The next morning, after a huge breakfast I was wandering round the famous Mercado Ver-o-Peso, which is one of the most colourful markets in South America. The name comes from the Portuguese who used to watch the weight (ver o peso) in order to impose taxes. I wandered deeper and deeper into the market, past the exotic fruits, the small stalls selling sizzling food whose spicy aroma made my taste buds drool and my sphincter twitch, past the medicinal plants, past the stalls selling all manner of fetishes and towards the river itself. I climbed onto the railings and let the chaos and smells of the market drift out of my consciousness.
I have a deep fascination for rivers. I can spend hours pouring over maps following their progress, wandering how it would be to travel on them, to know their twist and turns intimately and leisurely cruise their lengths between exotic ports of call with nothing to do but lay in my hammock and make witty observations. Without a doubt the Amazon, being the world’s largest river, holds my attention like no other and I had intended to hire a local boat and spend the day pottering around some of the tributaries pretending I was Indiana Jones.
However, for the first time in my life, I had trouble finding a boat willing to take me out (the last time I had even gone near a harbour was in Hong Kong where I was kidnapped by a sampan owner and forced to cruise Aberdeen harbour to watch the sunset for hours on end) and so instead I settled for a day trip on the mighty river which I booked through a local tourist agency.
As the boat chugged away from the docks, the 21st century slipped away. The two other passengers scanned the jungle with high-powered binoculars as I joined the captain in the wheelhouse. Within a few minutes the city had faded away to be replaced by simple wooden dwellings, the putt-putt-putt of small outboard motors on simple native canoes and the sounds of the jungle. A flick of colour here and there suggested parrots returning to roost.
As our boat rounded a bend in the river two small beautiful mahogany coloured children came swimming out to meet us. “Where are you from?” they called out to me in a thick accent. “London, England,” I shouted back. “That’s far?” asked the older one, “Yes, very far,” I replied. They swam off howling with laughter.
We stopped after a few hours of apparently aimless meandering along flooded tributaries in a small village. A local guide, whose sun burnt skin give him the appearance of an old peach stone, greeted us warmly with a huge bowl of Brazil nuts and twinkling eyes. He lead us deeper into the jungle as he explained more about the legends of the forest, the history of the many exotic fruits which were growing abundantly around us and how life had changed in the last twenty years.
Later, as the rain lashed down, and we squatted in his simple wooden home listening to the squabbling of the monkeys in the eaves and the screams of children playing in the rain, I asked him what he thought about the landless movement and the other intrigues which seemed to be as much as part of the Amazon region as the mighty river itself.
He sighed, and laid down his machete that he had been using to shell nuts for me.
“Things must change,” he told me, “but for better or for worse, I can’t really say what will happen. Only time will tell.” he then smiled, “But remember, this is Brazil and anything is possible.”
By the time I returned to Fortaleza a few days later the protestors had gone, the roads were calm again and the short period of civil unrest seemed to had been forgotten.
The old man’s words echoed in my head: “In Brasil, anything is possible.”
About the Author
The Author is a regular contributor to numerous travel magazines. He has travelled widely in Brazil and can often be found trying to go from A to B in the most difficult manner imaginable whilst using someone else’s money. His only regret is that the coach companies don’t offer frequent flyer miles. He can be contacted at philip@dem.ufc.br and promises, if he is not away falling of the edge of the map somewhere, to write back.
Read all five parts of Talkin’ About a Revolution
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5