Month: November 2024

Sometimes it seems as if this trip is turning into a checking-off of bucket list destinations. We have wanted to visit Fernando de Noronha for a long time. (For one thing, we like islands.)

It’s about 360 km off the northeastern coast of Brazil. Noronha is an aspirational destination, kind of like a Hawaii for Brazilians. Not everyone can afford it, and it’s more expensive than the mainland. But almost everyone would like to go.

(We can imagine in five years or so, Noronha being featured in the weekend edition of the Globe and Mail as an ‘undiscovered gem’.)

We spend nine days here. Our accommodation is modest but comfy and conveniently close to ‘town’.

The ‘town’ is Vila dos Remédios, more of a village. The full-time population of the island is a little over 3,000.

A big deal is made about Noronha being closer to Africa than it is to São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. True or false? <Checks Google> Distance from Fernando de Noronha to São Paulo: 2,670 km. Distance from Fernando de Noronha to Cabo Verde (another former Portuguese possession): 2,489 km.

Really, the main attraction of Noronha is its beaches.

After a few excursions, we’re happy to go to a different beach each day and do nothing but relax and sip caipirinhas.

I remember years ago, Morrissey recorded a song in his signature angst-ridden style called The Lazy Sunbathers. In it, he berates vapid, selfish people pursuing a useless activity (non-activity?) while the world faces serious problems.

While walking, we meet one of Maria’s yoga buddies (see below). We are swarmed by her trio of mutts.

Our island tour takes us to Praia do Sancho.

To descend to beach level, you have to clamber down a couple claustrophobia-inducing ladders.

This is one of several Noronha beaches voted by Trip Advisor as the ‘Best In The World’. We are immediately wary of ‘Best In The World’ claims.

Still. they are very nice.

We stop for lunch at a ‘shark museum’. We can’t resist this mermaid-tail photo – it’s so appropriate for Maria.

Many places on the island are closed to people because they are being rehabilitated for wildlife. After all, most of the island is a national marine reserve.

We see the fuzzy young of some kind of seabird, very low on the branches of trees and ignoring the attention of people.

One day, we take a boat excursion to Sancho Beach.

On the way, we’re accompanied by troops of show-off spinner dolphins.

Another view of the ‘two brothers’, the island’s iconic rock formation.

On our last full day here, I set up shop on Praia da Cacimba do Padre. I close my eyes for a minute or so, and when I open them, there’s a black dog lying quietly at my feet. He stays with us for four hours.

We may have to change the name of our site to ‘The Global Dog Blog’.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Maria likes to participate in yoga sessions whenever she gets the chance. While here, she gets to attend sessions in three special places.

1. On the beach overlooking the Baía dos Porcos.

2. Another at a nearby pousada under the full moon.

3. Inside the 18th-century fortress that overlooks the ocean

So here we are, at the fazenda Barranco Alto.

This place is very special. Its founding family were Swiss. The management and administration of the fazenda passed down through several generations. The current patroa is Camilla, a former music teacher (in Switzerland) who leads the farm staff in stretching exercises at the daily morning meetings.

There’s a prevailing laid-back, gentle vibe. The lodge staff are interesting hybrid European-Brazilian mixtures. By default, there are no locks on the room doors. We’re too remote to attract criminals.

A life-saver for the fazenda during COVID: an extremely popular telenovela was made about the area, called -aptly – Pantanal. Many of its 167 episodes were filmed on location, providing work for the surrounding farms, lodges, and transport companies.

The fazenda also provided meals and accommodation to firefighters during the recent wildfires.

Our accommodation is half of a spacious duplex with a beautiful flame tree – an African import – outside.

You don’t have to go far to see wildlife. This crab-eating fox saunters casually outside our door in the morning..

Guided excursions are included, using different methods of transport. One morning we go upriver by canoe. Yes, those are caimans on the shore. There are thousands of them around here.

Caimans of all sizes are everywhere – on the shore, in the river, crossing fields and forests, walking down the dirt tracks. The Brazilian Portuguese word for ‘caiman’ is ‘jacaré’.

Here’s one munching on a catfish.

The long-sleeve shirt and pants are necessary to avoid being devoured by mosquitos. Lucky for us, they only seem to be a problem after a heavy rain.

The most common animal on the river – after caimans – is the capivara. (Capybara in Spanish. And English.)

Capivaras always seem so relaxed as they spend their days dreaming by the river.

There’s usually a dominant male around. He has a gland on his snout that he uses to mark his territory.

I have some capivara-skin shoes in my closet at home, from an earlier visit to Brazil.

We also see some resident giant otters. They’re hard to get close to, so no photos. And ‘giant’ is a relative term – they aren’t house-sized. Just larger than normal otters.

The Pantanal is a Mecca for birdwatchers. The stars of the show are the hyacinth macaws.

We don’t have a telephoto lens, so there are no dramatic close-up shots. Fortunately, the fazenda has a shelf full of high-quality binoculars for the use of the guests.

Hyacinth macaws spend a lot of time on the ground, looking for seeds and nuts.

There are many, many birds in the Pantanal- 656 species, according to WWF Brazil. Our guides seem to know the names and characteristics of all of them.

Here are a few other birds that we come across.

There are toucans around as well, but seldom close enough to photograph.

An alternative way to go is on horseback.

Maria, being a gaucha, knows her way around a horse.

I can’t make that claim, but manage to stay in the saddle.

There is also the option of going for early evening safari drives. Sundowner drinks are included.

Our Belgian fellow-guest, Jasper, is an academic at the University of Ghent. Besides having a great sense of humour and being a keen hiker and birdwatcher, he’s one smart cookie. He contributes to scientific papers with titles such as: ‘SpliceRover: interpretable convolutional neural networks for improved splice site prediction‘, and ‘Few-shot Learning Using a Small-Sized Dataset of High-Resolution FUNDUS Images for Glaucoma Diagnosis‘.

We figure he’ll win a Nobel Prize one day. In a world in which large swaths of the population of Western countries don’t believe in vaccination, and barely-functioning idiotic sociopath Donald Trump holds a Svengali-like sway over an army of the unthinking, it’s refreshing to know there are a few bright sparks in the darkness.

We are fortunate to see a tapir. Tapirs are often elusive. We track him on foot at a distance.

Tapirs always make me think of the opening scene in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. They look like some creature from times long past, even though – nerd alert! – tapirs are found only in South America, not Africa.

A creature that is really elusive is the jaguar. Like most ambush predators. We see very fresh tracks several times, but not the big guy himself. (One of the staff says ‘You might not see a jaguar while you’re here, but there’s a good chance a jaguar has seen you!’) They show up regularly on the fazenda’s wildlife cam.

In consolation, there’s a very friendly tabby cat on the premises named Spike,

Sight or Insight of the Day

It’s a fact that the main reason there is so much wildlife here is because of its remoteness. It’s a challenge to get to, and a challenge to get back to civilization.

Because it has so few people, it has lots of animals. As soon as humans begin settling in an area, every other form of life dwindles.

And according to WWF Brazil, it’s still under threat.

In this country, as in many countries in the world, people with the right connections could buy the entire Pantanal and turn it into a parking lot or a shopping mall. We hope this doesn’t happen for a long time.

We have wanted to come to the Pantanal for years. Decades, actually. Probably the biggest inhibitor is the considerable expense of visiting here. But we feel it’s time to bite the budgetary bullet.

The Brazilian Pantanal is a unique wetland, one of the world’s great ecosystems, brimming with flora and fauna.

Like many places, it has suffered grievously from the changing climate. After years of severe drought, it was ravaged this year by extensive wildfires. (More info here.) This takes a sad toll on the abundant wildlife.

We arrive from Porto Alegre (via São Paulo) at Campo Grande airport. We like these tropical airports where everything is al fresco, including disembarkation from the aircraft.

Campo Grande isn’t on many people’s list of must-see cities, but has its attractions. One is the aquarium in the Campo Grande Biopark.

It claims to be the largest freshwater aquarium in the world.

Brazil used to have public telephone booths known as ‘orelhões‘ or ‘big ears’. Like most telephone booths worldwide, they are nearly extinct. We find one – minus its phone – in the shape of a hyacinth macaw.

Did we mention that our hotel has an enormous dog named Thor? He spends most of the day trying to cool off on the tiled floor.

We visit the Dom Bosco Museum, which has artifacts from what used to be the local indigenous people.

The most fascinating is this collection of funeral masks. The description says they are rare because the ritual is no longer used by the people involved, and that they used to be burned after use.

An interesting cultural note: Campo Grande was at one time the home of a coterie of Japanese immigrants. As a result, soba noodles are a local specialty.

Another local delicacy is pastry filled with alligator meat. (More accurately, caiman meat.) We try one at the mercado municipal.

The adventure begins. We wake up at five AM for the grueling five-hour 4X4 drive to our fazenda. On the way, we are blocked by a sea of the regional cattle.

These are wrangled by the local cowboys known as Pantaleiros. They aren’t quite as fancy as the Gauchos in Rio Grande do Sul.

On the drive in, we see a giant anteater far off in a field. They look as if they’re wearing very comfy pajamas.

After hours of bouncing around like dice in a cup, we arrive at Fazenda Barranco Alto. We first heard about this place from a very interesting and well-traveled Hungarian woman we met while visiting Bhutan in 2019. She had nothing but good things to say about it.

Sight or Insight of the Day

This is going to be a short one.

A few days ago, the people of the United States of America inexplicably voted for Donald Trump to be their President.

May God have mercy on our souls.

We visit Maria’s cousin Marilia in Gramado, a beautiful town in the hills.

Here, Maria and Marilia admire the view from a lookout.

The lookout is covered in lembranças. Surprisingly, Wikipedia – which has information about almost everything under the sun – has no info about these common Brazil-wide souvenirs, but an informative page can be found here.

Gramado has an unusual thing about Christmas. Months before, the city is decorated like a sort of Southern North Pole. This, among other attractions, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors.

It’s very clean and safe. There are a lot of chocolate shops in this town. They are all good.

There is a generally alpine/Germanic look about the architecture.

Because it’s in the hills, the climate is cooler than the coast.

We are still in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, so there gaucho culture is on display everywhere. For instance, this ornate leather saddle.

And yes, plenty of meat is consumed. We go out to the restaurant MLBK (‘Malbec’ – get it?) and score free t-shirts from the owner, thanks to Marilia’s connections.

We return to Porto Alegre and from there drive with Zequinha to Candinho’s fazenda in Capivari.

This is Candinho’s house.

We enjoy sitting outside in the morning, drinking coffee, reading, and listening to the hundreds of birds around the house.

For some reason, I really like this gaucho-style stool. It looks very folkloric.

Not far away are the multiple silos of Candinho’s successful family seed business.

Besides the seed business, Cadinho farms many hectares of rice, soya, and corn.

They also raise beef cattle.

As is tradition, we are treated to another feast of meat. Candinho’s son João Vitor returns from a 12-hour shift in the fields – it’s planting season here – to prepare a wonderful churrasco.

…aided by his charming wife, Gabi.

Soon, it’s time to depart from Rio Grande do Sul and fly to Mato Grosso do Sul.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Today is October 31st – Hallowe’en. Appropriately enough, US presidential candidate Donald Trump is cosplaying as a garbageman.

If Mr. Trump doesn’t get elected, he’d better get used to wearing orange.

Of course, he has a hard time heaving his ungainly, elephantine bulk into the cab. The golden-tongued former president then shares some words of wisdom with the press about how disappointed he is that the opposition is using disparaging terms to refer to his followers.