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Bulletin 7 – 1 September 1997

Telecom Amazon Adventure Update

Update from Andrew

River Boat Travel: Manaus to Santarém

At 1pm on Saturday afternoon I staggered out of my hotel in Manaus lugging my huge backpack, with small bundles of other items in a couple of small shopping bags, ready for my river boat trip to Santarém. My boat wasn’t due to leave until 4pm, but my earlier experiences taught me it’s best to be early if you want a good space to hang your hammock. Arriving on the boat ten minutes later, I dropped my heavy backpack and proceeded to hang my hammock. Sometimes supposedly simple things aren’t as easy as they look – and I had to ask several people for help. We finally figured it out and then I was able to relax in my hammock waiting for the journey to start.

The boat began to fill-up with people carrying a wide range of suitcases, boxes and crates. Larger items were stored in the ship’s hold, but most luggage ended up in a communal pile underneath the hammocks on the main decks. I tried talking to the people around me – on one side there were two young women with a baby, and a middle-aged couple on the other side, and a 17 year old boy suspended in the hammock above me completed our little group.

Talking was very difficult, my Portuguese is very limited and I often have difficulty understanding people – especially when they talk fast. But I understood that all were travelling to Santarém – the same destination as me.

With the exception of me, and one other "gringo", all the passengers onboard the ship were Brazilian – many were from Santarém and were returning home after visiting family and friends in Manaus. Because Manaus is a duty-free zone (meaning many items are quite cheap) lots of people were returning home carrying new stereos and electronic goods. The other "gringo" onboard was Rupert, a quietly-spoken solicitor from London. He planned to spend his three week holiday exploring parts of Brazil away from "the beaten track". On this journey he planned to stop at the small river-town of Obidós, visiting the remains of an old Portuguese fortress built 350 years ago at a time when the Portuguese were fighting the English and Dutch for control of the Amazon.

The boat got underway at 4:30pm, the "chuga-chuga-chuga" of the big diesel engine providing dominant noise in the background as we slipped out of Manaus harbour. We chugged along past riverside factories and refineries – leaving the black waters of the Río Negro and entering the murky-brown Amazon River. I watched the scenery for a while before returning to the comfort of my hammock. Figuring that two days on a boat could be very boring, I’d brought along several books to practice my Portuguese and note paper to write my diary entries.

Dinner was served at 6pm. It was a simple soup with chunky bits of beef, accompanied by rice and chicken pieces. Because the table seats only 16 people, dinner was served in several quick sessions – the food was left in bowls in the centre of the table, with people dishing up their servings onto plates in front of them. This was the first meal that I’d been able to eat in several days following a bout of stomach problems resulting from giardia, so the meal tasted delicious even though it was basic. After dinner I slipped back into my hammock and worked on my Portuguese books before succumbing to sleep. It got cold during the night as technically I was sleeping "outside" because the decks were open to the elements. I reached down into my bag next to me and grabbed a jacket which I spread out over me like a blanket.

The next day was spent entirely on the boat. I talked more to the people around me – though the language problems still existed and I felt a little out of place, so I spent more time working on my Portuguese books and writing notes in my diary.

We stopped at several small river towns during the day where people getting off were replaced by others getting on. Hordes of young boys climbed aboard, selling fruit, cheese, cakes and other items to the passengers. Ice-cream sellers and other vendors stood alongside the boat doing business with people leaning overboard.

Our biggest stop was in the late afternoon, at the customs post between the Brazilian States of Amazonas and Pará. The customs post is there to charge duty on goods people bought in the duty-free zone before entering into Pará so the State government doesn’t lose out on revenue. Last time I was at this stop, the customs officers boarded the boat very dramatically – carrying guns, and forcing the ship to dock alongside the post. But this time the guns were kept hidden, and the boat stayed in the middle of the river. The officers also had snazzy new uniforms to make them look more respectable and professional. One officer asked to see my passport and as I was a foreigner, just passing through, he didn’t bother to check my luggage.

We left the customs post just after dark. The air was full of slapping noises as people swatted at the small swarm of mosquitoes which had gathered around our boat during our stop. I lay back in my hammock, thankful I’d remembered to bring mosquito repellent. I watched a group of young people who’d gathered around near me. They were mostly in their teens – boys and girls chatting, laughing, exchanging jokes and teasing each other. One boy, hoping to make friends with the pretty girl next to him, handed over his walkman. The girl didn’t seem too interested in the boy, but readily accepted his walkman – she sat there for the next hour listening to the walkman and ignoring the boy’s unsuccessful attempts at conversation.

At seven o’clock the boat docked in Obidós, Rupert struggled off with his backpack which was almost as big as mine. The boat remained at the port for about two hours as goods were loaded on and off.

The remaining journey to Santarém took five hours, with our boat finally arriving at the port at 2am the following day. Instead of getting off the boat in the middle of the night with nowhere to go, I opted to remain onboard (comfortable in my hammock), sleeping until dawn before finally leaving the ship and catching a bus into the city.

Talk to you next week

Cheers

Andrew

Santarém

SantarÈm is located along the Amazon River, half-way between Manaus and Belém – where the clear green waters of the Tapajós merge with the murky brown waters of the Amazon.

Santarém is the third-largest city on the Brazilian Amazon - but it is unlike Manaus and Belém. With only 60,000 people, it looks and feels more like a frontier town from an old Western movie. The town has red dirt roads, rough wooden shacks and the atmosphere of the “supermercado” (supermarket) is more like that of an old-style general store.

The farms around the Santarém look like they’ve only just been cleared out of the rainforest. The land is hot and dusty and all around the town there are big black vultures called Urubús, which scavenge through rubbish along the streets and river front. The sight of these vultures is very unnerving.

Appearances can be deceiving. Santarém looks like a new town still under construction but it’s much older than any New Zealand town or city. Before Europeans arrived, it was the centre of a thriving Indian culture - the Tapuiçu. The first European settlement was a Jesuit mission built in 1661. The current town grew up around this mission and was officially named Santarém in 1758.

Ancient Indian Cultures

Santarém used to be the centre of a large Indian civilisation, but very little is known about how they lived because few of the Indians survived after the arrival of the Europeans. The first European explorers and settlers brought diseases with them, which made the Indians very sick – causing many to die. However, Francisco de Orellana - the first explorer to arrive in Santarém - reported that he saw prosperous Indian villages where the people raised turtles in riverside pens, and made fine pottery. This ancient civilisation was almost completely forgotten, until 1922, when a rainstorm washed away part of a road and uncovered a treasure-trove of ancient stone tools and pottery. A more recent discovery is Caverna da Pedra Pintada which contains ancient Indian artifacts – some dating back more than 11,000 years.

Development in Santarém

A few hours up the Tapajós River from Santarém is a rubber plantation called Fordilândia. It was built by the famous car-maker, American Henry Ford, during the 1930s. Ford tried creating a plantation similar to the successful rubber plantations of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Malaysia. It was intended to guarantee a cheap source of rubber for the Ford Motor Company.

In addition to the plantation, Ford also built a new town for its workers – which looked small-town USA, transplanted to the middle of Amazon rainforest.

Despite Ford’s efforts and great plans, the venture was a failure because no-one understood the problems of plantation farming rubber trees in Amazônia. Amazônia is the rubber trees original home, so it is also home to the tree’s natural enemies.

In Fordilândia the rubber trees were planted close together, and if one tree got sick, or was attacked by insects, then all the other trees around it also got sick. Rubber tree plantations in Santarém aren’t very successful – but rubber trees growing naturally in the rainforest are safe because they grow far apart from one another (mixed in with other trees) making it difficult for diseases and parasites to spread.

Realising that Fordilândia wasn’t going to be successful, Ford sold the plantation to the Brazilian government. Today it is used for research and training.

Goldmines

Goldmines are another recent development in Santarém. An enormous deposit of gold was discovered nearby, along the Tapajós river. Tens of thousands of people flocked to this area hoping to make their fortune. Miners camps and new roads appeared almost overnight. Unfortunately, the miners’ desire for gold meant they weren’t very interested in protecting the environment. One popular form of goldmining used mercury to extract gold from the ore. (Ore is a natural combination of minerals from which valuable minerals can be extracted.) Because mercury is highly toxic the waste left over from this processing was very dangerous. This waste was washed into rivers and streams – poisoning fish, wildlife, and people who lived nearby. Today the miners are more responsible and mercury isn’t used as often as it used to be.

The Tapajós River valley is a beautiful area and the people have started cleaning up the mess left behind from the goldmines and other developments. SantarÈm is trying to attract more tourists to visit the city and to the nearby town of Alter do Chão. The people of Santarém still have a lot to learn about caring for their environment (there is still rubbish thrown in the streets and along the waterfront), but things have improved considerably in the last few years.

Last few days . . .

Two days to go in Telecom’s Innovative Amazon Classroom Activity Competition.

Let us know by 3 September how you’re using technology as part of your Amazon studies and you’ll be in with a chance to win some beautiful books about the Amazon, donated by Andrew Mercer.

Here are the competition details again . . .

There are six books to be won, so we’ve divided New Zealand into six regions:

Northern North Island

Central North Island

Wellington region

Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast, Buller

Canterbury

Otago, Southland

The class in each region with the most innovative use of information technology, as part of their Amazon studies, will win one of the books donated by Andrew.

How to enter

You can present the information any way you like, but remember it has to be faxed or posted.
You may like to write a description of your activity, or draw a poster – choose the way that you think best represents your Innovative Amazon Classroom Activity.

You can either fax your entries to Adventure Line on 0-4-498 5575 or post them to Explorers and Adventures

Telecom Education Foundation
Level Two, Telecom Networks House
PO Box 570
Wellington

Your entry must be clearly marked “Innovative Amazon Classroom Activity Competition” and must include the region you’re in (from the above list); your school name; your class; your teacher’s name; your school address; and a contact phone number.

Entries close 3 September and the lucky winners will be featured in the 8 September Fax Bulletin.

Information submitted to the Innovative Amazon Classroom Activity Competition may be shared with other schools.

Amazon activity

Collect and bring from home as many items as you can that are made from rubber or have rubber in them. You could use these to make a “rubber sculpture’ or “rubber statue”. And you could hold a “rubber day” to celebrate the importance of rubber to us and our world.

Fun facts

• Plants which originally grew in and around AmazÙnia include: cacao, used for making cocoa and chocolate; cotton; brazil nuts; sarsaparilla; and coca, the original ingredient for Coca Cola which is now used to produce the drug cocaine.

• At the height of the rubber boom wealthy "rubber barons" sponsored the building of a spectacular European-style Opera House in Manaus, which was then little more than a small town in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Construction began in 1896 and took 12 years. The Opera House was built using the finest European materials – Italian marble, English cast iron pillars, and French chandeliers. The courtyard was paved with Portuguese tiles (and the stone masons who made and installed them were also from Portugal). The ceilings and curtains are decorated with ornate paintings, and exotic woodwork made from Amazon woods. Unfortunately, when the Opera House was nearly finished, the ship, carrying the Italian marble pillars for the front of the Opera House, sank. This disaster coincided with the end of the rubber boom and because the sponsors could not afford to replace the pillars, plaster pillars were used instead.

Amazon books

More books on the Amazon you might find interesting for your Amazon Adventure . . .

Wildlife of the Forests, Ann and Myron Sutton, Harry N. Abrahams Publishers, New York. This book features detailed information, and photos, about forests and wildlife all over the world. It contains a small section about tropical rainforests in Central and South America.

Explore a Tropical Forest, National Geographic Society Action Book. This is a non-fiction pop-up book, hand made in Ecuador.

Inside the Amazing Amazon, Don Lessem and Michael Rothman, Crown Publishers, New York. This is a big colourful foldout guide revealing the plants, animals, and other secrets of the Amazon rainforest.

Explorers Mystery Quiz - Bulletin 7

Answer the Explorers Mystery Quiz questions below correctly and be in to win a Panasonic cassette recorder for your class. You will find the answer to this week’s first question on your Explorers and Adventurers Mystery Trail poster. You might need to do a bit more research to answer question two. Fax your answers to the Telecom Adventure Line: 0-4-498 5575. Entries close at 5pm on Friday 5 September 1997.

The classes whose students correctly answer the most Explorers Mystery Quizzes during the Explorers and Adventurers programme will go into the draw for a grand prize in December. So good luck everyone.

This week’s questions

Question One

What’s the biggest buzz an electric eel has ever given?

Question Two

Between which years did the rubber boom take place in Manaus?

Last week’s winner

The winner of last week’s Explorers Mystery Quiz was :

Form 1 and 2, Iona College, Havelock North

Last week’s answers

Answer One

The rubber we use to make products like balloons and tyres comes from sap from rubber trees

Answer Two

The city of Manaus was founded by the Portuguese in 1669.

Amazon Adventure homepage is cool

The Amazon Adventure homepage is a cool site according to the American group Exploratorium.

The homepage was chosen as one of the "Ten Cool Sites" for September 1997.

Every month, Exploratorium picks the best sites in science, art and education. Sites are submitted by visitors to the Exploratorium homepages or by Exploratorium staff and are selected based upon their content, their design and the overall experience of visiting them.