Amazon - I begin a Journey on the River Sea from Belém to Manaus

Brazil - The Making of a Novel - Part 24
 

The Journey -  Amazon River,  Augusto Montenegro, Belém to Manaus, August 12 - August 17, 1980

August 12  Bus trip ended at 5.15. a.m. when I checked into “Litoral Palace Hotel” next to Rodoviária. On trip, noticeable how the true sertão gradually disappears. As you approach Teresina, capital of Piaui, the caatingas give way first to similar vegetation mixed with small palms, then a more benign landscape and beyond Caxais true African style veld. Green in spite of winter and with denseness that is suggestive of the great Amazon belt that lies close to the north.

 

I was thinking as we passed through one of the innumerable dusty/poor/

ugly/depressed towns of Piauí­/Maranhão that this must be a world away from what the rich of Rio/São Paulo know. I doubt whether one in a hundred have ever been here or seen any of this beyond TV. And if that is the case, how much more aggravated was the difference in the past, without “easy” communication of today?

 

Windowless room in "Litoral Palace" with giant fan, the size of an old plane prop. Woke at 12 and went to city to learn that the only boat to Manaus departs this p.m. Next one is on September 4 (perhaps.) Decide to Go.

 

 

August 13  Aboard Augusto Montenegro, up at 5.30 a.m. to witness spectacular sunrise, faint to deep orange sun rising over line of trees, climbing quickly into sky and by 9.30 making it as hot as midday. Size of River (Para) on approach to Amazon is truly “river sea.” Difficult to imagine impact on early voyagers like Orellano/Raposo Tavares reaching Belém from upstream.

 

Isolated settlements on river banks, buildings hugging shore line, church, bordered by trees.

 

Most sobering thought is that their only access to “civilization” is along the river. Hemmed in by forest, somewhat like an island; dozens of island “refugia” between forest and river. At point we're approaching now, water to furthest horizon, brown tinge to it.

 

Many estrangeiros aboard, international mix, Brazilian, French, Canadian, Israeli, American, English, German, students, retirees, holiday-makers, most with idea of once in a lifetime Amazon voyage. Agree. We're all traveling second-class; there's a First Class deck above and a deck “squatter” passage below and aft.

          

August 14 Why the Amazon has been called a “river sea” is easily imaginable. The extent of the river is such that glancing to one side, say starboard, you fully expect to be coasting along “offshore,” and if you turned round to port, there'd be the ocean! Everyone encountering the Amazon for the first time finds it larger than they expected. Difficult accepting that for five days you will be aboard a major-sized ship moving along the greatest (by water volume) river in the world. You have a problem seeing that very distant line of trees as the edge of the river and not a vast lake or the sea.

BRAZIL - The Epic of a Great Nation

Canudos: Visions of a Hill where God's Thunderer Roared

 

Brazil - The Making of a Novel - Part 15

 

The Journey:  Uauá and Canudos, July 25 — July 27, 1980

 

 

Arrive at Uauá to find contact arranged via Antonietta out of town for a week but within minutes his wife arranges for a family friend to take me to Canudos tomorrow.

 

Amusing introduction to Uauá in Hotel Gonçalves run by a mother and her five daughters. As word spreads, I find myself seated at table with twelve women of the town come to observe estrangeiro.

 

Hotel floor is divided into cubicle-like rooms with walls open at the top, the occupant of the room next to me snoring away happily all night.

 

July 25 - July 27. Two and a half days with no journal entry, through lack of time and place. Earlier efforts on bus inadequate/difficult and besides, observations in the sertão grow predictably similar. Which, in a way, is the point about the sertão: vast, repetitive, soulless backlands, mile upon mile of caatingas, close-packed, mind encroaching. Step into it a few meters from the side of the road and you are lost. It enfolds and absorbs you. 

 

                                           

A brief visit to Canudos on Sunday provided as much as I wanted from the "present." There's a danger of getting put off track by too much modernism. I have strong impressions and ideas about Canudos/Antônio Conselheiro and my mind relates them to the 19th century. — What I behold in the 20th is a distraction and can only water down those impressions developed from reading and thinking. Preconceptions, if you will.

 

Curious aspect of Sunday was “Manoel” from Mozambique and left after independence. Within minutes of meeting him, he begged me not to mention “Moz” because, hand on heart, “it was too much for him,” and “all because of Samora Machel.” Manoel sells jewelry in the Brazilian sertão after “Moz” and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe,) where he was a linotype operator.

 

I don't know how many Manoels there are in this country but cannot see them doing anything to improve race relations Brazilian style. Though first he wanted to avoid the subject, Manoel had more and more to say as the day progressed. Stories like the man who disowned his mother because she wrote from Portugal saying that he should come back to the motherland, but “bring nothing that you took from the blacks.” According to Manoel, the man wrote back to Senhora X saying from that time he did not consider her his mother. Manoel personally does not wish to tread the soil of Portugal because of the “traitors.”

 

Even as I traveled toward Canudos I had visions of this barren, wasted sertão where a mystic's most fervent ramblings could take easy root. Interpretations of Glauber Rocha aside, the site of Canudos today lies beneath a barrage! A placid backwater with a small island where a few goats and sheep are rowed across to graze.

 

 

Locals suggest that the flooding of the valley was a political move, but I'm skeptical. It was, so far as I know, commenced in 1953. At that time, the kind of political consciousness/reappraisal/revisionist tendency we have today was in its infancy. Few outsiders would have taken symbol of Canudos seriously.

 

Nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that 20,000 people died in this small valley, nothing to bring back the echo of the small cannon from a nearby hill or roar of "God's Thunderer" from the larger hill beyond....

Canudos refugees, 1897

Anyway, I got what I wanted, a soul-filling understanding of the terrain, of the small towns of the time, of the people. Was surprised by Mrs. Gonçalves (of hotel) reciting word for word a prayer said by an old man who'd survived Canudos. Though few beyond the area remember it, Canudos is very much part of local folklore...

On the Road in Brazil - "Lady Di" of São Raimundo Nonato!

Brazil - The Making of a Novel - Part 14

 

The Journey to São Raimundo Nonato July 22-24. 1980

 

July 22 The start of 2500-kilometer bus trip from Brasília to São Raimundo Nonato, Piauí and then to Uaúa near Canudos:

 

Within an hour of leaving Brasília, it begins to hit the senses, this “openness” with only the smallest dents of civilization on it. It's curious that with so much land, there should be a chronic possesseiros problem...

  

Road is hard-top with “breaks” of red dust. Bus takes them at 50/60 km/h. Overtaking on blind rises, corners, banging across rough stretches: amusement of some passengers, terror of others. Cars with lights on. Vegetation is deep, dusty red, every leaf, tree trunk. Dust curtain for a hundred yards on either side. Windows closed because of dust. Hot! Deviations (Desvio!) left and right. Telephone lines draped on tree branches. Vast ranches. Dust covered Brahmin-type cattle. Road workers waving. Passing vehicles hooting. Long red vein to horizon. Strikes me as one of areas of “last great adventure."

 

You don't know Brazil until you have sat with its people hour after hour, banging across dusty roads, nose blocked, throat parched, on and on through the day and night. Poverty stricken worker next to me. Says little. Half a tooth on upper jaw. Dust-stained white linen bag with possessions. Dress of same material.

 

July 23 7 a.m. “Asfalt!” Acclamation through bus after night on dirt. Road still primitive. Drifts, no bridges, taken at healthy speed. Remote “All Night” road stop. Ghastly meal. Outside, incongruous sight of attractive girl, a fazendeiro's daughter and his sons with brand-new tractor that won't start.

 

Old man in pink trousers and grandson sit next to me.

 

8.15 a.m. Start of true sertão. Green now but you can easily imagine it in a drought. Flat-topped table hills, eroded, red sand. Simple house of mud and palm thatch.

 

12.30 p.m. Looks as if trip to first point shorter than expected. A mere 24 hours! Delighted by prospect since glance at motorista in his rear view mirror shows him battling to stay awake. Madre Deus!  

São Raimundo Nonato - Photo: Blog do Francisco Evangelista

July 24 And now for something completely different. Arrived at São Raimundo Nonato at 5 p.m. yesterday. Palace Hotel room = something like old stable, no glass window, overlooking morass. Realize that I've been awake/traveling for 48 hours. Go to buy pen at shop. Owner refuses to take my money. Say thanks and go down street. Followed by car.

 

It's the guy who gave me the pen. Asks if I want to have a beer. Joined by João Raimundo, fourth year law student who speaks perfect English. Sit talking at outside table, watching people begin to gather outside Palace Hotel. Suddenly town lights fail and we sit in darkness. Lights come on and reveal crowd outside hotel entrance.

 

The reason: “Lady Di” has arrived from São Paulo coming to sing for the locals!
 

They wait eagerly and so do I until midnight when at last “Lady Di” appears at hotel entrance and walks grandly over to next-door disco for her performance.

 

The “disco” is open, unroofed, more like a basketball court with three hundred people jammed into a hundred-by-fifty foot space. Chaos.

"Lady Di" sings to the packed crowd. She could've been the real thing, so swept away were they. Her concert over, she is followed back to the hotel entrance by adoring fans. I also make my exit.

 

As I write up these notes, the live disco band is belting out a tune. God knows what time this will go on till. I fear "Lady Di" will make a second appearance at 2 a.m.

 

If these people can be so easily swayed by their great "Lady Di," how much more by an Antonio Conselheiro!

 

I pray the lights fail in the next ten minutes. (They don't.)

Brazil - The Epic of a Great Nation