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.