Just over a week now in Brazil. I came down last week for the CDC Foundation, who are supporting a range of projects up in the state of Amazonas, in Brazil’s vast northwest. Amazonas is Brazil’s largest state, but also, I believe, its least densely populated. As the name implies it encompasses a vast swathe of Amazon forest, and is bisected west to east by the Amazon River or its tributaries. I spent four days in the city of Manaus, the state capital, which though interesting also represented my failure to reach a smaller town upriver known as Coari. After many years of living and traveling in Africa I thought I was prepared for the many small hurdles you have to jump to get things done, on any given day. But this effort to reach Coari ranks up there as one of the most frustrating. The tickets that were supposed to be waiting for us to take a boat upriver were in fact not waiting for us. So, we booked a plane ticket for the next day and went to work getting pics in Manaus. After a three-hour delay for a technical problem with the plane the next day, that flight was also scratched. Returning the next morning for what we were told was a definite flight up to Coari, we boarded the small 10 seater aircraft, took off, and at 2,600 feet began descending again. The pilot returned to the airport and announced that the problem from the day before had not in fact been fixed, flight delayed or canceled. Since that left us only one day in Coari, and the distinct possibility of being stuck up there if the return flight didn’t work out, we ended up never reaching Coari.
I flew into Sao Paulo three days ago – by far the largest city I have ever been too, with over 12 million people and a city center that stretches for miles. Yesterday we drove out to a project site. The drive, I was told, was over 20 miles, and took over an our in Sao Paulo’s legendary traffic, and still we were in the city of Sao Paulo when we arrived. I am shooting photos here today and tomorrow for two other agencies, then I am off Thursday morning for Peru. Though a very busy trip, with very long days, Brazil I can see is an amazing country. The diversity here is fantastic, from a photographer’s standpoint, and between the rain forests of the Amazon and the famous beaches of the east the country offers much – if not efficiency in travel by small aircraft.
December 8th, 2009 | by David in Travel
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All Material © 2008 David Snyder
