The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Three

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Chapter Three

Royalty in the Rainforest

 

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning 

a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”

Edward O. Wilson 

 

 

 

Sergio waves us over to some photographs on the wall in the lodge.   They are all of birds and they are all his photos.   He asks us which bird we would like to see.

 

Shelly points to a toucanet and says her hope for this trip is to see toucans and toucanets.   

 

My eyes stop immediately on a little brown bird that would be nondescript were it not for flaming red feathers spread like a fan across the top of its head.  “That one,” I say.

 

“We will visit her this afternoon,” says Sergio, sounding pleased with my choice.   “Right now there are five people with her.”

 

So, we go to the deck where the feeders are and I revel in the variety of species that either come to the feeders or hang around with other birds.

One of the most noticeable birds at the feeders is the red-rumped cacique.  This large, black bird with a stunning ivory-colored bill exhibits a scarlet rump patch that's visible only when it  flies and that isn't easy to catch.   Here, one of the left is peeking into its nest.

 

Bananas.   More bananas.   Crates of bananas.  Unlimited bananas.   A storage warehouse full of bananas.

 

Trilha dos Turcanos has them and distributes them daily in large measure.  The tropical birds that visit the feeders on the deck of the main lodge and crazy for the soft yellow fruit.

Sparrow

Back-lit squirrel eating sunflower seeds.

Golden-chevroned tanager.

A female yellow-fronted woodpecker.

Parakeets.

 

Big and little, male and female, they love bananas.

 

And so, we spent a lot of time on that deck with little green parakeets crawling on our arms and hands.   They weren’t after bananas exclusively.  Those messy things were in the nearby feeders.   These little parrots were eating sunflower seeds from our hands.

Laura and parakeets

 

Even Laura, not especially a bird enthusiast, held out her hands for the parakeets.

 

Eventually, Sergio rounds us up and we squeeze into his little car.   He drives down a dirt road perhaps a quarter mile and drops us off.  Then, he leads us on a trail into the rainforest alongside a narrow, shallow creek.

A piece of the trail is at far right.

Virginia on the trail

 

The light is dappled and sometimes it’s hard to see my footing.   There is evidence that vegetation was recently cleared and make-shift steps hacked into the mud, dirt, and rock.

 

After a couple hundred feet, we emerge into a small clearing where the creek makes a left bend and seat ourselves on small green plastic chairs.   Sergio points out the nest of the bird we are here to see.   

 

It hangs over the creek like a weaver’s nest and is difficult to see unless you’re in the right spot.   

 

I wait and soak in the sounds of the rainforest.  

The flycatcher's habitat.   When she appears, she lands on the vine that is horizontal in the photo.

 

Then, there she is!   

 

Perched on a mossy vine that reaches across the creek, there’s the Atlantic Royal Flycatcher.   Shutters rat-a-tat as we burst photo the tiny bird.   Well, in truth, my shutter does but the other gals' cameras have silent shutters.

 

I stop to review the photos on my camera when she leaves and I am astonished at how beautiful she is.  

The Atlantic Royal flycatcher, my favorite bird of the trip.

 

Brown with buff underparts and with a cinnamon rump and tail, she is a bit over six inches long.  She has sharp black eyes and rictus bristles around her bill.

 

On top her head, I see bits of the crest for which these birds are famous, red/orange and bits of blue/black that fan sideways cross their heads    The crest is rarely seen, explains Sergio, except when a mated pair greets each other.

 

The Atlantic Royal Flycatcher.

That is why we spend many hours with this patient little bird over the three days we are here, but though we hear a male, it never approaches.

 

“In a bar watching football and drinking beer while she builds the nest,” I say.

A large piece of nesting material.

Highly cropped to show the rictus bristles around the bill.   Many studies have been done but there is no consensus as to their function.

I love the way the sun beams highlight the flycatcher.

The flycatcher with a bit of nesting material.

 

We hear warblers and other birds and catch glimpses but never get a lens on them.

 

It’s cool here in the rainforest and I have "come into the peace of wild things."*

 

 

 

The canopy.

Virginia on the trail

Sergio on the trail.

* from Wendell Berry's "The Peace of Wild Things."

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Two

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Chapter Two

Bird Heaven

 

 

A bird does not sing because it has an answer, 

it sings because it has a song.” — Maya Angelou. 

 

 

 

I was in the lobby of the Pullman hotel in Såo Paulo, Brazil, very early the morning after my arrival.   We were met by a nervous man whose equally nervous father would drive the van that would take us to our first lodge, a four-hour trip away.   

 

The father was nervous because he didn’t speak English.   The son was nervous because he’d never accompanied tourists for Pantanal Photo Tours before.

 The son’s name was Ruan, pronounced like Juan.  Portuguese is spoken in Brazil and with my smidgeon of Spanish, I found I was able to interpret a FEW similar words.   

We had fun and when Ryan didn't know a word in English, he asked.  

We stopped along the way—once we were out of heavy city traffic where the motorbikes terrified me by weaving in and out of traffic and vehicle drivers did their utmost to avoid crashing into them—at a large rest stop for a bathroom break.

Never before have I encountered what we experienced in this store.   To get into it, you had to take a plastic….  I don’t even know what to call them.   They are thick--perhaps 3/8 inch and larger than a playing card-- devices that aren’t easily lost—unless you’re me.   Almost like carrying one of the newer smart phones, but shorter.

 

We pondered their use.  Do we have to pay to use the restroom?   No, that didn’t appear to be their function.

 

After leaving the restroom, we wandered into the store part of the building.   It was huge and featured ready-made food, beverages, groceries, and was almost a department store.   I grabbed a bottle of Coke Zero and approached what looked to me like a cashiers table, though the strangest one I’d ever seen.   I caught a ladies’ eye, held up the Coke and US dollars,  and she shook her head.

 

Well, not knowing what to do next, I laid down that plastic device and found my friends far across the store searching for packaged snacks.  Then I remembered I’d left my credit card in the van.  I said something about it and someone said they’d pay for my Coke.   I think it was Virginia's but a lot happened after that and I'm not sure.

 

That’s when I discovered the reason for the device. I had asked Ruan earlier and he said something about keeping track of customers.    Oh, counting customers, I thought.   Nope.   It was much more than that.

 

You couldn’t get out of the store without one!   Apparently, it was also an emitter of wireless signals.  I’m not sure if it tracked you throughout the store, but at the cashier’s register it came into play.

 

No emitter device, no exit through the turnstile.  Ruan explained to the cashier that I’d set down my emitter somewhere in the store.   The lady gave me the fish eye, and hit a button that allowed me to exit without going through the turn stile.

 

Later, in another store, we paid at a human-less terminal with credit cards and received a receipt at the turnstile when we dropped the emitter into a collector.  Nice way to prevent shoplifting, I thought.

 

Finally, after a drive on a dirt road into the rainforest, we reached our destination—Trilha dos Tucanos, and family owned/operated lodge especially for bird enthusiasts.

Into the rainforest on a single-lane dirt road.

Sergio, a university professor and bird enthusiast.

 

And we were met by Sergio, our guide for the next three days.  He showed us around briefly and we went to our rooms--up a steep hill to a small building.   I was in the first room, the blue one.   Laura and Shelly were in the next two rooms and Virginia was farther up the hill in the loft of another building.

Our rooms were in the building you can see in the center.

Dining room.

Dining room and the counter where lunch and dinner buffets were laid out.

Entrance to the lodge building.

Virginia, Shelly, and myself waiting for birds.

Looking downhill at the main lodge.

Doing my best impersonation of John Travolta.

Behind the buffet counter in the lodge.  See the notebook at bottom?   If you got a COke or anything from the refrigerator, you noted it down in the notebook.   Turns out, Octavio paid for all our sodas.

 

Sergio told us to meet him back at the main building for lunch soon.   And that’s where we found magic in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest.

 

 

Virginia and parakeets.

 

 

 

 

 

Parakeet.   I think they are larger than parakeets sold in pet shops in the US.

 

The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter One

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Chapter One

Is Getting there is Half the Fun?

Please be a traveler, not a tourist.Try new things, meet new people, 

and look beyond what's right in front of you. --Unk.

 

I’d like to have a word with the advertising executive who coined the line “Getting There is Half the Fun” for the old Cunard Steamship lines posters.   Better yet, I’d like for him to have experienced the “getting there” part of my trip to Brazil in mid-September.

 

I like to write these journals in present tense as it makes them seem more current and relevant, however, it’s no secret that the trip is over and I’m already home —complete with a cold, saddle sores, and many new insect bites.

Early September and everything was set.   The trip was paid for in advance, the itinerary printed and read, and airline and hotel reservations in place.   My travel buddies and I were in touch via Facebook Messenger which is a handy computer/iPad/cell phone platform.

 

Then, one of them threw a monkey wrench into the works.   She set up a WhatsApp group for us to connect with our guide.   I’d heard of WhatsApp, but never used it nor thought of any reason why I would.

 

To explain, I call myself a cell phone Luddite.  In today’s world, a Luddite is someone who is opposed to technology, particularly in the field of IT.

My checked bag weighed 40 lbs.  
This is the heaviest bag I've
traveled with in decades.

I hate phones.   I hate the thought of being tethered to a phone 24 hours a day.   I hate having to think about where it is, if it needs charging, and/or listening to all the dings, whistles, and other notes that tell me the phone demands my immediate attention.

 

I figure the phone is there for my convenience, not the opposite.   I agree that for some people  it is a valuable tool, a great convenience, a hand-held computer.   I am not one of those people so when this WhatsApp thing popped up I was clueless.

My camera bag was also the heaviest
it's ever been.   I blame it on the 
computer in it.

I got lots of instructions (all through Facebook Messenger) and eventually I had WhatsApp on my cell.  I will confess, it was convenient for this trip, but I can’t see any reason to use it in the future.

Then, disaster.   Our friend Marg Wood, who organized this trip, and had to postpone because of COVID, had to drop out because of a serious medical emergency in her family.   We were crushed.  We were awash.   We rely on Marg for so much like the inevitable problem solving and such things that arise on any trip.

 She is my photography mentor.   She willingly offers computer software advice after we download our photos.   Plus, she's a darned fun travel companion.   We love her.

So, we set out on our own without Mama Hen.

Inset into the floor of the SEA-Tac terminal.

 

I stayed in Anchorage the night before my Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle because I didn’t want to chance the only highway between my home and Anchorage being closed due to an accident or such.

Flying past Malapina Glacier in the Gulf of Alaska, the largest Piedmont glacier* in the world.  

"If a valley glacier spills out of the mountains, onto the flat foreland, the ice often spreads to form a lobe. Then it is called a Piedmont glacier.)

Feb 9, 2018

  

I stayed overnight in Seattle at the modest Coast Gateway hotel.  The next day, I was to fly on American Airlines (4-1/2 hrs) to Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) and this is where the trouble started.

Coast Gateway hotel.   I've stayed here several times.   Unpretentious, welcoming, and moderate rates.   Plus a nice breakfast and very close to SEA-Tac

 

The flight was about an hour late leaving Seattle and I have no idea why.   This created a big problem with my connection in DFW, which was tight to begin with.   To make matters worse, we landed on the Ft. Worth side of this vast airport and had to get to the Dallas side for the next leg.   The airport encompasses 27 square miles, second largest in the US.

 

Long story short, I made the DFW flight.   I think I was the last person to board.  Totally stressed-out, I fidgeted during the overnight flight in my itsy-bitsy steerage seat.   The plane was full so there was no relief from being a sardine.

Shortly after takeoff.   I enjoy watching the travel maps.

 

Finally, the plane landed in Sáo Paulo, Brazil, the next morning and we found the spot to catch the hotel shuttle to our hotel, the Pullman.  We had all reserved rooms for two nights though we would be staying only one night.   Why?  We arrived mid-morning after a ten-hour flight and wanted our rooms ready for us, not wanting to wait until afternoon check in time.

 

So, escorted to my room on the fifth floor I looked out the window and, for the first time in my life, say capybara through the window!   Capybara are the largest rodent on earth, two feet high at the shoulder and adults can weight 150 lbs.

 

Capys are herbivores, eating pounds of grass and water vegetation.   

 

“They are intensely social, herd animals. They are very complex and sophisticated emotionally. They are also highly intelligent, at least as intelligent as the most intelligent dogs,” according to data on the Internet.

 

And they are cute. I want one.

Looking surprisingly like the gray herons of Eastern Africa, I also photographed this cocoi heron through the window of my 5th floor hotel room.

Gathering for dinner snacks that first night, Laura gave each of us a small bundle containing the most thoughtful gifts.   Benedryl anti-itch spray for insect bites, a sunglass band, electrolytes, A&W drink mix, and Dove chocolates.   The "gift wrapping" was a neck buff.   Not included in the photo was a small container of insect repellant.

Shelly produced a gift from Marg.   It's a cooling towel--
soak it in water and it provides relief from hot temps. You 
will see more photos of this towel later.

Pullman hotel breakfast buffet.

Giant economy sized Nutella.

My breakfast. includes Portuguese sausage.

Pullman hotel lobby.  There is no reservation/reception desk as in other hotels.   Instead, there are several computer terminal stations.

I try to take photos of my rooms before I mess them up.   I crashed for a nap right after check-in this time.

My room.