June 20th - Day Eighteen

On the last day we flew from Fortaleza down to Brasilia where we had a day-long tour of the city. Our guide, Billy, was great and knew a lot about the city because he grew up there. The city was built in one thousand days and was a designed city. Many of the buildings are built on stilts for several reasons. Skyscrapers built on silts allows an individual to be able to walk through the city and not around buildings. Secondly, stilts allow the breeze to flow through the city and as a result the city is much cooler and windier.

We first visited the government buildings because there was a scheduled protest later that day and we would not be able to see them later. The city itself is very well organized and planned; however, their major issue at the moment is public transportation.

The city was designed in a way where all the residential blocks are found on one street and all the commercial and government blocks are found on a different street. This is a problem because there are so many people that desire to take public transportation to work in the morning, but cannot because the buses are full. This results in buses coming back empty from the work blocks to pick up more people going to work. This wastes large amounts of gas and is very inefficient.

June 19th - Day Seventeen

We presented our projects that we have been working on this morning. We presented our project on the organic waste management potential for Jericoacoara. My group noticed, as we walked around Jericoacoara, that a lot of organic waste was either left on the beaches or simply being sent out of the town. We felt that it would be more beneficial for the community to set up a community compost where  the villagers could take their organic biproduct and create more healthy topsoil which, in turn, these people can utilize to grow their own fruits and vegetables.

After our presentation, we got ready for the soccer match between Brazil and Mexico. I was really excited for this because I had never been to an international match before. As we walked to the stadium, the streets were packed with police as well as people. Many of the protests that have been going on in Brazil are aimed at the corruption in the government. The government was supposed to develop the infrastructure in the major cities where the world cup will be held. However, the government has only built stadiums for the soccer matches but has not helped build the transportation infrastructure.

June 18th - Day Sixteen

We went to one of the government buildings in Fortaleza and watched one of the Ceara politicians get accused of corruption. We took a tour through the museum that was set up in the lobby of the building and learned about Brazilian political history. The museum was neat and our guide did a great job of explaining the history.

After the museum we watched as a Brazilian politician was accused of corruption, but I did not pick up on much because my Portuguese is still pretty awful. Bianca has been telling us about the massive corruption in the Brazilian government and that until now people have been pretty blind to it. All the protests that have been going on in the last few weeks have been directed at several aspects of the Brazilian government and corruption is one of those aspects.

We had the opportunity to meet the governor of Ceara but he was not very friendly and left after a few pictures. After our short meeting we went to see the rest of their facilities and were directed to their English classes. The teacher was a funny man who has been teaching English for over fifteen years.

June 17th - Day Fifteen

Today we visited the Fortaleza landfill where all of the trash and waste from the surrounding area is sent. Our first stop at the landfill was to the recycling center where trash is sorted through to separate out the recyclable materials. The Brazilian government helped the organized trash-sorters purchase the machines, which allow the employees to work twice as more efficiently. This center also provides better working conditions for the employees which are generally pretty awful working in the landfill. The government is supposed to provide subsidies for the people working at the center; however, over the last few years they have been failing to provide them. As a result, many of the workers went back to  the horrible conditions in the landfill. Often the people working the landfill can make more money per kilogram of recyclable waste than they can working at the center, and this drives people to continue working in the landfill.

The people at the center had also, along with the governments help, purchased a machine that shreds up plastic and provides twice the pay. The problem that they are facing is that it has high energy costs and it is not currently feasible to run. They had planned to run it off the methane that is naturally produced by the landfill; however, the infrastructure to harvest the methane has not been introduced to the site and they have not been able to capture the methane. If they could use the methane to run the plastic shredder they could save a lot of money and improve working conditions for many of the people working in the landfill.

After the recycling center we visited the actual landfill, where people where sorting through the trash that was brought up from Fortaleza.

June 16th - Day Fourteen

We left Jericoacoara in the morning and drove to a freshwater lagoon where we spent the afternoon. There are so many activities that you can take part in in the Jericoacoara municipality and it is no surprise that it has been named as one of the top ten beaches in the world. This is a ripe part of the world for any sort of tourism business.

June 15th - Day Thirteen

Walking around Jericoacoara I was thinking about how the town would be able to deal with a serious increase in tourism. There is very little infrastructure in the town and a population influx could really stress it. The town really does need to figure out how they will be able to grow but still retain the pristine beaches and dunes that surround them. The appeal of the town is definitely the relaxing atmosphere as well as the clean beaches and water.

June 14th - Day Twelve

We went out to the beach and walked up a dune that overlooks the village. Currently the entire Jericoacoara municipality has a population just over 16,000 people, but the town we were in was much smaller than that. The population is variable due to the heavy tourism that they get. Many of the businesses (hotels, restaurants, surf shops, gift shops, etc...) cater to the tourists that come to visit.

Because the town is on the beach and surrounded by dunes, there is not a lot of agriculture in the town. A few of the houses were growing some fruits and vegetables but there was very little topsoil for them to grow in. It is very difficult to grow near the beach because of the lack of water and all the salt; however, a hydroponics system would be able to provide a lot of food for the town. At the moment, all the food and supplies are trucked in from Fortaleza.

June 13th - Day Eleven

A bus took us from Fortaleza to some towns outside of Jericoacoara. Here we had to take four-wheel drive trucks to get across the dunes on the way to our destination. We loaded into these trucks and had a great view of all the amazing dunes that are along the way into Jericoacoara. The only way to get to Jericoacoara is by these trucks because the small village is surrounded by sand dunes. The village is located on the coast and has some of the most beautiful beaches and lagoons. The streets of Jericoacoara are not paved, and there are no intentions of paving them in the future. To get from one side of town to the other quickly, one can take a buggy that glides across the sand. Along with buggies, people can also take motorcycles and horses to get from place to place.

After a quick lunch, we (along with the rest of the tourists) went on a hike up the beach and to this giant rock on the beach with a large hole in it. This is the most iconic spot in Jericoacoara and pictures of this rock are found on nearly every brochure and pamphlet.

June 12th - Day Ten

Today we visited Universidade de Fortaleza (Unifor) and had an extensive tour of their campus. We first went to their medical school where we had a first hand look at how the medical students train to be doctors. Apparently you can be a certified doctor after only four years of medical school as opposed to our eight. After the medical school we went to their soccer stadium as well as their indoor gym.

One of my favorite aspects of the school was the wall-less rooms. Where the outward facing walls are basically giant blinders. These blinders open and close and allow fresh air to "cool" the rooms. I was also a huge fan of the animals that were loose on the campus. We managed to run into one of these animals as we first walked onto Unifor's campus.

We had lunch on campus and then listened to a lecture about waste management. This was a very interesting presentation because it touched on a lot of the problems that we had been seeing in a lot of the Amazonian villages. We learned a little bit about problem solving and the different types of waste that is produced. After the lecture we met a few of the students from Unifor and made plans to meet up with them later.

June 11th - Day Nine

We took a visit to the wind farm in the morning and had an opportunity to learn about how this particular farm is able to keep such high performance output. By regularly maintaining the turbines, this company is able to reduce the amount of broken wind turbines. In my opinion the wind farm is not very intrusive to look at, though this is often used as a reason not to build them. However, would you rather look at a clean wind farm or a dirty coal plant?

After the wind farm, we went to a village that was in sight of the plant. Here we had lunch and enjoyed some time at the beach. While I was walking along the beach, I had a hard time finding any life in the intertidal pools. Generally, this part of the ocean is teaming with life, but at this beach there was no biodiversity.

June 10th - Day Eight

At three in the morning we woke up and got onto a boat to take us to a dock in Manaus. From there we took a bus to the Manaus airport where we flew to Fortaleza. We arrived in Fortaleza just after lunch and stopped at a tapioca restaurant for a light snack. After a short break at the hotel, we went on a walk along the beach. Fortaleza is the thirteenth most dangerous city in the world; however, I never felt too nervous walking around.

We spent some time looking for a place to exchange money and eventually found a place that exchanged at a rate of 2.1 reals for one dollar. This was an improved rate over what we had first found back in Manaus at the airport. At this point it seemed that the rate was changing in a way that was beneficial for having dollars.

In the evening we went to a Brazilian steakhouse. The food was fantastic and the steak that was served was some of the best I have ever had. However, this type of restaurant is the epitome of gluttony and waste and everyone there seems to celebrate that.

June 9th - Day Seven

In the morning we went into the rainforest near the ecolodge on a guided hike. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the different survival techniques on the Amazon river. He showed us a vine that you can cut and obtain fresh water from as well as a tree's bark that acts as insect repellant when ground up. Walking around there did not seem to be a lot of life on the forest floor; however, the guide pointed out plenty of life that was difficult to spot. So much of the life was very well camouflaged with the surrounding forest. Had Roosevelt's expedition known how to forage for food in the forest, many of their food problems could have been avoided.

When we went into the jungle we followed a path that was pretty clear and easy to follow, but had there been no path, I would have been quickly lost. Our guide pointed out a species of tree that has huge buttress roots that, if hit with a wood stick, can make a noise that can be heard from over five kilometers away. It is difficult to imagine what it must have been like to navigate through uncharted forest with limited supplies.

After the hike through the forest, we visited a monkey rehab area near the ecolodge. Monkeys are released here and supplied thirty percent of their diet. Fruits and eggs are left out for the monkeys and often the alpha male of the troupe get his pick first. Before the monkeys are fully released into the wild, they must spend some time in a rehabilitation container. 

This ecolodge is a great hotel and blends business and environmental concern very well. The ecolodge promotes many environmentally friendly activities that regular hotels cannot offer. This encourages the business to take care of its land and surrounding environment. The more pristine the grounds and surrounding land looks, the happier the customers. This is a very sustainable business model that encourages a business to not only focus on profit, but also to implement environmental and social practices.

June 8th - Day Six

Early in the morning we picked up some members of Ray of Hope in Manaus. Ray of Hope is a Christian Mission Organization that helps the villages and communities off the Amazon River. We headed to a larger village than the one we went to the day before. We participated in a church meeting, in a church that was under construction. The people that live in these communities are a mix of Catholic Christian and a variety of local saints. I am not a fan of the ways in which these missionaries give help to the local villages, because they seem to do it in exchange for teaching them about Christ. Along with this, the missionaries do not try to uplift the natives along with their beliefs and customs, they try to convert the people and make it very clear that they think their traditional beliefs and culture are primitive and pagan. However, Ray of Hope was a little different than what I had expected. They brought along some social workers and lawyers as well as some nurses to help the people in any way possible.

After the church service, we had an opportunity to get a guided tour around the village itself. This village has been around for longer and is much more prosperous than the one we visited the day before. This is made very clear as you walk around, we saw a school, a few restaurants, a bar, some four wheelers and even a car. We met up with the leader of this community and asked him about the waste management in the village. He said that the government sends a barge down the river that collected trash from the village once every few weeks. The school was where the villagers met up with the people from Ray of Hope and we got to see how much they are appreciated by the people in the community.

After lunch we stopped at another village off the Amazon, but this one was much smaller and was inhabited by natives that had, until recently, been in pretty bad shape. The villagers had started abusing drugs and alcohol and were not receiving any help from the government. The missionaries that had been helping this tribe out throughout their difficult times had managed to rehabilitate most of the villagers and had even helped them construct a large community hut.

The villagers greeted us with a few of their traditional dances. The people that were helping them also performed a dance sequence but I preferred the natives dancing and music. Because it was raining, our group could not help the villagers in building their chicken coop and I was pretty disappointed that we could not help them with anything. Though I am sure they can build a much better coop than we could anyways. 

This was our last day on the Amazon and after the village we were headed to an ecolodge off of one of the Amazon's tributaries. We got to the ecolodge around five in the afternoon and did not have much time to look around before dark. The ecolodge was a really neat place to stay because they try to incorporate a lot of nature into their facilities. 

June 7th - Day Five

In the morning we visited a family that lives on the Amazon river and takes care of several Amazonian river dolphins. These dolphins are generally pink or grey in color and most have a long beak. In Amazon River folklore, at night, an Amazon river dolphin becomes a handsome young man who seduces girls, impregnates them, and then returns to the river in the morning to become a dolphin again. This dolphin shapeshifter is called an encantado. It has been suggested that the myth arose partly because dolphin genitalia bear a resemblance to those of humans. Others believe the myth served (and still serves) as a way of hiding the incestuous relations which are quite common in some small, isolated communities along the river.

We had an opportunity to swim with these dolphins and to watch the family feed them. They were playful but I think that they were mostly interested in the fish that the family had. I am curious as to how these dolphins can protect themselves from piranhas and caiman. Along with spending time with the dolphins, we also went fishing for piranhas. I did not have any luck but Austin was able to catch one and we had a good look at its teeth.

Today we visited a small native community that had received help from the Brazilian government. Because the village has a school, a church, and a medical center, the Brazilian government has been providing medical equipment and supplies. The government is also helping them build a larger school. The leader of the community is an old woman and has been with the community her whole life. She was the one who lead them to the new village site after a flood drove them from their old one. She will be replaced by a young man who grew up in the village and went to college. Many young people who leave the community to go to school often do not return; however, this soon-to-be leader wanted to come back to his village and help.

His main focus is to educate the people in his community and advocates for other villages to send their children to their school. However, he is also helping the community deal with their trash and waste issues. While we were visiting their community we inquired about the ways in which the community deals with their waste. He told us that some things like paper, cardboard, and other non-toxic waste are burned. A short walk away from the village, he showed us the pits that each family digs and fills with trash that cannot be burned. Because mosquitoes are such a huge problem in the Amazon River, the community cannot dig a large pit for the whole village to dup their trash in due to the accumulation of water in a larger waste pit. Each pit can hold enough trash for about a months worth of a single families trash. These pits are then covered and new pits are dug somewhere else around the village. This is not a very sustainable way of dealing with the waste. 

One of the things that bothered me was the way in which they filled these pits. The village would have a clean up day once a month and gather all the trash. This was evident in that there were no trashcans anywhere and that as the children at the candy that we brought them, they just tossed the wrappers on the ground. The community needs to educate their children on how to dispose of their waste. However, if the community does a good job of waste management then the government steps in and provides further assistance.


The people here are given help by the government but they also receive help from missionaries. I tend to think that missionaries stifle the native culture and traditions but that they also provide valuable supplies that many of these communities need. Much like Rondon in The River of Doubt, I believe in a positivist approach to dealing with natives in the sense that this approach is very humanistic. Positivism is a philosophy of science based on the view that information derived from logical and mathematical treatments and reports of sensory experience is the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge, and that there is valid knowledge only in scientific knowledge. Verified data received from the senses are known as empirical evidence. This view holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of Western thought, the modern sense of the approach was developed by the philosopher and founding sociologist Auguste Comte in the early 19th century. Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so also does society.

June 6th - Day Four

We woke up early in the morning to go to the market down by the docks to buy hammocks to sleep in while staying on the boat. After purchasing a hammock from a vendor off the streets, we got on a boat that would take us up and down the Amazon for the next couple of days. First the boat took us to see the mixing of the waters. It was interesting to be able to compare what the mixing waters looked like from the boat and from the air the day before. Next we went to a families house that raised pirarucu and catfish in the Amazon. Commercial fishing of the pirarucu has been banned by the Brazilian government due to its commercial extinction. Fishing is allowed only in certain remote areas of the Amazon basin, and must be catch-and-release, or harvesting by native peoples for consumption. We had an opportunity to fish them and I caught one that was missing an eye, but of course I released it. These fish can grow to be four meters long and can weigh up to 150 kilograms. They are also the largest fresh water fish and their tongues have teeth that act as a second jaw. 

After visiting the fish farmers on the Amazon, Patrick took us on his boat to look at the floating villages on the river. The people that live in these villages live on houses that are built on balsa wood rafts. When the river floods, these houses go up and down with the river and are prevented from flooding. Many of the other houses and villages on the river are built on stilts and whenever there is unusual flooding on the river, these people have to move to higher land. Often this just means building another floor onto their homes. The balsa wood is a very lightweight material with many uses. Balsa trees are native to southern Brazil and Bolivia north to southern Mexico. These balsa rafts usually have a life of sixty years and must be replaced after this. However, the government no longer allows people to harvest the balsa wood trees so these people will soon need to relocate or find another material to make their floats out of. I am curious as to where the waste that these villages produce ends up. I hope that there is a barge that comes and picks it up; however, it may just end up in the river. 

We also visited a family whose teenage son had caught several Amazonian animals. First he brought out a baby three-toed sloth. The three-toed sloth is arboreal (tree-dwelling), with a body adapted to hang by its limbs. It lives high in the canopy but descends once a week to defecate on the forest floor. Its long, coarse, grayish-brown fur often appears greenish, not due to pigment but to algae growing on it. The sloth’s greenish color and its sluggish habits provide an effective camouflage: hanging quietly, the sloth resembles a bundle of leaves. Large curved claws help the sloth to keep a strong grip on tree branches. 

As mentioned in The River of Doubt, there is plenty of life in the rainforest that uses protective coloration or develops a symbiotic relationship with plants and insects that can do the job for them. Sloths are so stealthy and numerous that it is likely that they remained hidden even when we were walking in the jungle. Roosevelts expedition had plenty of wild game around them, they just did not know how to look for it. The boy had apparently caught the young sloth while climbing in the trees.

In addition to an abundance of prey in the rainforest, there are also plenty of other more predatory species. For example dangerous caiman which are relatively small crocodilians, with most species reaching lengths of only a few metres. The smallest being the Cuvier's dwarf caiman, which grows to 1 meter (3 feet) long and the largest being the black caiman, which can grow to 4 metres (13 ft) or more. We had seen the three different types of species of alligators that are found in the Amazon the day before at the biological reserve. The young caiman that the boy brought out was one of three that he had in his house. 

The caiman alligator often sits very still in the water and looks very similar to a floating log. When we were in Patrick's speed boat we were pretty close to the waters edge and often it made me think of how Roosevelt and his men must have felt in their crude dugouts. They were weighed down with so much useless material due to poor expedition management, they must have been mere inches from the water. I do not know how the men were able to put the caiman out of their minds.

The boy also brought out a boa constrictor which was a little more scary than the caiman. It did not seem very docile and had been found in the wild. As it describes in The River of Doubt "some of the world's deadliest serpents [are] coiled on the forest floor and in the lower branches of trees." One of my biggest fears in the Amazon was that a snake would fall from a low hanging branch or spring up from beneath a log and bite me. Ananas, our guide, gave us a helpful tip to step on top of the log first instead of over. That way you avoid the snake from sneaking up on you when you step on top of the log. Listening to Ananas, I have a new appreciation for living in the rainforest and on the river. He knows so much about surviving on the Amazon and I would really like to go hiking with him.

After taking pictures with all the boys animals, we visited a natural preserve where giant lily pads were growing. These lily pads only grow during the wet season when the Amazon is swollen and then die during the dry season.

June 5th - Day Three

Early in the morning we were given the opportunity to do a fly over of Manaus. We took a bus to a smaller airport where our group of fifteen broke up into two groups. Our group of nine boarded a small plane which  took us up over Manaus as well as a small portion of the Amazon River. This was a great experience because we had the opportunity to not only see all of Manaus laid out before us, but we also saw the "mixing of the waters" where the Brown and Black Rivers meet. This phenomenon occurs because the different densities of the two waters do not allow them to mix well. Flying over the city was also very interesting because it provided a good look at the favelas of Manaus. Favela is the term for a shanty town in Brazil, most often within urban areas. The first favelas appeared in the late 19th century and were built by soldiers who had nowhere to live. Even before the first favela came into being, poor citizens were pushed away from the city and forced to live in the far suburbs. However, most modern favelas appeared in the 1970's due to rural exodus, when many people left rural areas of Brazil and moved to cities. Unable to find a place to live, many people ended up in a favela. Census data by the IBGE shows that in 2010, about 6 percent of the population lived in slums in Brazil.

After the plane ride we got back on the bus and drove to the biological reserve in Manaus. Here we met up with a social scientist named Butch. He studies the ways in which the natives of the Amazon react to western civilization as well as the ways in which they use the rainforest. He brought up some interesting points in regards to the missionary work which has been done since the Portuguese came from Europe. He told us a story of the way in which the Catholic missionaries renamed a longhouse the "devils hut" in the native common tongue. The missionaries impose their own morals, values, and traditions on the native people and often completely replace the native culture. At the reserve we also had the opportunity to see three types of manatees, an otter, several types of alligators, and even some electric eels. We also found some neat caterpillars that were red, yellow, and black. Upon further research I found out that it would eventually metamorphosis into a moth. Along with this I also found out that the jerking and twitching motions were a defense mechanism. Butch also mentioned that 97% of the Amazonia state  rainforest is federally protected.

After lunch we visited a university level biology class in Manaus. The students were very welcoming and even spoke a little bit of english. We learned a lot about the students and I hope that they learned something from us. Butch presented his plan for an international program that he is attempting to set up. He has an interesting idea but there are a few logistical issues that he needs to find a way around. After taking a few pictures with the students we left to visit the more wealthy part of Manaus. Here, as expected, the waste management was much better and there was almost no trash on the streets. This was a huge improvement on the large trash piles that lined the streets near our hotel. I also noticed that there were trashcans near the beach as well as along the boardwalk. After having a look at the beaches on the Brown River we went to a huge mall downtown to have dinner. Apparently the mall is where most of the kids from the university go to have fun after school.

June 4th - Day Two

We landed in Sao Paulo and had a little delay at the terminal. Throughout this delay the Brazilians did not seem to get too angry or annoyed by the postponed flight. After boarding the plane we departed for Manaus around noon. We arrived in Manaus around 3:30 and we were met by Gloria, our travel agent and guide. She had helped us set up many of the activities that we would be taking part in over the next few days on the Amazon. Along with this we had an opportunity to exchange American dollars for Brazilian reals at an exchange rate of one to two. During the exchange I wondered whether we would see a change in the rate over the span of our trip. And whether this change would be positive or negative. If the rate were to decrease it would be logical to exchange as much money early on in the trip and get a better rate.

After settling into our hotel a few of us went for a walk around the block. As soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk I realized that my biggest hurdle to get over in Brazil would be the language barrier. I speak a little Spanish, but this would not be enough to carry on conversations with people in Portuguese. I realized that I would have to start learning as much of the language as I could as well as improve upon my hand gesturing. During this walk I had the opportunity to get to know some of the other people on the trip and we quickly became friends.

We returned to the hotel and soon left for the group dinner that we were having at a local pizzeria that served all-you-can-eat pizza. The pizza was delicious and there were a variety of toppings on the pizzas. The place reminded me of a Brazilian steakhouse where waiters bring food to your table and you pick what you want. After dinner we went to a grocery store to buy bottled water. The tap water down in Brazil is not potable due to the corroded pipes that bring water into the buildings. The grocery store, though similar to American stores, was much smaller in size. I hardly recognized any of the products that were sold there but was able to buy enough water to last a couple of days. I was surprised to see that some of the more expensive liquors were behind lock and key and a guard was posted outside of the store. The walk back from the grocery store was not long, but there were trash piles covering the sidewalks on nearly every street. There were no trashcans anywhere and I was not sure what to do with my empty bottles and trash. I am curious as to what the waste management will be like in the rest of the city.

June 3rd - Day One

The first day was filled with a lot of plane travel but there were no problems. We first flew from Charlotte to Detroit and from there to Sao Paulo. I tried to get as much sleep as possible so that I would be prepared for our first day in Manaus. We were landing in Sao Paulo on the morning of the fourth and would not get into Manaus until the afternoon. Though much quicker than coming down by boat, plane travel can be pretty tiring. I imagine doing business abroad could get tiresome quickly if a job requires you to fly a lot. The use of Skype and Google's Hangout sessions are a great way to get around simple meetings with international clients and customers.

I was excited to get