Sampling La Vida Local Along the Amazon
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Historic Center of Belem (Source: Mejores Zonas)
“La vida no es la que uno vivîo, sino la que uno recuerda , Y como la recuerda para contarla (Life is not how one lived it, but rather how one remembers it).” Gabriel Garcia Marquez
That initial reading whetted my appetite to learn more about the river and the people who lived by it. Fascinated, I read on and learned about its rich marine life which included the flesh- eating piranha and the Pirarucu, the largest fresh water fish in South America, which could grow up to nine feet and weigh 200 pounds. These readings led me to fantasize that someday, like Klaus Klinski in the movie Fitzcarraldo, I, too, would ride a riverboat across the mighty river.
But like many other childhood dreams, this too, receded, pushed back by time, reality, and other dreams. It hibernated in my mind’s recesses, a dream deferred but not forgotten.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, my favorite Latino author said that “life is not how one lived it, but rather how one remembers it …..”
Brazil, Fast forward: More than 50 years later.
I am in Curitiba in Southeastern Brazil as part of my preparations for teaching a course on social movements in Latin America. My immersion with the Movimento dos Trabalhdores Sem Terra (Movement of Landless Workers) had just ended. I had a 15-day break before I join the Bolivarians in Venezuela for another immersion. What to do? I could return to Rio de Janeiro and hang out in Ipanema and watch the bikinied “ tall and tan ….” while sipping caipirinhas or go all out tourist and head for the famous waterfalls, the Cascadas de Iguazu.
I walk to the map of Brazil on the wall to help me decide my options. My eyes go North and I recognize a once familiar name of a city: Belem. The long forgotten dream comes rushing back. More than 50 years later comes the chance to make real a childhood dream. Everything in me says, “Go for it!”
I spent the following day checking flights and costs. No seats in tourist class and first class is way too expensive. Bus ride? The trip from Curitiba to Belem would take two and a half days, not very enticing, but what the hell. It’s now or never!
I arrive in the capital of the state of Para early evening feeling like I did at the end of my fraternity initiations. After checking in at a cheap hotel, I promptly fall asleep with my clothes on.
Para River, Belem, Brazil (Source: Culture Trip)
Belem
Located at the mouth of the Para river, a tributary of the Amazon, this is where the melted snow from the Andes meets the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean. Founded by the Portuguese in 1616 as a trading center, Belem has since morphed into a cosmopolitan city with modern buildings and skyscrapers. But the colonialists left an indelible mark on “the old city.” This part still retains the many tree-lined parks and the Portuguese colonial architecture. But the most important part of the city is still the port which accommodates ships for inland trade and transport with those crossing oceans. It still is the gateway to the Amazon.
Belem, Brazil (Source: Encyclopedia Britannica)
To my delight, I learn that many of its residents are like Filipinos in that they are bilingual: Portuguese and Spanish (having spent a bit of time in Latin America, I’m fluent in “survival Spanish”). Better yet, almost all speak “Portañol,” a Portuguese-Spanish patois spoken along the river and in the towns on both sides of the Brazilian border.
Feeling turista, I take my early morning breakfast in a sidewalk café in la ciudad vieja. After having my fill of well-preserved Portuguese colonial architecture, I drift to the public market to satisfy my fascination with the kind of food people eat in the places I visit.
Belem’s mercado publico is huge. Using the UP Diliman campus as reference point, it stretches the distance between Quezon Hall, the administrative building and the main Library. It retains the familiar colonial division of commodities with food at the bottom floor (fish, meat, etc.) and the dry goods at the second floor.
Belem’s mercado publico (Source: viagemeturismo.abril.com.br)
After doing the rounds, I end in the section selling herbs and medicinal plants. The place reminds me of those stalls outside Quiapo Church, which serve as an herbolario’s drug store, but which also sold gayumas (love potions), anting-antings (amulets), and if you whisper in the right ear, “pampalaglag.” A stint in a UN-sponsored project on population revealed to me this “public secret” about home-made abortifacients, which I would not recommend for use to anyone.
The last aisle attracts “men only,” and all the products being sold seem to be designed for one purpose: to put lead in one’s pencil, so to speak. The vendors here are pretty aggressive and loud. I’m alternately saying, “No gracias” or “No obrigado” and dodging their attempts to pull me to their stalls. One particularly feisty woman still manages to drag me to hers along with a small crowd of hangers-on. Speaking in a loud and shrill voice, she extols the virtues of her wares along with comments along the line of “why a senior citizen” like me should buy them. She reserves the last for her bestselling, “top of the line” product called “siete sin sacate!” (my rough translation: seven times without a need for a booster .) “She ends her spiel with, “Melhor que Viagra!” WOW!
While she and the crowd are having a good time laughing, I’m getting the uncomfortable feeling that it is at my expense. Am I being used as a patsy or possibly an unwitting “straight man for a con job?” And I’m particularly offended by her repeated reference to my health and suggested diminished capacities.
I stare/glare back at her and slowly, but in voice loud enough for all the onlookers and their distant neighbors to hear, say, “Todavia, NO NECESSITO!” This immediately disarms her. Her repentant look and the crowd’s stunned silence melts me a bit, but there’s no stopping now. Gratuitously, I add that I believe her wares are indeed potent, it’s just that I have no need for them, NOT YET! With that I exited the section, face and pride intact! (Libre naman ang yabang, diba [Boasting is free, right] ?)
I’ve always maintained that serendipity is the best travel guide. It will take you to interesting places and interesting experiences.
The streets of la ciudad vieja (Photo by Isabelle Adeau)
My nose takes me to the adjacent food court. The smell of food being grilled in one small restaurant captures my attention. Apart from a wide variety of marine life, I also see three or four stews on the stove. In Spanish, I ask for the name of those dishes and their ingredients. Before the line cook can answer, a customer by my side identifies the stews as vatapa de camarao (shrimps stewed in coconut milk), moqueca do peixe (a fish stew). I pull out my list of marine life I want to try. They have pirarucu kebabs, grilled tambaqui and baked tucunare in a lemon sauce. I don’t know the differences, so I just point to the vatapa and the kebabs. The shrimp stew has enough coconut cream and hot peppers to make my oragon friends from Bicol drool. The pirarucu kebabs do not disappoint me either.
The diners who help me choose my lunch invite me to join them at their table. The three turn out to be homeboys who are now working big time in freighters. They know the river and the boats that sail the Amazon. They become my unwitting guides to the local cuisine and help me choose the riverboat I will board.
That evening I return to the food court and try the other dishes. On the way back to my hotel, I stop at a small plaza and watch some teenagers practicing capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, which to me looks half-combat and half-dance.
People practice the martial art of Capoeira in Ver-O-Peso market (Source: Taiwan News)
Day Two at Belem, I am at the pier, which seems to have every type of boat, from cruise liners to freighters to fishing boats. Early research told me to look for the boats that carry both passengers and cargo between Belem and Manaus. My journey will end in the latter.
After checking out two other riverboats, I go aboard the MV Leao IV. It looks like the one that movie director Werner Herzog used in the movie, Fitzcarraldo. But instead of a paddle wheel, this is powered by diesel engines. The bottom deck houses the engines, a kitchen, toilets for the passengers and some space for cargo. The second deck has space which can be used for either passengers or cargo. The former can hook their hammocks on the rings in the ceiling. At the bow is the wheel house, which controls the boat. Behind is the captain’s cabin and two others for well-heeled passengers who can afford the higher fare. The top deck has more space for cargo and a recreation area where passengers can sit, play cards or dominoes. At night, it becomes a dance hall.
The author aboard the MV Leao IV
The ship’s crew operates a cooperative on the top deck which sells snacks, soft drinks, beer. They also rent out movies in CDs, which can be viewed in two video monitors with four headphones instead of speakers.
It looks good. My meager resources can meet the cost of transport. I only ask to use their kitchen. The ship’s purser says yes, but why? Food is included in the fare. I tell him I need my daily bowl of rice. Travelers are advised never to leave home without their credit cards. Me, I would leave home without them but never without my rice cooker.
With that last impediment out of the way, I shell out Brazilian reales corresponding to the cost of the passage. Receipt in hand of passenger numero uno, I’m assigned space and a small cage where I can keep my valuables. I’m told to buy a hammock and return later in the afternoon with my luggage.
I return early enough and find out that I have a lot of time to spare. I haven’t had Filipino food for days. And I’m sure about the quality of the food we will be served. I disembark and walk to the nearby public market. Adobo keeps and even tastes better after a few days. I buy the ingredients for chicken adobo, a large jug of bottled water, rice, and a couple of cans of carne norte, a major food product of Brazil.
Soon the aroma of the cooking marinade in adobo is mixing with the smell of diesel fumes. It attracts the attention of two uniformed crew members, a grizzled elderly man who I assume is the ship’s captain and a 30ish young man who I assume is his second in command. I’m wrong; it’s the other way around.
The young man asks what I’m doing. He comes back a couple of times commenting on the appetizing aroma, making it obvious that he wants a taste. I oblige and ladle a cup of rice to go with the cuts of chicken. He doesn’t ask for seconds but merely reaches out for more. After he has his fill, he says that Filipino food is “muy sabroso.” He asks me to consider cooking more and quickly adds that the ship will shoulder the cost. My mind goes, “Putang inang ito, kinain na ang kalahati ng baon ko, tapos gusto pa akong gawin kusinero (Son-a-bitch eats half my stash and now even wants me to be the cook).” Politely, I tell him I’m on vacation and not looking for a job, and leave immediately before he can reply.
The boat is scheduled to leave at midnight, so there is time for a stroll along Belem’s bay walk, which also houses mini parks where families enjoy paseos. It reminds me of times in old Luneta where vendors sold kropeck and popcorn to strollers. A turn takes me to a path where vendors seem to be all female but are selling something other than kropeck or popcorn to mariners from different countries. A quick about- face puts me in front of a gauntlet where offers of “vous voulez a couche avec moi” were repeated in a babel of languages. I put on my best “deadma” face and brave the small crowd. I almost make it to another turn when a firm hand holds me long enough and loud enough for me to hear the accompanying offer. Unmistakably, I hear, “Pare, gusto mo ng Good Time?”!
I lose it, just completely lose it! The deadma face gives way to uncontrollable laughter. A drinking session with kabayan mariners in Callao, another port city in Peru comes back to me. The seamen in Callao described their life as “3 Ws,” meaning “waves, wine, and women.” I don’t doubt the first two, but the last, I suspect is likely of the commercial variety.
The Philippines has the greatest number of mariners in the world. So, as I walk along, I think, why should I be surprised if one of them made hasik ng lagim (sow “terror”) here in Belem and gave language lessons to the vendor. But even as I recognize a winner in this guess-my-nationality game, I do not award the winner a prize. I go back to MV Leao IV completely chaste.
Chibu Lagman taught Latin American Studies at the University of Alberta and at the University of the Philippines. A "Latino de Asia," he still commutes between Manila and Abya Yala (the Americas).
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