2613 Back into Brazil definitely. (3rd time)
2615 Warnings, no lonely nights anywhere.
2615 Service stations that are caravansaries.
2617 The empire of trucks, diesel and alcohol-as-fuel.
2618 Some Brazilian vehicles run on gas.
2621 The mysteries of the Tordesillas Treaty.
2624 Yes, a leaf-spring broke on our ... parked vehicle.
2626 Novel: traffic-"Amazons".
2627 Five-year-old telephone directory and such.
2627 Natural (not inbred) radiant affability.
2627 Encouraging prospects about crossing of the Amazon jungle.
2628 (2631) Best and most versatil photo-laboratory, so far.
2629 Cultural misleading of the many by the few.
2630 A block of jungle preserved in midtown São Paulo.
2631 Confusing banknotes: with mirrored artwork.
2631 A freed colony may, and did, become a monarchy.
2631 A piece of Europe, governed from a colony in America.
2633 Undemocratic merry-go-round: it shows that we are not all equal.
2634 Any escalator shows that we are not all equal.
2635 The metropolis that missed its adolescence.
2637 Soothing prognosis about the gasohol diet.
2638 Even music based on sounds derived from the outer-space radio-magnetic >>>>>waves.
2638 The only thing that this Brazilian opera needs in order to be respectable >>>>>is to have been written by some Italian in Italy.
2638 Torrid Brazilian music, as mythical, for tourists, as the Mexican sombrero >>>>>and the Argentinian gaucho.
2638 More Japanese presence than elsewhere.
2639 They do know that Smetana never wrote a piece called Moldau.
2639 Even here was imported the nonsense of "live" recording; how would be a >>>>>"dead" recording; why not a recording "in concert"?
2641 A decimal system with a duodecimal grafting.
2642 Why: envelopes for air-mail, with glue; for surface-mail, without glue.
2642 Portuguese language, fascinatingly connective language between French and >>>>>Spanish.
2644 Butantão Institute:
much more than serpent-venoms, much more than animal-venoms.
2651 Malaria experts speak.
2653 Reconditioning of the vehicle for the big jungle-crawl.
2653 Venezuelan discrimination against Argentinian passports as gloomy and >>>>>worrisome as ever.
2653 No, not a cold; the tremendous pollution.
2653 No, not a skin-disease around the eyes - the tremendous pollution.
2654 Again, that little voice that guides us towards mechanical problems in >>>>>the making before they become obvious.
2654 A zoological prison, almost not a prison; except some dioramas with live >>>>>animals.
2658 A most picturesque seacoast, 350 kilometers long, being destroyed by the >>>>>tide; the human tide.
2661 We would swear that we overheard the Rio de Janeiro Christ mumbling over >>>>>the city: "This one, sure, has no salvation".
2661 Even the name is wrong.
2663 Even part of the Copacabana sand is not genuine.
2664 Capoeira.
2664 A deep trench protects the 22 players against the 200,000 fanatics.
2664 A parallelepipedic building defying economics (part of it, unusable, on >>>>>purpose).
2665 New cathedral, easily transformable into rock'n'roll palace.
2668 The world of gemstones.
2673 the most de-luxe gasoline-station anywhere.
2674 The Brazilians themselves are awed by our project of crossing the >>>>>Amazonia.
2675 Here escaped those African killer-bees.
2676 Congonhas, colonial site.
2677 Chinese influence in old Brazil.
2678 A great sculptor without hands.
2679 Ouro Prêto, colonial site.
2679 A crucifix as nowhere else.
2680 Museum of Mineralogy, with 4,800 pieces.
2681 Sabará, colonial site with Chinese influence.
2682 Gold-washing, garimpeiro-style.
2683 A famous church so awful that even the saint looks appalled (Pampulha).
2685 No artifact is ever prehistoric.
2685 Say some experts: these bones look Melanesian (Lagoa Santa).
2685 Strange qualitative contrast between artifacts.
2686 Murderous, and often criminally undetectable, spring-breakers, a fixture.
2687 What a delight, home-made music and raucous voices.
2688 So many overturned trucks, as nowhere else.
2690 Was a first, pre-Columbian, discovery of Brazil kept secret?
One thing is sure: these lands were already called "America" on maps when >>>>>North America still was an unknown blank on those maps.
2692 Many trucks, billboards of popular philosophy.
2692 Why didn't we buy that boa?
2693 The cane in this field, for alcohol; the cane in this field, for paper.
2693 Salvador/Bahia, colonial site, and bedlam.
2698 Some truckers travel with wife and children, even a television set.
2699 Where 50,000 slaves tried to form a republic.
2700 Miraculous sea-resort: did not kill the sea - yet (Maceió).
2703 Roads with trucks, gas-chambers.
2704 Among the rivals of Portugal, even small Netherlands.
2705 Our closest point to Africa, on lands that once were in Africa.
2705 (2710) Paraiba Inscription:
¿connection or no connection with the Red Sea?
2706 (2709) Inga: mysterious rock-carvings in midst of Sertão.
2706 Roadblock for ... fumigation.
2706 Atrocious savagery: trucks, with up to forty high-powered loud-speakers >>>>>with diesel generators, destroy public sanity.
2707 A better way of using old tires than burning them.
2707 Even small things, carried on head; such as a kilogram of flour.
2708 The more we see humankind, the less we believe in nice demo-philosophies.
2708 If corporate boards-of-directors were chosen as governments are chosen, >>>>>corporations would go bankrupt.
2714 Dinosaur tracks (plantigrade and palmate).
2715 Safe nights anywhere in solitude.
2715 Marvelous fragrance of semi-aridity.
2716 Maybe those places with only limited world news are the wise ones.
2717 Most fashionable pavement:
ruined from factory, like some "modern" clothing.
2720 Sete Cidades: controversial pact between geology and archaeology.
2722 Aventures in trying to change motor oil.
2723 A clever mechanic.
2724 Palm-tree forests.
2724 Affability even in confrontation, where but in Brazil.
2727 Women so backward that they adorn their hair with real flowers.
2727 Trouble: voltmeter shows strong, permanent discharge; far from Belém.
2729 The adventure of gathering information on the adventure of crossing the >>>>>Amazonia.
2729 The adventure of extending a visa, as no imagination could ever concoct >>>>>it.
2730 The unbelievable reasoning of an auto-electrician.
2731 The blessing of having spare parts, from axles up.
2731 More adventures at the (large) dealer's: lending our tools.
2738 More mechanical problems, courtesy of the terrible pavement.
2738 Museum of Archaeology (Goeldi).
2741 Brazil, a museum of ice creams.
2745 Destruction of jungle, catching up, belatedly, with destroyed forests in >>>>>Vespuccia and Europe.
2747 In the struggle between old jungle and new pastures, sometimes the jungle >>>>>conquers back its terrain.
2747 Blood-curdling noise in undercarriage, far from anywhere; short, but ...
2749 Largest fluvial island on Earth.
2749 Even the old ethno-toponyms are being wiped out.
2750 Those many trucks with their 18 wheels up in the air.
2751 Again, the blood-curdling noise; only half a wheel-turn, but ...
2753 (2757) Brasília, yes (without a doubt), but (without a doubt).
2753 Uncertainty over Venezuelan discrimination, closer.
2754 And the recurrent horrible noise.
2754 And when will the rainy season actually start?
2755 Uncertainties of Amazonia crossing, closer.
2765 The epopee of the iron hill for the next 500 years.
2766 Astonishing international distorting of local facts.
2768 Goiás, no-frill, no-tourist, colonial bandeirante site.
2768 Treaty of Tordesillas, splitting the booty through about here.
2769 The case of the many ghost-bridges.
2770 The two wooden rails instead of bridges.
2770 The amazing world of wrong information given in earnest.
2770 A track where any speed above 0 kilometer per hour is too fast.
2772 (2774) (2776) Xingú, from sacred native haven to tourist-entertainment.
2773 The Carajás still paint their bodies, and dance - in shows for tourists.
2773 Two hamlets: one, make-believe for tourists; one, for real life.
2777 The legendary Mato Grosso is no longer grosso (large), not even mato >>>> (forest).
2779 Following European and Vespuccian old example.
2779 Paraborigines, subjected to same extermination as elsewhere in America, >>>>>with a delay of a few centuries.
2786 Cuiabá: where endemic fauna thrived, domesticated breeds graze.
2788 Hundreds of crocodiles, birds, capybaras, not yet wiped out by encircling >>>>>fazendas.
2794 Radiobroadcasting from Canada ... in long waves.
2794 244 grievous wooden "bridges" in 230 kilometers.
2795 Comparing wretched paraborigines and even more wretched gypsies.
2796 Easily gotten, easily squandered (hardwood from ex-jungle).
2798 Anti-yellow-fever vaccination station.
2798 How noteworthy would be this vanguard sculpture if erected in Europe >>>>>rather than in Rondônia.
2799 Entering the cauldron of malarias.
2799 The technical truth about malaria.
2803 Easier to see genuine Germans than genuine "Indians".
2805 The most de-luxe public restrooms cum showers anywhere (and free).
2805 Some paraborigines still fight the invaders (not necessarily white).
2806 Crazy: 34 speed/spring-breakers across the road by-passing a hamlet.
2807 Primeval single-family plots in jungle.
2808 Last information-gathering before the big unknown, Pôrto Velho to Manaus:
terrible but not impossible - for trucks.
2809 Gold tainted with blood.
2811 A railway from nowhere to nowhere at a cost of 6,200 deaths.
2811 Do Amazonian insects carry pure latex?
2812 The fine line between disaster and salvation; an invisible hand must be >>>>>guiding us.
2814 Toward Manaus; and first deluge of the rainy season.
2815 First real jungle in Brazil, almost untouched; and fighting back.
2817 Every afternoon, a deluge.
2818 "Jungle", not a word, a world.
2818 How beautiful and noisy, ararrás (macaos) flying and screaming.
2821 Through "terrible but not impossible - for trucks".
2823 Filming is enslaved to action, therefore easily caught in superficiality.
2825 Comparing Africa, Asia and South America by someone who saw all three.
2825 Crossing the wake of Francisco de Orellana on the River of the Amazons.
2827 Amazon, the river all other rivers are judged by.
2831 Manaos.
2831 Last word on Venezuelan discrimination against Argentinians:
we must - must - return to Buenos Aires, even if we were on the Moon, to >>>>>get a visa.
2833 An airport without up, down, left, right, but with best public-address >>>>>system and best parking anywhere.
2834 One more problem: revolution in Surinam.
2835 One more problem: rainy season, one month early; every afternoon, a >>>>>deluge.
2835 One more worry: the road from Manaos northward.
2835 The church of the Poor Devil.
2836 Art created with feathers.
2840 To Buenos Aires and back, courtesy of brotherly discrimination.
2841 Hard to believe: ¿a deception over the telephone by a President (not of >>>>>Brazil) millions of times repeated?
2841 Brazil, close-up from the air.
2842 Bubonic plague outbreak in Paraiba; time to move on.
2843 An autochthon, free and friendly, impossible:
either diluted and>accessible, or defiantly defensive and inaccessible.
2843 Acacor, The astute interweaving of two yarns, one, preposterous, but one, >>>>>plausible.
2845 Mercifully, almost out of climatic system of rainy season and almost into >>>>>climatic system of dry season.
2846 Ethnic and linguistic complexities of "demographic emptiness".
2848 Impossible to avoid crossing paraboriginal free (potentially violent) >>>>>territory.
2848 Etiquette of behavior if contact occurs.
2849 The most pristine jungle in Brazil.
2850 Road: between 5 and 15 kilometers per hour.
2852 Crawling between 2 and 15 kilometers per hour, better than being stuck in >>>>>swamp.
2853 Marvelous engineering of a turtle's shell.
2854 A fairy-tale airport (Boa Vista).
2855 Warning by ex-resident of Venezuela:
any Venezuelan with a cap, arrogant,>and believes to be at least a >>>>>general; not the first unflattering opinion.
2855 Surinam still closed by rebellion.