LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL: Brazil

Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts

On July 28, David and Katharine Lowrie set out on a run like no other. The pair have hit the road to run the length of South America. Yes, you read that right. They are planning on running south to north across the entire continent and they're doing so to raise awareness and funds to protect the wildlife that lives in threatened areas there. Their expedition is aptly named the 5000 Mile Project, as that is the distance that they will cover before they are through. (That's roughly 8046 km for most of the world.)

The began their epic adventure last month by setting off from Punta Arenas, Chile, the southernmost settlement in South America. They'll now work their way north through Patagonia, crossing between Chile and Argentina as they go. Eventually they'll cross into Bolivia before continuing on to Brazil, where they'll face one of the biggest challenges to the expedition – a crossing of the Amazon Rainforest. If successful there, they'll emerge into Venezuela and finish the journey with a run to the Caribbean coast.

The Lowrie's hope to wrap up their journey approximately a year after they started. That seems rather ambitious considering the difficult miles that lie ahead. The couple aren't just out on the road running unencumbered. They're pulling specially designed carts behind them that carry all of their gear and supplies as well. David and Katharine are hoping to cover roughly the length of a marathon each day (26.2 miles/42.1 km), which is a challenge but highly feasible while on roads. But once they hit the Amazon, things will be completely different and much more difficult in general.

The husband and wife team have undertaken the 5000 Mile Project to raise funds for Asociacion Armonia, BirdLife International and Conservacion Patagonica. The hope is to collect enough money to help fund the purchase of threatened habitats in South America to protect the wildlife that lives there. As part of the project, they are also recording the various animals they see along their run including the many bird species that inhabit the continent.

Their efforts don't end there however. They've also launched the BigToe Classroom which contains lesson plans and projects for teachers to use with their students to get them engaged with conservation projects as well. There is even a way to contact David and Katharine and set up a video conference call with them directly from the road.

You can learn more about the 5000 Mile Project in an interview that the couple did with Explorers Web earlier in the week. You can also follow along with David and Katharine's blog or on Twitter and Facebook.

To truly get a sense of South America, filmmakers Clemens Krüger, Vincent Urban & Stefan Templer traveled its length in a classic Land Rover, wandering through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. Along the way they captured some striking images from road and compiled them in the amazing video you'll find below. Those images are sometimes haunting, sometimes enchanting and always compelling. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Really beautiful footage.

Lets start the day out today with a little adrenaline rush. This video was shot using GoPro cameras as wingsuit pilots Ludovic Woerth and Jokke Sommer fly into Rio de Janeiro. The highlights from this clip include that they launched their flight from motorized paragliders and they managed to buzz between two towers on their descent, before coming in for a landing in a small park in the middle of the city. Crazy stuff, even with a fogged over lens.

Last fall, Aaron Chevernak and Gareth Jones embarked on their ambitious Brazil 9000 Expedition, during which they are traveling across the South American country on foot and by canoe and bicycle. Their journey began in the northernmost part of Brazil and they've been traveling south ever since. The expedition is expected to last up to 15 months and will cover a distance of 9000 km (5500 miles) before ending in the village of Chuí on the border with Uruguay. They are currently 126 days into the trek and have now covered 2345 km (1457 miles).

It has been awhile since we've had one of Aaron and Gareth's wonderful video dispatches, but yesterday they released a new one. The video gives us a glimpse of what life is like for the boys as they paddle some of Brazil's iconic rivers, including the Amazon from Manaus to Santarem. Along they way they've spotted a variety of wildlife, encountered unique people and even had a cold Coca Cola delivered to them by float plane.

As with their previous dispatches, I'm amazed at the quality of these videos considering they're shooting, editing and uploading them while on the go. Truly wonderful stuff and they create a nice feeling of being on the expedition with the two men.

Caboclo Kingdom: Brazil 9000 Update #3 from The Skeeto Lounge on Vimeo.

I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but #46 is... Paris. Like after you've been to Burma's Mergui Islands, Republic of Congo, Ningxia (China’s answer to Bordeaux), Houston, Delhi, and Pecs (Hungary). And Marseille-- which comes in as the #2 destination of the year! "Whether you travel to eat or shop, surf or ski, new adventures await," this week's Travel Section promised. OK, but if you're looking for any good ideas about where to go... well, I should be fair. There are some. But you have to be discerning enough to remember that they're recommending Paris because "it has a new allure: a green and walkable Right Bank."

Where once there was just a busy road, there are now alder trees, native Seine grasses and wide walking and cycle paths, all due to a 35-million-euro beautification project led by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë. Wooden furniture to stretch out in has been installed along the banks, where visitors can relax while taking in the view of Notre Dame Cathedral, and five adjoining islands in the river are being turned into “floating gardens.” Across the river, ambitious steps are being taken to transform a nearly 1.5-mile stretch of the Left Bank free of cars by this spring, with 11 acres of new green space between the Musée d’Orsay and Pont de l’Alma.

The recommendation right before Paris, Casablanca, is the Moroccan destination of choice. Not mine, though. I've been to Morocco over a dozen times and to Casablanca several but... Fez, Marrakech, Essaouira, Taroudant, even Tangier all go before Casa, even if it has lovely architecture, North Africa's tallest towers and is "developing one of the most interesting modern art scenes in the Arab world." To be honest, the reason I do like going to Casablanca-- usually to catch a flight somewhere else-- is because it boasts one of the most spectacular seafood restaurants in the world, Le Port de Pêche, a hidden gem most people who get their travel advice from the New York Times would probably miss ("scary" location on the docks). But-- with a discussion of the relative merits of the art, architecture and cuisine saved for another day-- I think most tourists would get a bigger kick out of Taroudant than Casablanca.

And the Times' #1 destination for the year? Rio. OK, I want to go there too. But I don't know if my reasons are related to the Times'. South America's first Apple store? Gimme a break!

Fifty-three years after Brazil’s federal government decamped to Brasília, and decades after São Paulo took over as the country’s business capital, Rio is staging a comeback. With the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics (plus an oil boom) providing the impetus, the tropical city perhaps most famous for its Carnival hedonism is on its way to becoming a more sophisticated cultural hub. In January, the Cidade das Artes, or City of the Arts, was inaugurated as the new home of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. On March 23, Casa Daros-- an outpost of the Zurich-based Daros Latinamerica Collection-- will open in a renovated 19th-century building with an exhibition of Colombian artists. March will also mark the opening of the Rio Museum of Art in Praça Mauá, a once decrepit port area now being revived. (The Santiago Calatrava-designed Museum of Tomorrow, also in the port area, is scheduled to follow in 2014.) Shopping, a Rio obsession, got a boost in December when the luxe VillageMall opened; it will soon house the city’s first Gucci outlet and South America’s first Apple Store. Special events also dot the coming year’s calendar, including the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day in July, the biennial Rio Book Fair starting in late August, and September’s Rock in Rio. And, of course, there’s soccer: the finals of the Confederations Cup, considered a dress rehearsal for the World Cup, will be held in a completely overhauled Maracanã Stadium on June 30.

Some of the more worthwhile suggestions include Accra (Ghana), Mongolia, Bhutan, Amsterdam (yes, the Stedelijk and the Rijksmuseum are finally reopening), the Yucatán, Porto, Istanbul and Koh Phangan (where a German tourist was partially devoured by a shark last time I was there. They also recommend Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka, not one of the incredibly beautiful island's best destinations by any stretch of the imagination, and the Falklands, although why someone would go there rather than Tierra del Fuego is as hard to fathom as what rhyme or reason went into the list of 46 to begin with.

One of the bigger expeditions we've been following over the past few months came to an end yesterday when the Amazon Express crew completed their paddle of the Amazon River. The team worked late into the night and battled unexpectedly heavy tides, to reach the mouth of the river, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Brazil. That final push brought an end to a journey that took nearly four months to complete and crossed over 4000 miles (6437 km) in the process.

The past few days have not been easy ones for West Hansen and his companions. The closer they got to the finish line the more difficult the paddling became. At times they were averaging just 1.5 miles (2.4 km) per hour as the incoming tides from the Atlantic made it difficult for them to make any kind of headway. The team took breaks where they could and rested during high tide, but over the final two days they slept for just a couple of hours as they made a mad, desperate dash for the end of the river.

Reading the most recent post to the Amazon Express blog it is clear that the final leg of the trip has been an exhausting one. The three paddlers miss their families and homes dearly and are more than ready to wrap things up and head back to the U.S. They'll do that tomorrow, but for now they're enjoying some basic creature comforts they haven't had for some time and relishing in the feeling of having accomplished their quest to paddle the Amazon River from source to sea.

No word yet on whether or not this was a new speed record of any kind. Originally when the expedition was conceived it was meant to be an attempt to paddle the entire 4000+ mile length of the river at a record pace. There really hasn't been much mention of that goal since the early going, so we'll have to wait to see if that remained a driving factor in the end or if this simply evolved into an adventure along the world's largest and most powerful river.

Congratulations to West and his team for completing this epic journey. I can only imagine some of the things that they saw while out on the water.

Over the past few months we've been closely following the Amazon Express expedition, during which West Hansen and his team of paddlers have been attempting to travel source-to-sea along the Amazon River. This is, of course, a major undertaking which began back in the Peruvian Andes in August, continued down into some of the most intense whitewater on the planet and later out onto the wide expanse of the might river itself. It has been quite an adventure for the entire group, who continue to paddle on now, knocking off roughly 50+ miles (80+ km) per day. But the end is in sight and they are nearing the finish line at last. If all goes according to plan they should reach the mouth of the river and the Atlantic Ocean sometime early next week.

According to their latest dispatch, West and company are expected to reach Belem, the last major city before the end of the paddle, on Monday, December 3. Belem sits approximately 77 miles (123 km) up river from the point where the Amazon empties into the Atlantic. At this point, they don't expect to pull into the city at all, but instead paddle past it. Taking their current speed into account, it seems likely that they will then wrap up the expedition on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week at the very latest. By the time they are done, they'll have kayaked in excess of 4000 miles (6437 km) through some of the most remote and isolated regions on Earth.

These past few weeks have not been particularly easy ones for the team. As they've paddled further down the river, the current has gotten slower, making it more difficult to cover adequate mileage each day. On top of that, the conditions have gotten windier, which always makes paddling tougher, and they are now dealing with the effects of tides as well. As a result, they're only managing about 3-3.5 mph (4.8-5.6 km/h) in the mornings. In the afternoons the winds die down, allowing them to go faster, but that is also when the tides are at their highest, so that time of day presents its own set of challenges. Needless to say, it has been exhausting work and the crew is ready to finish up and head home.

It looks like next week they'll get to do exactly that.

I tend to write more about traveling to places like Nepal, Mali and Afghanistan and Tierra del Fuego and Ken writes more about walking tours here in America. I bet the Obama Administration would be a lot happier with Ken's perspective than with mine. They just announced a national strategy to increase travel and tourism in the U.S. and they're aiming for 100 million visitors a year by 2021. The strategy is actually a blueprint for expanding travel to and within the country. It sets out a goal of increasing American jobs by attracting and welcoming 100 million international visitors annually by the end of 2021, more than a 50% increase over the number expected this year. They estimate that these international visitors would spend something like $250 billion per year, creating jobs and spurring economic growth in communities across the country.

“Tens of millions of tourists from all over the world come and visit America every year. They stay in our hotels, they eat at our restaurants, they visit our attractions, and they help create jobs. At a time when too many Americans are still looking for work, we need to make it easier for more people to visit this country and keep our economy growing,” said President Obama.

The U.S. tourism and travel industry is a substantial component of U.S. GDP, exports, and employment. Efforts to make America the top tourist destination in the world offer a tremendous opportunity to create jobs and strengthen the U.S. economy. In 2011, the travel and tourism industry generated $1.2 trillion from domestic and international travel and supported 7.6 million jobs-- with international travel to the United States resulting in a record $153 billion in receipts and supporting 1.2 million jobs. The Commerce Department recently released a travel and tourism forecast projecting that the U.S. can expect 4-5% average annual growth in tourism over the next five years, and that 65.4 million foreign travelers are projected to visit the U.S. in 2012 alone.

There are a number of the ways they're hoping to increase tourism from other countries. They're all worked up over Brand USA, a non-profit organization created by the Travel Promotion Act that is charged with promoting foreign travel to this country, which is now running its first set of international marketing campaigns to promote the U.S. as a travel destination abroad. The first targets are Canada, Japan, and the U.K. and are the next planned are for South Korea and Brazil. Interesting they would mention Brazil, which has had a longstanding dispute with the U.S. about cumbersome visa policies. And, sure enough, our Nobel Peace Prize winning president may not have ended the war in Afghanistan yet but he is ending the visa war with Brazil!

The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) is the flagship of our international tourism strategy. Over 60 percent of all overseas travelers to the United States are from VWP countries. In 2010, these travelers generated over $60 billion in annual tourism revenue. While the VWP remains the largest travel facilitation program, the Obama Administration is also committed to easing travel for the approximately 40 percent of international travelers who currently require visas to enter the United States. Building on the progress made over the past several years and in response to the President’s Executive Order, the Obama Administration is facilitating legitimate travel to America while maintaining security by:

·         Supporting Legislative Improvements to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The Obama Administration supports and is committed to working with Congress on legislation to strengthen and expand VWP eligibility to nations with low visa refusal rates and rapidly growing economies, consistent with national security requirements.

·         Increasing Arrivals. Comparing the first six months of fiscal year 2012 to the first six months of fiscal year 2011, arrivals of travelers using the Visa Waiver Program have increased by 8 percent and arrivals of travelers from China and Brazil have increased by 33 percent and 18 percent, respectively. Total non-immigrant admissions, which consists of admissions of travelers who are not U.S. citizens or returning residents, have increased by 4.5 percent during the same period.

·         Shortening Visa Interview Wait Times. Around the world, wait times for visa interviews are generally short, and have dropped dramatically in some of the busiest travel markets where demand for visas is highest. Now, travelers currently wait less than one week for an appointment at U.S. consulates in China, less than one week in the Brazilian cities of Brasilia, Recife, and Rio de Janeiro, and 30 days or less in São Paulo. In anticipation of the summer travel season, the Department of State is adding staff and streamlining its operations to continue to keep visa interview wait times low.

·         Streamlining the Visa Process. A new pilot program now underway at the Department of State to streamline visa processing will free up more interview slots for first-time applicants and allow consular officers to more effectively spend their time evaluating higher-risk visa applicants. Consular officers may waive in-person interviews for certain low-risk, qualified individuals, such as those renewing their visas within 48 months of the expiration of their previous visas, and Brazilian applicants below the age of 16 and age 66 and older. Consular officers retain the authority to interview any applicant in any category if security or other concerns are present.

·         Building Capacity in China and Brazil to Meet Demand. The Department of State is investing approximately $68 million in 2012 on existing facilities in Brazil and $22 million in China – adding interview windows, expanding consular office space, and improving waiting areas. President Obama has recently announced that the United States will establish consulates in Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre, Brazil, while major expansion projects are underway in China.

·         Increasing Consular Staffing and Implementing Innovative Hiring Programs. To address immediate growth in demand and ensure that the United States can continue to offer timely visa services to qualified applicants, the Department of State is doubling the number of diplomats performing consular work in China and Brazil over the next year. Similarly, the first group of newly hired consular adjudicators recently arrived at U.S. consulates in Brazil and China. These adjudicators were hired under a program targeting recruits who already speak Portuguese or Mandarin.

Almost a million people a day enter the U.S. There will be a need for a lot more walking tour guides as time goes on. And, as far as Mali... even more dangerous than Arizona. We're advising anyone even thinking about visiting Mali to change plans and go to Bali... or Maui. The political crisis isn't getting any better. Most of the country-- including Timbuktu-- is now closed to tourism entirely. The crisis in Mali is actually existential.

When last year's initially nonviolent uprising in Libya against the Gaddafi regime turned to armed struggle, resulting in even greater government repression and thereby prompting NATO intervention, disparate armed groups-- including Tuareg tribesmen-- ended up liberating major stores of armaments. These vast caches of weapons were passed on to Tuaregs in Mali who, now having the means to effectively challenge the Malian government militarily, resumed their long-dormant rebellion under the leadership of National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

Charging that the civilian government was not being tough enough against the rebels, U.S.-trained Army Captain Amadou Sanogo and other officers staged a coup on March 22 and called for U.S. intervention along the lines of Afghanistan and the "war on terror."

Sanogo's training in the United States is just one small part of a decade of U.S. training of armies in the Sahel, increasing the militarization of this impoverished region and the influence of armed forces relative to civilian leaders. Gregory Mann, writing in Foreign Policy, notes how "a decade of American investment in special forces training, co-operation between Sahalien armies and the United States and counter-terrorism programs of all sorts run by both the State Department and the Pentagon has, at best, failed to prevent a new disaster in the desert and, at worst, sowed its seeds."

...Tuareg rebels, taking advantage of the political divisions in the capital, consolidated their hold on the northern part of the country by capturing its remaining towns and declaring an independent state. The MNLA's victories also led various Islamist militias, including extremists allied with Al-Qaeda, to seize a number of towns and impose their rigid ideological agenda... [E]xtremist Islamic militias in the north, taking advantage of the country's chaos, have reportedly been destroying historic shrines and other cultural landmarks they consider idolatrous in Timbuktu and other northern cities.

Sprawling across half of South America, Brazil has captivated travelers for at least 500 years. Powdery white-sand beaches, lined with palm trees and fronting a deep blue Atlantic, stretch for more than 7000km. Dotting this coastline are tropical islands, music-filled metropolisesand enchanting colonial towns. Inland, Brazil offers dazzling sights of a different flavor: majestic waterfalls, red-rock canyons, and crystal-clear rivers – all just a small part of the natural beauty.

Its larger and more famous attractions are the Amazon and the Pantanal, the pair hosting some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet. Wildlife-watching is simply astounding here, as is the opportunity for adventure – though you needn’t go to the jungle to find it. Kayaking, rafting, trekking, snorkeling and surfing are just a few ways to spend a sun-drenched afternoon in nearly any region in Brazil.

Some of the world’s most exciting cities lie inside of Brazil’s borders, and travelers need not come to Carnaval to experience the music, dance and revelry that pack so many calendar nights. Given the country’s innumerable charms, the only drawback to traveling in Brazil is a logistical (and financial) one: you simply won’t want to leave.Show in Lonely Planet
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I usually don't mention photographers collective on this blog, but I found that ArcaPress (started in May of 2010) which highlights Brazilian culture and covering such areas as religion, indigenous people, economic issues, urban reality, environment and wildlife.

I was particularly drawn to Between Faith And Fever by Guy Veloso, and Maracatu by Celso Oliviera.

Maracatu is the name of performance genres found in northeastern Brazil and in its northeastern state of Ceará. Maracatu describes the music style that accompanies these performances. Maracatu has close ties to Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies, and these performances are secular manifestations of these cults.

In Focus, the photo blog of The Atlantic magazine, featured The Ashaninka, A Threatened Way of Life; photographs by Mike Goldwater. Be sure to view the photographs in the 1280px option if your monitor allows it.

The Ashaninka are an indigenous people living in the rain forests of Peru and in the State of Acre of Brazil, and are one of the largest indigenous groups in South America. Their number is estimated between 25,000 and 45,000.

Current threats are from oil companies, drug traffickers, colonists, illegal lumberers, illegal roads, conservation groups, missionary groups, and diseases. Roads are being built into the forest to extract mahogany and cedar trees for export to markets in the United States and Europe despite an international embargo. Religious missionary groups are intent on changing Ashaninka culture and belief systems, ignoring the impact on their long term survival.

Mike Goldwater is a photographer, who ran the Half Moon Gallery in London's East End from 1974 to 1980, and who created the magazine "Camerawork". He also co-founded photo agency 'Network Photographers' for photojournalism, documentary photography and corporate work. He traveled to over 70 countries and his images were published in major magazines around the world.

You may also wish to see Tatiana Cardeal's work on South American indigenous people.

Here's the work of Antonio Mari, US-Brazilian photographer living in both countries, and specializing in ethnophotography. His work appeared in the New York Times, The New York Post, Newsday, Gannett Newspapers, Asahi Shimbun (Japan), Veja Magazine (Brazil), Time Magazine, Science Magazine and the Boston Globe, as well as Geo Magazine (Germany).

I was drawn to his Bahia of All Saints (Candomble) gallery which depicts the practice of the Afro-Brazilian syncretism called Candomble in the Reconcavo Baiano region of the northeastern state of Bahia,Brazil. The images were made during an offering ceremony in a small village called Milagre San Roque.

Actually, I loved every second of my short trip to Brazil a few years ago when I visited the Iguazu Falls National Park, where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet. After much research, I decided to stay on the Brazilian side, even though that meant dealing with the hassle of getting a Brazilian visa, something easy for Europeans... but hard for Americans-- well, not really hard, but expensive and time-consuming. And it's a hassle, purposefully so. Simple explanation: tit for tat. The Brazilians are doing exactly to American tourists what the U.S. does to Brazilian tourists. I found an easy way-- well, relatively easy way-- 'round the problems, which I explained in the link above, that fit right into my schedule: the Brazilian consul in Buenos Aires.

Today Catharine Hamm, the L.A. Times travel editor, as part of a q & a grapples with it for pissed off Americans who aren't aware the Brazilians are simply responding to Bush-era restrictions on their nationals that Obama hasn't gotten around to fixing.

“There is some promise in this issue,” said Mario Moyses, vice minister of tourism for Brazil, noting that 600,000 Americans last year visited the emerging South American superpower.

But, so far, it remains a promise. Even if you’re visiting on a cruise and staying eight hours, you need a visa, according to the local Brazilian consulate. At $160, your visit will cost you $20 an hour.

Chalk it up to a little diplomatic tit for tat. What the U.S. charges Brazilians for a visa, Brazil charges U.S. citizens.
“It is not a punishment, but an international procedure between countries,” Moyses said.

Whatever it is, if you are going to Brazil, you’ll need to allow plenty of time to get that visa. It will take at least 10 working days, the consulate website says (www.brazilian-consulate, www.brazilian-consulate.org), and the application and pick-up must be in person, whether by you or a visa agency. “No exceptions!” the website says in several places.

I’m not sure why the tone is so cranky, but maybe travelers to Brazil have been trying to game the system. Or maybe Americans are pushier than the average bear. (No. Really?)

...Brazil does not require Western Europeans to have a visa. Of course, neither do we.

With Brazil slated to host soccer’s World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, perhaps this is an opportune time to end this diplomatic tantrum. As parents often tell squabbling siblings, it doesn’t matter who started it, and it doesn’t really matter why. It does matter that travelers get caught, yet again, in affairs not of their own making.

Brazil's worth the hassle and we're planning a trip to the northeast -- Recife and Bahia-- where I have a large extended family.