Trip to the Pantanal

Mato Grosso is known for the area called the Pantanal. No one should visit the state and not pay a visit to this area. I, therefore, had to make a visit to this area, since I was in Mato Grosso. Fortunately for me I was in Mato Grosso, at the right time the dry season to visit the Pantanal. During the rainy season, the only road, the Tranpantaniera, that goes into the Pantanal is impassable.

So, the Panatanl is basically a swamp area. It reminded me a lot of the Florida Everglades. There are a lot of animal mainly birds and alligators or as they are called here jacares. The Tranpantaniera runs right in the middle of the area. So as you drive you have parts of the Pantanal on either sides. That allows for a greater possibility of seeing the animals of the region. As we drove along the most common animal was the jacare of different sizes. I think in the Panatanal there are like 10 jacares for each person that enter. There were that many. As were droving further into the regions we saw several types of birds for example the Tiuiuiu. Another animal which was common is the capybaras. There were usually in a family.

~Tuiuiu~

~jacares sunbathing~

~tuiuiu with many other birds, very common scene~

~ capybaras, also jacare food ~

We drove further in the Pantanal and stopped at a Hotel in the heart of the Pantanal to do a boat tour further into the area. While we waited for the boat tour, I did something I had never done before. I went fishing. I caught several fish These were not fish people usually eat. They were small fish that the animals of the Pantanal eat.

~I just caught my first fish ever. I was proud even though it was tiny.~

After fishing, we went on a boat ride further into the Pantanal. We each had to wear an orange life vest in case the boat capsized. In my mind I was thinking that being eaten by jacares should be of greater concern than drowning. Rather than just having a life vest we also would need to have jacare repellent. Thankfully, the trip was without incident. We got to see more animals, mainly birds and jacares. The person conducting the tour used the fish guests caught to lure the animals out of hiding so we could see them. The whole boat trip was more of a show with the tour guide trying to impress us with his ability to call the animals and have them come to him. It was very entertaining. At one point he put his hand in the water waving a fish to get a jacare which he name dragon to come to the boat.

~a falcon (I think) catching a fish the guide threw~

Another thing about the region that caught my attention was the trees. There were three types of trees that seemed out of place with the other trees. Most of the trees were just green and normal but these three types of trees gave color to the region. They had a brown trunk and the rest of the tree was just colorful flowers. The flowers were either white, pink or yellow. It was so beautiful to see the contrast with the other trees. They literally brought color to the green landscape.

~trees along the riverbanks contrasting with the green~

~colorful trees brightening up the Pantanal landscape~

As I said, the jacares practically own the Pantanal because they out-number human beings and they are everywhere. So, I guess no trip to the Pantanal would be complete without a close-up jacare encounter. As we were driving back to Cuiaba we had our jacare close encounter. They were on the Tranpataniera, in the middle of the main road, the only road out if I might add. It was what I would call a jacare roadblock. I guess they were protesting human intrusion in their territory. No, actually it was just several jacares crossing the road very slowly to get to the other side and others just sitting in the middle of the road getting some sun. I therefore decided to do a quasi crocodile hunter attempt to clear the road. Just kidding! I just wanted a close up with the jacare. There were no mishaps, I got pretty close and tail ended it back to the car without being harmed. That was definitely, one of the highlight of the trip for me!

~jacare/crocodile encounter~

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for other adventures.

Rio Quente and Scuba Diving

So every year the employees of the Mato Grosso Conference have a trip of some sort to relax away from the office. This year in AMT instead of a day trip to somewhere closeby, they decided to go to somewhere a little farther and for several days. They decided on Rio Quente in the neighboring state of Goias. Rio Quente is world reknowned for having the largest thermal wave pool. It is basically a water park and all the water in the water park is warm. It’s the biggest of its kind in the whole world.

So we left Cuiaba Saturday night at 8pm and started our 14hr drive to Goias. Before we got to Rio Quente we stopped in Goiania the capital of Goias for lunch and to visit one of the best flea markets in Brazil. We finally arrived at Rio Quente at 4pm. The first evening, I did some scouting for the resort to see what activities there were to do. I was impressed it was a really big park with different types of activities and water slides. They have a warm artificial beach with waves and

several pools.

In the middle of the park there was a river for canoeing and scuba diving. The park had several outdoor activities like rock climbing and rapping. Overall there were a lot of different activities for most people to enjoy. The one thing that I thought was lacking was hiking trails.

The following day which was our only full day I took advantage of most of the different activities. My first destination was the wave pool or as they called it the beach. I stayed there and enjoyed some of the waves and then after the waves ended when to enjoy some of the slides. Of all the slides only one was really daring, all the rest we ok. The daring slide called the Half Moon really gave me an adrenaline rush. It reminded me of the water parks I used to visit in the states. I spent the remainder of the morning trying out the different slides.

After I decided to enjoy some of the other outdoor activities. Because there was an extra cost for them, I had to limit myself to only two. I decided to do the rappel in the laying down position called the hot fly position and the scuba diving activity. The hot fly was an adrenaline rush for sure, I started off on this very high platform and ended in the river. Very cool!

My next stop was the scuba diving station in the river. I had always wanted to go scuba diving and since the resort offers it at a pretty reasonable price I decided to go for it. The first obstacle or better yet challenge was getting accustomed to breathing only through my mouth. The oxygen from the tank came through a mouth piece so I only had oxygen going through my mouth. We (Nestrar, the person I went with, and I) practiced for several minutes before going in the deep. It was very exciting getting the scuba gear on, the mask, fins, and the vest with the oxygen tanks). The cool thing about this experience was that it was opening to people from as young as 4 years old and also non-swimmers. Nestrar, who is one of the youngest 58 year old women I have met ,did not know how to swim and prior to this experience was afraid to even enter the water.

The whole experience was surreal. It was like a whole other world under water with the fish as the people. There were so many different types of different sizes and colors. It seemed like they didn’t see us they just keep going where they were going. I guess they were used to having humans being in their space. Under water was like a busy city, with the various schools of fish going in different directions. It was amazing. All I kept thinking in my mind was that God has an amazing imagination and is the best artist.

In one part of the underwater exploration we had the opportu nity to go to an area of the river, where there were several fish, which looked more like mini whales, were gathered. We had the opportunity to touch the skin of one of the huge fish. It was very scaly and slippery as can be expected. I will say I was a little apprehensive about touching the fish because of it’s size and because it was a mean looking fish but I figured I was go for it. What did I have to lose? Only my hand, right? No just kidding, it seemed like the fish didn’t even see us, it just ignored us, thankfully.

The whole experience was very cool. I would reccommend everyone to go scuba diving at least once, you will definately be amazed.

A Trip to the Hairdresser

Prior to going to Brazil I had cut off most of my hair, that was over nine months ago. As you can imagine my hair has grown quite a lot since then. I don't have a lot of hair length-wise but in terms of volume it is a lot and a little hard to handle considering that I don’t have my personal hairdresser, my sister, or the necessary hair products. The only solution in my book was to get rid of the problem which is my hair. I therefore decided to visit the barber/hairdresser.

~when I just cut my hair a few days before traveling to Brazil~

~over nine months later~

I was not too sure about how my visit to the hairdresser would go. There are many stylists here but most of them are used to handling people with longer hair and with a different texture of hair. And unfortunately, in all the places I have been here I have not been a lot of black people to ask them to recommend a hairdresser. Fortunately in the conference where I had just moved, there were several black people working there. One day one of them took me back to my hotel at the end of the day. On the way there, I asked him where he got his hair cut. He pointed out several salons near the conference so I decided to visit one the following day.

The following day after my last class, I went to visit the closest one, just to do a visual evaluation and to find out the price of getting a cut. I walked into the store and there were only three people there. One of the hairstylists was doing a client’s hair and other stylist was sitting in a chair reading a magazine. As I walked into the salon everybody’s eyes turned to me waiting for me to I guess say something. It took me a while to get my question out because I was having a problem identifying the gender of one the stylist. I was not sure whether the stylist doing the client’s hair was a man or a woman, and he/she looked like the person in charge and hence person I had to talk to. In Portuguese, most of the words are gendered according to the person speaking or addressing. To remedy my predicament I used the formal word for you, voce, rather than polite o senhor or a senhora.

I asked whether they could cut my hair and if they had pictures of the different styles. When I asked to see styles, which was a normal request for barber shops or salons in the states, I got weird looks as if they were saying you don’t have enough hair for us to cut. The stylist in charge, however, motioned for the other stylist to show me some books. The books were not helpful because they were all for people with long hair. I gave them back the books and just asked them the cost of a regular cut and told them I would probably be back the next day.

Out of pure curiosity to find out the gender of the stylist and in spite knowing that the stylist could give me an awful cut I decided to just to get my hair cut my there. I returned to salon the following day. This time only the stylist with the unknown gender and another client. I asked the stylist whether I could get my hair cut that day and I showed a picture of when I had previously cut my hair. The stylist said yes and said I would just have to wait a little.

While I waited, all three of us started talking. My accent is usually a point of departure for many of my conversations with Brazilians. They are always curious to know why I am in Brazil and where I am from. During the conversation, the other client made references to the stylist and as a result I was able to confirm the stylist gender. The conversation I had with the stylist was very interesting. The stylist asked me out of the blue if I was Seventh-Day Adventist. I was curious to know how the stylist had come to that conclusion. The stylist's response was that I looked like an Adventist. The stylist also had had a uncle who was Adventist.

So the other thing about the cut that was interesting was the fact that the stylist was somewhat afraid it seemed to cut my hair. In my experience stylists tend to be scissors happy. I think I may have been the first black person who had visited the salon wanting to cut off most of her/his hair. The stylist kept telling me I had good hair and that I should get a perm. I couldn’t be convinced. The stylist started to cut my hair with a small pair of scissors with much difficulty, as you can imagine. Later, I suggested the use of a shear, the stylist was a little skeptical. I had to keep telling the stylist to cut more off. At the end of the cut, my hair was not a short as I had wanted but nevertheless it was shorter and more manageable. I think the stylist did a good job in spite of the initial hesitancy.

~after my haircut~

What I have noted however is that in Brazil, hair is an integral part of a woman's beauty. This I guess was the reason for the reluctance on the part of the stylist to cut my hair.

~me and the stylist, Eddy~