My well-packed bicycle is down in the baggage compartment, but it will
take
some more time before I can release it from its cardboard. My
connecting
flight to Belém, in the north of Brazil, will leave only late in the
evening.
This gives me enough time to catch the next bus in front of the
terminal to
escape to the other end of the city, to the places where the "Cidade
Maravilhosa ", the marvelous city, is worth to be called so, to the
beaches
of
Copacabana and Ipanema.
I feel very tired after the long overnight flight, yet I have to defend
myself already that early in the morning of ambiguous offers of
friendly
ladies. It is quite warm, but cloudy, so that today - except the ladies
working here "with tourists" - hardly any Carioca can be found.
Fortunately I made an appointment for the afternoon. I met with Lucia,
a
cyclist from Rio, whom I met while preparing this tour on the Internet.
A
quick phone call to combine the exact meeting point, fortunately the
beach
bars are numbered, so that one can hardly miss each other. Lucia takes
me to
an excellent Churrascaria in Ipanema. For those who don't know, let me
explain: A Churrascaria is the nightmare of every vegetarian: Only to
show
your good education you serve yourself with some salad and vegetables
from
the buffet. Then you sit and wait. The waiters run by with huge junks
of
meat, roasted over the open fire and cut fresh pieces of all kind of
meat on
your plate. Apart from a healthy appetite the only way to defend
against the
attack of the waiters is a kind of traffic light, that is red and green
card
or piece of wood, which one can flip over to the red side in order to
surrender.
At night I continued to Belém, yet another 3 or 4 uncomfortable hours
in
economy class. Now I'm really looking forward to ride my bike.
Walking out of the air-conditioned terminal was kind of shocking. It
was
already midnight, but still 30° C, and very humid. Instead of
assembling my
bike and cycling 15 km in the darkness I opted for a taxi to reach a
hotel
in downtown.
I had another easy day on the beach. This beach was actually not at
the sea
but on the Tocantins River, a smaller tributary to the Amazonas system.
("Small" in Amazonian terms still means something about double
the size of the Mississippi...) It's quite a strange feeling to swim in
that
River, with hell knows what kind of fish there is...
The following morning they showed me the sights of their city and
helped to
buy supplies. My shopping list is long, because until today no one
could
tell me exactly about the situation along the Transamazon highway. The
information given differs from "excellent" to impassable" to "does not
exist
any more". So I have to buy sufficient food for the worst case, for 10
days
or so, and the bags I carry back to the hotel are very heavy.
Before they said goodbye my new friends showed me the departure point
of the
Rio Capim ferry, where my tour should start the next morning. Really
very
nice guys.
Finally I was ready to depart, and early in the morning I left the
hotel
under the applause and farewell of hotel staff and guests...
The uncertain begins somewhere over there. First of all I must go south
for
400 kilometers, in order to reach the "official" Transamazonica, which
runs
there from east to west. The first 300 km will be on a paved road and
should
not be a big problem. Then I want to catch a small side road shown in
my
map, but for that section I have even less information than for the
rest of
the Transamazonica.
Travel time to the other side of the river is more than half an hour
and by
the time I got there the heat was already incredible... I'm still used
to my
lovely 15° C at home, but this 35° here are ridiculous... At noon the
sun
shines exactly from the top and there is no shadow. Well, I tried to do
my
best, but I had to stop every 30
minutes or so to swim in on of the thousands of rivers or to have some
cold
drink in one of the few bars on the roadside.
I am surprised to discover so much greenery so close to Belém, with its
millions of inhabitants. The State of Pará is infamous for its
environmental
policy. Large portions of the country are sold to large, international
companies, which can basically do whatever they want. Perhaps in this
part
here it is simply too swampy for cattle or there might be any other
reason
why no one cleared the annoying forest.
The road was still paved and pretty flat. People told me that it would
be
more hilly and muddy further south...
I made nothing more than 100 km the first day, and I was so exhausted
that I
hardly could set up my tent. Setting up a tent is not so easy in this
part
of the world... It took me more than 15 minutes to clear out some space
in
the jungle. Done this I just crawled into my tent and felt asleep. No
sleeping bag needed here anyway... I woke up several times at night
with
some strange noises around my tent, but I didn't care that much... are
there
any dangerous animals in the Rain forest??
As so often during the day, I stopped at a small river to cool down and
to
rinse my shirt, when I noticed another cyclist with a small backpack
passing
by. He saw my bike parked up on the road and stopped to say hello.
Unlike me
he's not bicycling for fun. He worked for several months in Marabá
(some 400
km south of Belém) and is now on the way home to Belém, saving the
money for
the bus ticket by cycling... He asked what the hell I'm doing here, but
it
would have been impossible to explain to him that I have spent 10 of
his
monthly salaries, just to
fly 10.000 km to Belém and to cycle around for my personal
entertainment...
He drank some water of the river where I just washed my shirt and then
continued his journey.
For cool drinks I still prefer to stop at the small bars, which you
find now
and then, and usually completely unexpectedly, on the roadside. A cold
beer
on top of an empty stomach is funny and facilitates the correct
Portuguese
pronunciation. Contrary to my thirst my hunger is on a very low level.
I ate
almost nothing the last days but nevertheless I'm not hungry at all.
For
some reason I do not long for nutrition in form of food...
Landscape further south became more and more deserted. There were fewer
houses, but also the forest disappeared for most of the way. I cycled
for
long parts along areas that seemed to be a desert rather than rain
forest. It was not flat anymore, I already entered the Serra de
Carajas.
This is where the worlds largest iron ore mine is situated, thus why
they
cut out all the trees to produce charcoal for steel production.
The hills are not very high, but very steep. I had to get of the bike
and
had to push. The heat came up my feet and along my whole body, I had
only
hot water to drink and I felt like a sausage on a summer barbecue...
People are extremely friendly, and most of them are very curious. But
sometimes it's difficult to understand them.
They speak a very strange accent in some rural areas... However, some
of
them just stare at you like you were from another planet, saying
nothing at
all...
What happened yesterday must be another Murphy's law: "If it's terrible
hot
and you wish some refreshment, it will not rain, as long as you are on
a
paved road" and "It will rain as soon as you reach the dirt road".
And so it was. After 3 days of sunshine it started raining exactly when
I
reached the end of the pavement. Exactly!! On the minute!
It continued raining for the whole afternoon, and after a while I gave
up.
There was a small bar at the roadside, and a truck driver who stopped
there
offered to bring me back to town, some way off the main road. Tucuruí
is a
nice town at the Tocantins river, where they have built one of the
worlds
biggest river dams, in the middle of the
Amazon. I did not plan to stop in Tucurui, but under these conditions
it
makes no sense to go on. The owner of the bar kindly offered to store
my
bicycle until my return and so I accepted the ride back.
Here I am now, in Tucuruí, Pará, in the middle of nowhere, but with
Internet
access and air condition, and 2.500 km to go...
Next message probably in two weeks from Santarem or Itaituba.
Até logo
Micha
The following text was written on tour Oct. 11th 1999 in Tucurui,
Brazil and originally posted on the
Touring@phred.org
After a long overnight flight I arrive at sunrise at Rio International Airport.
