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.