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‘Cuiabá is the city of mangoes. We don’t buy them, just pluck and eat,’
says Rizardo, our tour guide. We are going down the Transpantaneira
highway, a dirt road that runs 145 KM south into the Pantanal, from Poconé to Porto Jofre.

I understand what Rizardo meant when we get to the first fazenda, i.e., private farm – mango trees galore, alongside
those of guava, papaya, lemon, coconut, grapefruit. The mangas he likes are borbon and pequi, not rasa or coração
de boi. After lunch I rest in a hammock and watch a sly-looking Toucan struggle with a hard-shelled fruit. A blue-
green macaw nibbles on a guava, part-eaten ones lie scattered on the ground – they are pink inside. It’s hot and
humid but a breeze is blowing across the parched farmland.
I’m in Mato Grosso for five days with my friend Laura to see some of what is the largest concentration of fauna in the
new world. A wetland half the size of France, the Pantanal features 700 species of birds, 200 species of fishes,
Jaguars, Ocelots, Armadillos, Anteaters, Agoutis, Marmosets, Anacondas, Tapirs, Otters, Iguanas, Capybaras, and
other exotic animals. The Amazon hogs the limelight for fauna statistics but to see wildlife in wide open spaces, this
is the place to visit, even when many species rarely oblige. Last year, I went to the Amazon via Manaus and saw
precious little. The highlight was the Amazon river itself – miles upon miles wide even at its half-way point to the
Atlantic, a sea unto itself. Yet the jungle lodge I stayed at boasted of famous visitors: Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates,
Helmut Kohl, Hollywood celebrities, prime ministers, kings and princes of various constitutional monarchies. The
prince of UAE’s entourage apparently consisted of four muscular bodyguards and 12 stunning Brazilian girls.
The first impressions of Cuiabá, the northern gateway to the Pantanal and a frontier boomtown, prove deceptive. We
fly in from São Paulo at 3 AM. The only people we see are a few gum-chewing young women on street corners, all
inappropriately dressed for the weather. The town appears non-descript, dusty; streets are grimly lit. The hotel doors
are locked and the lobby is dark. After a bit of frantic knocking a grumpy man appears and we end up in a room with
bare walls and an anemic bulb. During the day I revise my first impressions to a more upbeat one, find Rizardo,
hang out on pracas, buy film, a hammock, watch the bustle, drink yet more chilled sucos: acai, acerola, abacaxi,
cajú, capuacú. The grim lighting at night is explained by a short-term energy crisis. It is hot & humid. I visit a
sugarcane juice stand, eat roasted corn con sal y limão. A beaming Laura intones at her suco de cacao, ‘So good, I
could write a poem to it.’
There are few people and no towns in the Pantanal, but Tierra de Ninguem, Nobody’s Land, is clearly a misnomer.
The Pantanal is a vast alluvial plain, not a swamp, though pantano means swamp in Portugese.
Winter is the dry season, the best time to visit. During the rainy season, October to March, Rio Paraguay and its
many tributaries flood their banks, replenishing the soil but making systematic farming impossible; this has
discouraged human settlement. It also provides a rich feeding ground for wildlife when shallow lakes, ponds and
marshes teem with fish. The animals take refuge on island-like areas of
higher ground, cordilheiras. During the dry season the water recedes – savanna, forest and meadows overlap.

In her travel story, "Where the Wild Things Are", Julia Preston recounts how the Brazilians’ interest in the Panta
nal got a boost by a recent telenovela titled Pantanal whose opening segment showed “a long-haired nude
swimming in the waters of a clear and tranquil lake. Surrounded by swaying grasses, the woman fell into an
underwater embrace with a man whose state of undress below the waist was implied but not revealed by the
camera ... The other two networks promptly responded by refilming the opening segments of their new evening
soaps to add some naked women ... But the nude dip was not all that made Pantanal popular. There was also the
lovingly shot aerial footage of curling rivers, pristine forests, multitudes of herons taking flight with glinting wings.
There was the tradition-bound ambiance of the fazendas, which structure the social life of the Pantanal, a contrast to
the collapse of the order in urban Brazil.”

In recent decades, a few fazendas that tend to tourism, cattle and horse ranching have sprung up along the
Transpantaneira, the only road in the Pantanal. To say that the fragile ecosystem is increasingly threatened
resembles an all too familiar litany. Guidebooks cite the anteater example, a local delicacy hunted close to
extinction. The result: a rise in the ant and termite population for which the locals took to insecticides. Cow dung and
insecticides in the outer wetland drove many birds and fishes into the interior. Then there is the dumping of toxic
waste into rivers that drain into the Pantanal which lacks a natural flushing mechanism. An ambitious hidrovia, i.e.,
an aquatic freeway across the Pantanal, is under construction which, the detractors claim, will cause massive
havoc. Whatever the future may hold, many conservation policies and regulations too are now in place and some
species have revived. The steady shift from ranching to ecotourism is also expected to benefit the fauna (up to a
point that is) – the locals’ regard for wildlife has increased with tourism and education.
Much of the Pantanal (around 90%) is privately owned; Brazil has never had land reforms, now an explicit objective of
the Sem Terra grassroots movement. Less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of Brazil’s arable land. One
fazenda we stayed at was 27,000 acres – the owner’s share after his father split his land among eight offspring.
There are few people and no towns in the Pantanal, but Tierra de Ninguem, Nobody’s Land, is clearly a misnomer.

Late afternoon we go out on horses. City slickers on a farm are a comic spectacle. Rustic thrills are partially offset by
the terror of falling off the horse, getting nibbled to the bone by Piranhas, bites from strange bugs, or discovering
cockroaches in the bathroom. Wall lizards and the occasional baby toad in the sink attract disproportionate affection.
They juggle pre- and post-bite lotions and sprays, sunscreens, straw hats, water bottles.
I soon discover that my horse has an attitude problem – it refuses to follow my commands and docilely follows the
cowboy leading us (I’m reluctant to lay it upon my inexperience). We spot a Jabiru stork, the meter-high, black-
hooded, scarlet-collared symbol of the Pantanal, big enough to need a run-up to take flight. This tree is Para Tudo –
the Pantaneiros drink tea made of its bark, ‘a cure for all ailments’. The one with the brilliant pink leaves is Ipé, or
Piuva in the local Indian tongue, and that one is Cambara, it yields fine fence-wood. Look there, a Turkey Vulture
surveying the landscape. Then a raucous, demented bird sound – they are the Chaco Chachalacas, derived from
charlar, to talk. They go karakaká-charatá-karakaká-charatá…
The horses wade through low swamps infested with piranhas. We spot a Savanna Hawk, a Tiger Heron, a Buff-
necked Ibis. The one bobbing its head and wagging its tail is the Oven Bird, or João de Barro, named after its
domed oven-shaped nest, or the ‘teacher’ bird for its song tee-cher. The locals call it the most jealous of birds, there’
s even a popular song about it. Apparently, they mate for life but if the female ever cheats, the male pecks her to
death and lives alone like a hermit the rest of his life. We witness a spectacular sunset, flocks of birds gliding
across a tree-lined, purple-pink horizon.
   We have a small group of three. With us is Jennifer, a slender, thirty-something, soulful woman from our part of
the world – San Francisco. She is backpacking solo through small-town Brazil and is full of wryly amusing
anecdotes. Her plan is to volunteer a part of her two months to an environmental non-profit group. She happened to
pick the same guide in Cuiabá soon after her overnight bus journey from Campo Grande. On our way back, the topic
turns to strange animals. Ever heard of that Australian bird without eyelids that periodically licks its eyes for
moisture? My soporific horse falls behind once again.Memories from this journey too will fade over time:
landscapes paler, faces mistier.
Dinner consists of rice, beans, manioc flour, fried plantains, salad, and ‘cattle meat.’ My conclusion after three trips
is that Brazilians can use some help in the cuisine department, i.e., a few wholesome curries, lentils, naan, tan
doori murg, papadams & pickles. The Indians in turn would do well to adopt the Carnival. Later, we drive in a pickup
truck to see fauna by flashlight. Along the road and under the rickety wooden bridges we cross are ponds infested
with Jacarés (caimans/alligators) and piranhas. Jacaré eyes gleam, scores of pairs, the air is dense with bugs.
An occasional stork takes flight but tonight no Capybaras – the largest rodent, an adult can weigh over 60 Kilos. It’s
a new moon night – the Milky Way is stunningly clear, the Southern Cross, shooting stars; I gaze in awe and delight.
On the way back, we are stopped by a pickup truck. Our driver steps away and talks animatedly with his counterpart.
Jennifer thinks it is the Pantanal police, stopping us for DUIC – DUI of Capybara. We laugh. It was only a friend. The
mosquitoes are out in full force – few repellants work anymore in the Pantanal. A local joke runs that they’ve even
come to like the taste of some. Laura enquires about mosquito nets in the room. ‘Sorry, we have none.’ I hear a
helpless sigh followed by a nearly inaudible, ‘Bloody hell!’
Travel tales accompany Antarctica lager. Laura plans to visit India soon, Jennifer has been there twice; she recalls
her night under the stars on the sand dunes near Jaisalmer. Both graduated from UC Berkeley, both have traveled
solo in Central America. Others on the veranda, in European accents, compare mosquito and weather woes; small
talk: animal sightings, itineraries in Brazil. What’s a hammock in Portuguese, a cowboy, a guava? And what do you
do back home?
                                                                                §

Across the plain the sun rises behind thin scattered clouds; we are out hiking. Rizardo spots a Howler monkey
high up on a tree. Shy of even us friendly folks he climbs higher still. That is the Southern Lapwing, or quero-quero, I
want-I want. Shall we name it the Yuppie bird? It screams, tay, tay, tay-oh, tay-row as it dives on intruders and
insects. A red crab scuttles across the path, two ‘cute’ marmosets scurry over low branches.
Look, on that bough, a Crested Caracara: beak bluish-gray, yellowish at the base, brown iris, orange cere, yellow
legs, orange around the bare face. Its courtship call: krakkrakkrak ... arrrrrrrarrrrrrr. We walk in a single file through a
dry mangrove swamp, a dense tangle of skeletal stalks.
After breakfast, we bike along the Transpantaneira. We stop near a pond or marsh; we gaze, marvel, and fret over
our decrepit bikes. A flock of Great White Egrets glides past, their graceful, willowy necks springing back and forth. I
think of words to describe my elation, take pictures. A woodpecker, a Roseate Spoonbill, more Jabiru storks. Scores
of well-fed Jacarés are out sunbathing or cruising across mud-colored ponds, their exposed lengths glisten in the
sun; what a cushy life! A Snake Bird, or Anhinga, swimming with its slender black neck above the water, ducks in,
disappears, emerges, then takes flight skimming the surface. Two Pantaneiro fishermen stare as we pass – they
hope to find dorado, fresh-water skate, pintado, pacu or piranha. A horde of Monk Parakeets raising hell with their
shrieks; a passing vehicle kicks up dust, scatters the birds.
Before lunch we ride in a pickup truck to another fazenda deeper into the Pantanal. A small, tranquil Rio Clarinho
runs nearby, a pond in front of the farmhouse teems with Jacarés. It is hot – I lie in a hammock, sip Guaraná and
read the Aeneid. My thoughts flitter across three worlds: one left behind, one of the present, one of Virgil – the
scheming Danaans, the plunder of Troy, Aeneas’ remorse at losing his home and wife, his adventures at sea, the
despairing, suicidal Dido, the spiteful Juno.
Fitzgerald closes the postscript to his translation: ‘At the core of it is respect for the human effort to build, to sustain a
generous polity – against heavy odds. Mordantly and sadly it suggests what the effort may cost, how the effort may
fail. But as a poem it is carried onward victoriously by its own music.’
I find this remark lopsided – it certainly has flourish, humanistic allure. But in art, as in life, we are variously drawn
to both truth and beauty. The early part on the Greek ruse and the sack of Troy is the most riveting and poignant. The
rest relates how the surviving Trojans get to Italy and conquer the cities of others: manifest destiny is the argument,
Italy is Promised Land. It showcases unthinking loyalty and courage, gory violence, feeble inner lives, little moral
conflict or philosophical doubt or wonder. The story acquires innocence by shifting the personal responsibility of
human acts to fickle gods. And all this from a contemporary of Cicero. So there is yet another viewpoint: at the core of
it is a celebration of the bold and the beautiful, who live unreflectively by the received heroic code and see little need
as individuals to attain self-knowledge and to live the examined life. As a poem it has a seductive energy, it teems
with character and incident, it is craft of the highest order indeed.
“ ... in art, as in life, we are variously drawn to both truth and beauty.” I hear someone call out – look, how amazing,
an Iguana; Laura has a Praying Mantis on her hand. A tourist nearby plays with a raccoon relative, the Coati. An adult
Jabiru stork has been turned into a farm pet – wings clipped. He now hangs around the yard behind the kitchen.
When the women in my group find out they are aghast and sad for hours – ‘what a cruel thing to do; oh, the poor
thing without a mate; he looks soooo melancholy.’

Late afternoon we go on an oar-powered boat. The wine-dark river mirrors everything. Light green, brown, purple
fronds float on the surface, dense vegetation on the banks spills in. Look there, a Black-collared hawk, ‘the
handsomest hawk of the Pantanal.’ A coffee-colored bird flutters nearby - Cafezinho, or the Jesus bird, it walks on
water. During the day when Jacarés sunbathe, jaws held open, the Cafezinhos clean their teeth. A Red-headed
Cardinal, the bright orange Troupial, the black Crested Orupendola who weaves hanging nests. That hole in the
mud bank is a kingfisher’s nest. A dove calls: hoo, hoo, hoooooo. Then we hear a sharp growl behind the trees on
the left bank, then again, louder. Rizardo has no idea what it is – Jaguars are unlikely here but I want to believe we
heard one; at any rate, this is what I’m going to tell my friends back home: a Jaguar growled at me!
The sunset is one of chaste, primordial beauty, abstract reflections, a riot of colors. Evening is languid, slow to pass.
I recall a passage from Epitaph of a Small Winner by the 19th century Carioca, Machado de Assis:
‘Is there not, at times, a certain wind, not
strong or raw, but sultry and listless, that
neither blows our hats from our heads nor
raises women’s skirts, and yet is, or at least
seems to be, worse than if it merely did
these things, for it depresses, weakens,
and virtually dissolves the human spirit?
Such a wind was blowing upon me. But after a long day, it feels more like a decadent ache than a dissolution.
By now Laura and Jennifer are fondly remembering samba, meringue and bossa nova joints in San Francisco. Isn’
t Gal Costa great? And Tom Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil. In the soft evening glow, Jennifer’s demeanor is
reminiscent of a lone Great Egret in flight; I sense in her a restless mind, a rebellious spirit, a self-effacing modesty.
A bit later they gang up to tease me about my Cadence “Customer Satisfaction” T-shirt and Oracle baseball cap –
why not get one that simply says, ‘I love Larry’? Ah, such romantics these ladies are! A German couple joins us on
the patio. The woman is more gregarious, she teaches philosophy in Cologne. They’re visiting her brother in
Brasilia who works there for an NGO. She likes both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer but notes pointedly that both had
a rather dim view of women. Wittgenstein is one of her favorites. I recall that it is now believed he was gay; I am
silently amused.
Futebol is on and the locals are glued to a TV set in the dining room. Brazil is trailing Paraguay, of all rivals, by one
goal. They sigh, gesticulate, exhort. Later, I watch a stream of morose faces emerge into the night. A couple of
weeks earlier in Mangue Seco, Bahia, I asked a vacationing sports journalist from São Paulo – what are the second
and third most popular sports in Brazil? Futebol, he replied, Volleyball is fourth.
Futebol, sun, sand, sex, hard bodies, music, dance, tropical fruits and drinks – picture-postcard Brazil. But there is
plenty to ruffle this youth-worshipping light-heartedness and hedonistic living in the present: extreme disparity,
violence, corruption, unemployment, illiteracy, high birth rate, abandoned children, the horror of growing old.
Children are everywhere in Brazil – half the population is under 20. Evangelists strive for their souls in small towns
and big cities, religion is resurgent. Our fazenda’s workers have a disposable monthly income less than the going
rate for an average back rub in San Francisco.
Yet, Brazil has also made significant strides. Communication, roads, transportation, housing projects, safe drinking
water and sanitation have come a long way. Multiple races and traditions coexist reasonably well. Villages and large
cities rarely betray the kind of crushing poverty one finds in many other developing countries.
                                                                               §
Rizardo by now has revealed to us many aspects of his life. A handsome man of 21, though he seems a few years
older, he lives with his mother in a leafy part of Cuiabá. In time-honored Brazilian tradition, he says, his father ran off
years ago with a younger woman. He has been a freelance Pantanal guide for two years and loves it – he certainly
knows his birds, even aspires to a degree in biology. He dislikes crowds, big cities, and finds nourishment for the
soul only in the Pantanal. On one such tour he met a 29-year-old German woman from Dusseldorf and they had a
steamy affair. She returned to spend a month with him and then invited him to Dusseldorf. Rizardo spent three
months in Germany and soulfully describes how he was soon overcome with saudade (saw-daa-jay), an apparently
untranslatable word to describe their pining for home, familiar food, samba, the tropics.
It is an unlikely arrangement; a common Brazilian putdown after all is sistemático – too serious, Germanic. He now
sees two paths ahead: move to Germany, study German, undergo vocational training and find a job, or build a
tourism business in the Pantanal or perhaps in the Northeast where tourism is bigger. He is cheerful, starry-eyed,
full of optimism; he is yet to make his mistakes. For a moment, I envy his insouciance.
The last fazenda is the best of the three. Along the private road leading to the farmhouse is an astonishing array of
fauna. Jacarés crawl up on the road and then skitter back into the pond as humans approach; lots of storks, egrets,
ibis, hawks, cormorants, herons, kingfishers. Rizardo animatedly rattles out names. There, a migratory North
American Wood Stork that no North American he has met has heard of. A Canary, a Kisskadee, a Snail Kite. Closer
to the farmhouse we encounter several South American Rheas, the big flightless birds. As we approach, they dart
on their clumsy, skinny legs.
  The farmhouse is surrounded by the kind of trees I loved to climb as a kid. Siesta time, my thoughts drift across
home, friends, work. Does a consciously unadorned and deconstructionist take on life lead to bleak despair or joyful
freedom? I go for a walk. Memories from this journey too will fade over time: landscapes paler, faces mistier.
Horses graze lazily, tourists loll under shady trees, a radio plays a haunting, earthy, sensual song in a woman’s
voice – this one has managed to avoid the near obligatory coração and amor. Two ruddy-faced Englishmen have
seen an armadillo and the paw prints of a Jaguar, another group has seen an Ocelot up close. The Englishmen are
planning to go out in the hot mid-day sun – but of course, only mad dogs and Englishmen!
We go horse-riding in late afternoon. They too are an unresponsive bunch, they’ve done this routine a zillion times.
Mine is called Diana; I check to see if she might indeed be realizing the goddess’ mission. Approaching the
farmhouse they all begin to joyously neigh and strut on their own, reminding me of bored office clerks approaching 5
PM. I hear frequent Cicada squeals; Laura recalls what a nuisance they were at night when she lived in Newcastle,
Australia. A bird calls, tweaty, tweaty. We see an armadillo’s burrow, Ocelot paw prints. After four days of bird-
watching, we still get most of them wrong. Rizardo is all smiles at his inept students. No that’s a Roadside Hawk,
no, no, not a Capped Heron, a Bare-faced Ibis, the ibis have the curved beak.
A stunning attraction on this fazenda is the Blue Macaw, or Arara. They mate for life, and apparently, only 300 pairs
remain in the wild. Around 20 of them call this fazenda home. A key reason for their continued patronage is the huge
investment they make in carving a nest in a tree trunk, effectively binding them to it. Here comes a pair in their cobalt-
blue plumage, bare skin at the base of lower mandible, yellow ring around the eye, a pleasure to behold. In the
illegal poaching industry, I am told, they can command $20,000 per pair. By early evening the air reverberates with
their raucous sounds.
  After dinner we go out on the back of a pick-up truck; I sense the mosquitoes following the dictum, carpe diem.
With the flashlight, we spot a large family of Capybaras, a pair of Jabiru storks perched like sentinels on their nest,
gleaming owl eyes, scampering rabbits, more Jacarés. The ponds are abuzz with toads. Rizardo talks about his
peccary sighting the other day – small pig-like animals dangerous to humans.
They move and attack in packs. The best defense, he says, is to climb the nearest tree. When the hungry peccaries
gather below, the thing to do is to piss on them. This makes the peccaries attack and devour the sullied ones
instead. Nature may have brutal ways but pissing in the wind can save your life.
On the last day, Rizardo asks what it is like to live in the US. It depends, says Jennifer, on who you are, where you
are, what you do. Laura knows some Brazilians and pitches in. The consensus: San Francisco is cool. He has
heard that it’s not easy for Brazilians to get a tourist visa. Would we write an invitation letter if someday he can afford
a visit? We pack, drive three hours to Cuiabá; Rizardo takes us to his favorite pizzeria. Shortly after midnight we leave
for the airport. We go through dusty, grimly lit streets; on occasional street corners are the gum-chewing young
women, all inappropriately dressed for the weather.

© 2004 Shunya. All rights reserved.