhile with one of our guest speakers, who showed us around the area.

The field above was a portion of a regrowth forest just outside the primary forest area. Farmers had just burned it a few days ago to prepare the field for manioc crops. Next we headed back to the hotel to relax. Thanks to our drivers (who speed through dust and potholes like they're not there) we got there in no time.

 The next day our academic director took us to a larger primary forest to do some group research. We were split into groups of 4 or 5 and sent into the forest.

The image above is of a tapped rubber tree. These have been all over the forests we've been visiting. If youve got a machete, you can oftentimes extract some of the white goo and have it harden right in your hand!

 The really great part about the day was all the biodiversity I saw. Leaf-cutter ants, spiders supposedly more dangerous than scorpions, etc. I'm not sure about the story behind the red bug, but the green/orange one was a type of stink bug. More or less a skunk in beetle form...

Probably the scariest moment of the day was coming across a snake on the path we were on. It was chasing after a small rodent of some sort when we came across it, so it didnt notice us immediately. But the moment it did we all got scared. My director later said that it was a pretty dangerous snake. Luckily it was still pretty young and was probably more scared of us.

So, after that experience we headed back to the hotel to rest. The next day was spent visiting local farms that are trying to establish alternative agriculture practices to slash-and-burn agriculture. Our first speaker (shown below in a field of manioc) illustrated for us how a new piece of equipment provided by the German government could chop/mulch secondary forest to provide more eco-friendly alternatives to farmers. The machine (attached to the back of a tractor) could drive about 10mph over trees about 1 1/2 times its height, all the while mulching them to a pulp.

Next up we headed to another farm down the road that had instituted similar alternatives on their farmland. They showed us around their property as well. Our second speaker (above) showed us the different produce/hardwood trees he's been breeding. They also have a really interesting way of breeding peppers here - the picture below shows how stakes are used to provide a surface on which they can grow.

Birds and Church

Later that same day, my host brother and host mom took me out to see more of the city. We first headed downtown for me to see one of the city's oldest churches. I found the facade outside to be really interesting. Take a look at the scene depicted at the top of the church...

Natives facing off against friars, conquistadores and... businessmen? I don't think the illustrations are as old as that church...

Anyways, we headed next to a nature preserve/ zoo on the edge of town. It was a really cool place actually. Birds everywhere. Herons and ducks of all types. And the Jurassic Park-esqe birds running around on the group. I'm not sure, but I think the plant below was plantains/bananas growing too!

Market Day

Hey everyone! So for Portuguese class today we took a trip to Ver-o-Peso market downtown. It was really incredible - I'd never seen anything like it. Belem is located at the fork of two rivers, and the market was set up long ago to directly receive a lot of the good (particularly food) coming down the river. It was just amazing how much food was fit into such a small area. Only a few blocks held enough to probably feed the city for weeks. Sorry I didn't get any shots of vendors on the ground - Ver-o-Peso is also infamous for its thieves, so I tried to keep my camera hidden when possible. Our class assignment was to find specific items in the market, then head over to a nearby square within the colonial zone.

 The river just beyond the stands is technically part of the Amazon delta, but that's not all of it - not even half. As you can tell from the next photo, buses are a way of life here. I'm taking a bus to get everywhere now. Unfortunately, there's no map for bus routes around the city, so newbies are out of luck...

After arriving at the plaza we took a break with some coconut water. About $1 for a vendor to cut a fresh coconut open for you.

And what better thing to do when celebrating Brazilian history and culture than to throw some capoeira in there! Turns out our professors decided to arrange a group lesson in capoeira right in the middle of tourist central.

After our group lesson we were done for the day. I stuck back and took a few more pictures of the market and surroundings. The church below is the centerpiece of a big festival coming up in Belem in a few weeks. Supposedly the city swells to twice its size during it.

Museu Goeldi

Today my host family and I headed over to Museu Goeldi downtown. Really great place - more or less a zoo, but you feel like you've left the city behind for a rainforest.

But, as like in all rainforests, it started pouring once we saw the caimans. It was the first real downpour I've experienced here. So after picking up some Bob's Burgers (yes, Bob's Burgers. Something like a fake McDonald's from the fifties?) we headed home.

First 10 days in Brazil!

Hey everyone! I've finally given in to getting a blog. Hope everyone enjoys! Here's a brief summary of the first ten days abroad:

After five flights (Charleston to Atlanta to BWI to Atlanta to Sao Paulo to Belem) and 30 hours of traveling, I finally arrived at the airport in Belem, a city of 2.5 million at the base of the Amazon. The flight from Sao Paulo gave me a great look at the rainforest:

I wasn't expecting to see so many triangular forests and fires on my way in.
Anyways, I landed and waited until everyone showed up. Before anyone could figure out the pay phones, SIT whisked us off to the program director's small farm east of the city. We spent the next couple days either doing orientation classes, language classes or playing soccer. So far, language class has been interrupted by: falling fruit, monkeys, monkeys throwing fruit at the ground from above us, electrical outages, and sound systems on passing cars (see below) once we got to the SIT office in the city:

 After arriving at the the director's farm, we took a small hike into the rainforest behind his house and saw a couple tarantulas, rubber trees (huge!) and other good stuff. Later that day we made acai juice from the acai berries out back!

No mosquitoes so far... A few days ago we left the farm to go see some mangrove forests (2nd biggest mangrove forest in the world!). We got there by boat that left a small fishing village. The area was located right at the edge of the Amazon delta, where surges between ocean water and the Amazon create the right environment for mangroves.

After that we got back on the boat and went to talk with some fishermen on the atlantic coast. The boat that looks stranded on the beach really isn't - because of the tide it was floating in three feet of water in a couple hours! Great stuff. Got back to the farm late that night. Next we drove into Belem and prepped for the host family meet/greet.