Rosalba's Journey Part 2

Like Antonio ?Raposo? Tavares? bandeira our route started in the place where some of the ancient Jesuit reductions were placed for the spiritual conversion of the indigenous people (mainly Guaranís) during the XVI century. The Iguazu Falls received us and we peacefully observed them as a spectacle of the nature. The magnitude of the ?Garganta do Diabo? told me about the relationship between human being and the mysterious, unknown and powerful nature.

We left Foz do Iguacú the following day (21 of July), through the Ponte de Amizade towards Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. While we were crossing the border that joins two of the country-members of the Mercosur (Common Market of the South), the differences between them easily emerged. Those differences were not only in respect of the national and per capita income. As soon as we arrived to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, I observed particular differences between the people of both countries that I considered have historical and socio-political grounds.  For instance, I perceived in Paraguay ?less? diversity in ethnical roots or in other words more ?homogenous? ethnical grounds than in Brazil. The Paraguayan society is mainly composed by European migrations that arrived since the XVI century (Spanish) up to the XX century (Germans). In some cases those migrants did not mix with the local population (Guaranis), but in the majority of the cases they did it. As a result a mestizo culture seemed to be as important as the Guarani cultural presence in the country.

We left Ciudad del Este towards the city of Trinidad arriving by night. The next day (the 22 of July) we visited the ruins of the Jesuits reductions and the Paraná River in the city of Encarnación. Like a close city, a close universe, the remains of the 1700?s Jesuit buildings displayed a sense of community, organization and identity. The red stones like the soil of Encarnación displayed the meaning of reduction as protection grounded on religion. We observed in silence and I tried to imagine how ?Raposo? Tavares arrived to these communities and took thousands of Guaranís as prisoners to sell them as slaves.

We left Encarnación when the sun was dying. The local coach was full of children that for moments cried and then smiled. We left Trinidad on the 23 of July in direction to the capital of Paraguay, the city of Asunción. Our first impression of the city was the economic crisis that has deeply impacted the country since the early 90?s. Asuncion?s life seemed paralysed and the streets are in solitude. In the Uruguay and theRepublic Plazas and in the Government Palace located in front of the docks, we were just accompanied by the city?s dogs and army guards.

Poverty and solitude are the two words that probably better describe today?s Asunción. Since the end of General Stroessner?s dictatorship, the dispute for power coupled with an important economic crisis since the early 90?s have brought to the country political and social instability and lack of  democratic and effective governance. In 1989the General Lino Oviedo, leader of the conservative faction promoted a coup d? état. Hundredsofyoung students and workers went to the streets to opposed Oviedo and the army killed some of them in the Republic Plaza. Afterwards, the National Congress was dissolved and the international community finally turned to Paraguay and demanded the reestablishment of Republican powers. In the mid 1990?s the political faction that had traditionally opposed to Stroessner?s dictatorship won the Presidency and since then the country has tried to overcome the economic and political crisis. However, the city of Asuncion seemed to be stopped in time.

We left Asunción the following night (24 of July) in direction to Pedro Juan Caballero, the Border City of Paraguay with the Brazilian City of Ponto Porá. After an 8 hours travel in coach we crossed on the 25 of July an imaginary line between the two countries. Ponto Porá is a city situated in the State of Mato Grosso Do Sul a relative new state that was formed in 1977 when Matto Grosso was divided in two.*In the State of Matto Groso do Sul cattle ranching is very important and we were able to appreciate this crossing a zone called Dourados from Ponto Porá city towards the city of Campo Grande (Big Field).

After a six-hour travel in coach we arrived to Campo Grande, the capital of the State of Mato Grosso Do Sul. In Campo Grande we went directly to the Rodoviaria to catch another coach in direction to the city of Corumbá. Our objective was the Pantanal, the large wetland area of 230,000 square kilometres that runs between Campo Grande and the city of Cuiaba.* This zone vast in animal and flora species was crossed in horses by Raposo?s bandeira and in my imagination appeared as the more tough stage in our bandeira but also the moment to get closest to nature.

We travel six hours in direction to Corumbá, but before arriving to that city we decided to stop in Miranda a city in the middle of the Pantanal. We spent the night (25 of July) in Miranda and left very early in the morning of the 26th of July towards the Río Vermelho (Vermelho River) at the heart of Pantanal.

Our bandeira arrived to Pantanal waters crossing by boat the Rio Miranda (Miranda River) in direction to its ?encounter? with the Vermelho River. In the Pantanal also converge the rivers Sao Lourenco, Cuiaba, Piquiri, Taquari, Aquidauna and Apa, all of which are tributaries of the Rio Paraguay (Paraguay River).* During the 45 minutes journey in boat we came across with Tuyuyu birds, capivaras (aquatic guinea pig) and jacares (Yacare Caiman). We arrive to Pousada Rio Vermelho an old restored fazenda of Pantanal. Our companions in that place were a Brazilian family from Sao Paulo, the manager of the Pousada (a young mulatto woman), two black women who prepared the meals, our guide called Jergson, one monkey and six horses. In Rio Vermelho we reproduced the travel by horse made by Raposo Tavares between 1649 and 1650 to cross the wetland. Latter on, we fished piranha to have them as dinner. Nevertheless, the cold weather made me stay in bed with a bad cold. During the night, Rolando and Sergio continued the bandeira. They went into the wetland and with the help of the moonlight and battery lamps they tried to find the onza (a jaguar). This experience, Rolando told me latter, gave to him a sense of adventure mixed with danger that the bandeirantes had to face in the darkness of the night.

Very early in the morning of the 27th we left Rio Vermelho by boat. Then, we travelled in direction to Corumbá a Brazilian city situated 15 minutes from the Bolivian border. We crossed to the Bolivian City of Puerto Quijaro in where the 650? km railway runs to the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Bolivia was a unique experience of faces, food, attitudes, and people. In Puerto Quijaro we arrived to the train station and asked for tickets to Santa Cruz. However, in the ticket office a woman informed us that all tickets for that day had been sold and that we could obtain tickets from the people that were re-selling them. Afterwards, another Bolivian woman told us that her mother had tickets and that she was selling them five times more the original price. In Mexico City to re-sell tickets in popular events like a football match or a concert has been a common activity to earn money for some people. Therefore, I was not particularly surprise about this; it was the attitude of Bolivian women what really amazed me. They were on charge of everything in relation to tickets? sell and re-sell. During our journey I had also the opportunity to experience the strength of Bolivian women as black market dealers.

We waited for 6 hours in the rail station to take the train to Santa Cruz. At 6pm the people started to run towards the train to obtain a place that was not secured by the ticket. Inside the train there was confusion, screams, people moving around and trying to find a place for their voluminous luggage (Latter on, we would realise that the luggage was full of Brazilian food that is illegally introduced to Bolivia). We were able to won a place among other 80 to 100 people in the same tiny car. Our more proximate neighbours were some Bolivian indigenous women, black market food dealers ? mainly women ? some children and a Peruvian couple that was returning from a Buddhist congress in Sao Paulo.

During a 21 hours travel to cross 650 km I shared extremely small places with my neighbours but also understanding. 21 uncomfortable hours would be kept in my mind as one of the best experiences of socialisation and sharing of our bandeira. After the first 3 hours I knew who were everybody, where he or she has came from and why they were going to Santa Cruz. I learnt about cultural and social differences between ?toyos? and ?coyos? Bolivian indigenous. I realised the strength of Bolivian women who day to day face illegality related to their activities as black market food dealers. In particular, this strength remembered me the Mexican women that had illegally crossed to the United States searching for better opportunities.

I witnessed the poverty and the isolation of the communities that we crossed during the journey. As we advanced, local children and women sold different kinds of food, probably as their only mean of subsistence in such isolated places of Bolivia. I realised that to some extent, around the train and the only existent rail track, a subsistence economy and a particular culture have flourished. This made me remember the indigenous communities of Matias Romero in the southern state of Oaxaca in Mexico that are deeply linked to a rail track economy and culture. Bolivia seems to be so close to my own country.

Finally, we arrived to the city of Santa Cruz in Bolivia on the 28th of July. In that city we visited the local market where Bolivian indigenous were selling some remains of the Potosí silver. The colonial times of the XVI century and the strong Jesuit presence in the city were displayed in the architecture of the Cathedral, the central Plaza and in the numerous Catholic churches. We walked the streets plenty of indigenous women and their children selling typical candies and imported chocolates. As we discovered Santa Cruz I tried to imagine its colonial development in the XVI century as territory of the Spanish Empire. I also tried to identify the cultural, socio-political and even architectonic differences between Spanish and Portuguese colonial heritage.

The 29th of July we left Santa Cruz by air in direction to Brazil. The next step was the city of Manaus in the State of the Amazonas. ?Manaus derives from an Indian tribe called the Manau who lived on the middle of the Rio Negro (Black River), higher upstream than the site of the city?.* ?In latter1800?s Manaus became the chief collecting point for rubber and by the turn of the century 50,000 people were living in the city. Manaus was the first Brazilian city to have electricity, water, trams, streets and pavement, all imported from Britain. However, after the loss of the market to plantations in Asia the Brazilian rubber trade collapsed and so did Manaus?.*

We arrived to Manaus by midnight after a 2 hours flight that crossed thousands and thousands of miles of jungle. In the morning of the 30th of July we visited Manaus, a beautiful city that in the XIX century was re-build to impress the world. We visited the Cathedral, the Teatro Amazonas (Amazons Theatre) which was completed in 1896 during the rubber boom.* Inside the theatre there was a representation of the meeting of the waters that converge in the Amazon River: the Solmoes and the Black River. We also visited the municipal market ?Adolfo Lisboa? built in 1882 as a miniature copy of the Parisian Les Halles. We were surprised by Manaus? harbour installations that were designed and built by a Scottish engineer to cope with the Rio Negro?s annual rise and fall.*

On the 31st of July we left the city of Manaus by boat in direction to the city of Belem. Our objective was to cross downwards the Amazon River, ?which in size volume of water is 12 times that of the Mississippi River. The Amazon system is 6,577 kilometres long, of which 3,165 are in Brazilian territory?.* Along the River appeared the Brazilian Amazonia covered with tropical forest.

I found myself in the Amazon River, in the vastness of water without end. In the journey I understood how the river has been a traditional mean of transportation. All along the margins of the river, small and big cities have been developed. The boats bring to those cities different kinds of food, medicines, building materials, etc. We spent two nights sleeping in hammocks with other 200 Brazilian women, men, children and elderly people and every morning, the Amazon was still there.

After 2 days of trip our first stop was the port of Santarem (August 2nd)that stands at the confluence of the Rio Tapajós (Tapajós River) with the Amazon, half-way between Belém and Manaus. Santarem was founded by Jesuits and today it is one of the largest town on the Brazilian Amazon*. In Santarem we visited Alter do Chao on the Tapajós River. The whiteness of the sand made us thought that we were on the Caribbean sea, however the surrounding jungle remembered us where we were.

We left Santarem by boat on the following day (3rd of August) in direction to Belém do Pará. This time the boat was full of young Brazilians who were travelling to attend the beginning of the courses in the Federal Universidade do Belem. Just like in the first boat we spent two nights sleeping in hammocks, but this time with more than 250 Brazilians. We met David, a young Brazilian student interested in world trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). I spent hours with him talking about Mexican and Brazilian differences during Colonial times.

The trip towards Belém was a beautiful but contrasting experience. As we approach to the city, thousand of islands known as ?the narrows? appeared in the horizon surrounded by water lilies. In this zone, local children and women paddle toward the passing boats in their small canoes, hoping to get some clothes that people throw to them in plastic bags from the boat. While we were leaving behind those small children and women I felt like if we were abandoning them, like if we were just forgetting them. I felt like in the Bolivian train: the two speeds of development. My ideas were clashing at that moment of the journey. Those communities live in one of the world's richest zones in natural resources, but they have been traditionally expelled from the benefits of that richness as many other communities in Latin America.

In the horizon, suddenly appeared Belém do Pará (August 5th) the capital of the state of Pará located in the ?beginning? of the Amazon River. This city was established in 1616 as part of the Portuguese drive to claim the territory to west of its Atlantic seaboard possessions, and to prevent French, Dutch and English incursions into the area*. Afterwards, when Raposo?s bandeira arrived to Belém in 1651, the contemporary territorial borders of Brazil had been established under Portuguese authority. Afterwards, Belém became the centre for slaving expeditions into the Amazon basin.

For De Assis Moura, the arrival of Raposo Tavares to Belém meant that ?the science and the education are indebt to the paulistan expansion because from their enterprises we obtained the first data on Brazil?s geography, their animal and vegetal species, the vast mineral resources and the first ethnographic contributions in South America??(De Assis 1914, 13).[1]

In this point, our objectives were rescheduled in relation to time and economic sources. We decided to focus ourselves on north-eastern Brazil to get closer to the colonial Portuguese heritage in the cities of Sao Luis, Fortaleza and Salvador de Bahia. Afterwards, we  decided to complete our bandeira in Rio de Janeiro and explore its colonial heritage.

In Belém we spent two days (5 and 6 of August). We visited the Cathedral, the XVII century church Merces (the oldest church in the city), the market Ver-o-Peso in where local fishermen offer their merchandise. I was particularly surprised by the species of fishes that they were selling and by the whole dynamic of the Market place. We also visited the Museu Emílio Goeldi and zoological garden built to preserve the XIX and XX century ethnographical and anthropological research on the Brazilian Amazonia. Finally, we also visited the second largest University in Brazil the Federal Universidade do Belém.

We left Belém on the 6th of August in direction to the colonial city of Sao Luis. After 8 hours travel by coach we arrived to the city on the following day (August 7th). Sao Luis is a colonial city situated in Rio Grande do Norte in the State of Maranhao. The ceramic tiles as exetrior decoration is one of the finest characteristics of Sao Luis. ?In 1612 it was an originaly French posesion named St Louis of France and latter on it became an slaving port?.* Today?s the city has a large black population and has retained much of the African and French cultural heritage.

We spent in Sao Luis two days (August 7 and 8th) and visited the Palacio dos Leoes, the Fortaleza de Santo António (1414) and the Rio Anil (Anil River). In Sao Luis we found the church of Carmo where the Jesuit priest Antonio Vieira gave his famous Sermoes (mass, religious service) to condemn the actions of the Portuguese bandeirantes against the indigenous people (1679 ? 1748).

This city made me remember the colonial cities of Mexico (e.g. Guanajuato, Taxco and Zacatecas). However, Sao Luis displayed a particular mixture of African, Indigenous, French and Portuguese tradition in its landscape and people. Sao Luis was a first approximation to the rich Black cultural heritage that has distinguished Brazil  - and other countries such as Cuba or Venezuela - in Latin America.

Sao Luis was left behind on the 9th and we continued the travel to the Northeast of Brazil towards the city of Fortaleza, the capital of the state of Ceará.  After a 12 hours travel we arrived to Fortaleza on the 10th of August. This city is the fifth largest and has developed an important clothes-manufacturing industry.* We arrived to Fortaleza on a Friday and we realised how the city was empty during the day because the activities were concentrated on the different urban beaches.

In Fortaleza we visited the Praca do Ferreira, a commercial centre built in the XVII century. We also visited the Theatre José de Alencar (1910) that has a beautiful iron structured imported from Scotland.* We also visited the church Igreja Nossa Senhora do Rosário built by the slaves in the XVIII century, the Estacao Joa Fellipe, the Central Market and the urban beaches of Iracema and Futuro.

We continue our bandeira on the night of the 12th in direction to the city of Salvador de Bahia and after a 15 hours travel the city received us on the following day (13th August).  Salvador de Bahia is the capital of the state of Bahia and the center of the Colonial Brazil. In 1549 the new colony of Brazil was governed from Salvador by Tomé de Sousa who fortified the city to protect it from the Dutch and French invasions.* Salvador stands on the Bahia de Todos os Santos and since the XVI century the slave trade brought cheap labour for the sugar plantations and a culture that has endured over the years and is still evident in the religion, cuisine and racial mixture. This city is divided in two levels: Cidade Alta (High City) where the historical centre is and the Cidade Baixa (Low City) in which the commercial district and docks are located.

In Salvador there are hundreds of catholic churches and thousands of candomblé temples (a religion brought from West Africa and syncretized with Catholicism)[2]. In Salvador prevails a particular mixture between religious and profane. We spent two days in Salvador (14 and 15 of August) and we were focused on the historic down town with its beautiful examples of colonial architecture in Latin America. We explored the Praca Municipal (1606) and the Praca da Sé,  the Jesuit Church (1692) that is an examples of baroque in Brazil and today is the city Cathedral (Catedral Basílica).*

The most impressive building in Salvador was the church of Sao Francisco. This church has a spectacular wooden ceiling in baroque style that was completed after 30 years in 1748. * We also visited the Largo doPelourihnho a place in where black slaves used to be publicly punished and ridiculed and today is devoted to the expression of black culture heritage of Salvador. In Pelourihno is located the Nosso Senhor Do Rosário Dos Pretos, the so-called Slave Church a church build by slaves. The contrast of this church with the Cathedral and Sao Francisco is relevant, in particular because of its tranquillity and its black saints.

We also visited the Casa da Cultura Jorge Amado (The Culture House of Jorge Amado) as a tribute to this Brazilian writer who died while we were in Brazil. In Salvador we enjoyed the Bahian culture mainly in the food (moqueca) and rhythms (capoeira and forró dances).

On the 16th we went back to Rio do Janeiro in where we stayed until the 19th. This time I saw Río with different eyes. It was part of Brazil, but it was not all Brazil. The cultural differences that we found in our bandeira gave us a wider perspective about the vastness of Brazil. In our return, we found a new friend, Professor Margarida de Souza Neves, who shared with us our experiences.

In the following days in Rio we visited places that we couldn?t in the first time. We walked all Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and we found a deep social stratification in relation to the zones of the beaches that we were crossing. Therefore, my first impression about the beach as a democratic space was questioned by the differences that we perceived in our ?beach trekking?.  This time we visited the Pao de Acucar and spent almost a day up there. The landscape was superb and most of Rio could be seen. We also spent a day in the suburb of Santa Teresa in southwest of the centre of Rio de Janeiro. To go there we travelled in tram crossing different residential zones and favelas. Santa Teresa is a particularly well-known place in where the rich and poor Rio converge in day to day activities.

We also returned to the historic downtown, to the Travessa do Comercio and to the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil and the Casa Franca-Brasil. In the latter, we went to the exhibition of two painters: Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena da Silva. This couple of artists was forced by the war in Europe to left Budapest in 1940 where they used to live. Maria Helena was Portuguese and Brazil was an option for them. Rio de Janeiro was their home for seven years and in that period they developed their work. In Maria Helena?s paintings I found myself: a foreign young women trying to express what Brazil has meant to her. While I was thinking about this, I read a beautiful phrase of Maria Helena: ? Brazil was an encounter with people of great human quality. From those people I learnt about myself, but mainly about Europe?. As Maria Helena, this bandeira had been an opportunity to think about myself as a Mexican woman studying in Europe and as a Latin American discovering in Brazil the other half of my own continent.

Our last visit was to the Mosteiro de Sao Bento (Monastery of Saint Benito). At 10?o clock in the morning when the Gregorian chants sang by Dominicans monks started for those who were there attending the Sunday mass, I found myself already missing Brazil. On that day (August 19th, 2001) our bandeira had finished. We went to the airport and after an 8 hours flight we had come back to Britain. We were not the same bandeirantes. We had in ourselves the images of Brazil and some of them would be in the photographs captured by Rolando?s camera. Nevertheless, while I was landing in Heathrow I was thinking on the images that I had captured by myself: the beauty of Rio de Janeiro, the immensity of Sao Paulo, the power of the Iguazu Falls, the red soil of the Jesuit reductions in Encarnacion, the deep black eyes of the Guaranis in Paraguay, the strength of Bolivian women, the impressive Manaus, the river side children of the Brazilian Amazonia, the Mango trees of Belém, the intense blue of Sao Luis? tiles, the crowded beach of Futuro in Fortaleza, the rhythms and flavours of Salvador, and the other Rio?.

Bibliography

Jaime Cortesao. (1966) Raposo Tavares e a Formacao Territorial do Brasil. Brasil: Editorial Lisboa.

De Assis Moura, Gentil (1914). As Bandeiras Paulistas. Establecimiento das directrizes geraes a que obedeceram. Brasil: Editorial Sao Paulo.

Ellis Jr., Alfredo (1938). O Bandeirismo Paulista e o Recúo do Meridiano. 3a. Ed. Companhia Editora Nacional, Sao Paulo.

Figeroa, Silvia F.M. (1987) Modernos Bandeirantes. A comissao geografica e geológica de Sao Paulo e a exploracao científica do território Paulista (1886-1931).Unpublished PhD Dissertation. USPi, Facultad de F y L e Ciencieas Humanas. Depto de Historia. Sao Paulo.

Morse, Richard M. (1965). The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role of the Brazilian Pathfinders, US: Yale.

Taunay d?E, Alfonso (1950). História Geral das Bandeiras Paulistas 1925 ? 1950. (11 vols.). Sao Paulo: Editorial Sao Paulo.

Vieira, Antonio (1735-1746) Cartas. Brasil: Editorial Lisboa.

-Vieira, Antonio (1679-1748) Sermôes. Brasil: Editorial Lisboa

[1] Free translation from Portuguese.

[2] The information about Salvador de Bahia was provided by our guide, Teresito an expert on the history and architecture of the city.