Years of Poems and Spirits

Arrived in Bonito yesterday afternoon. Our hotel is something Acqua (water) but it is actually situated in a slump area of the town.

Bonito means “beautiful” in Portuguese but you can’t tell from looking at the town. Today I saw many people walking dogs or jogging along the highway. But this middle class life style looks rather out of place in this town: so far, I still have not seen a traffic light in town.

But people are nice. Met this wonderful guide Andre who used to work for Open Door for many years. He is a world traveler and very well read. We chatted a lot about each other’s country, cultures and customs, etc. Now travel seems a bit more complete.

First we stopped by a cave called Blue Lake Cave because there is a underground lake that appears blue all the time. It was OK I thought.

I found out that in Brazil many scenic spots are privately owned. In China, it is public owned but the right person can get exclusive rights to development them. China’s system has a bit more check on monopoly but Brazil is true free market.

Then, we came to the most anticipated event of the trip: swimming with fishes in crystal clear water. This scene was what attracted us to Pantanal/Bonito area: by chance, we saw a documentary of this region and part of the film was about how clear the water is. Even with tree roots, grass and many fish in the river, the entire ecosystem shows itself in front of you with sunlight beaming through.

We got what we hoped for. It was wonderful. Song bought a underwater case for her Sony video camera and we brought it all the way to here just for this moment.

We also saw several underwater spring heads: water from higher lands sipped through soil and come out here. The sand at the bottom of the river looked like boiling.

Next stop was “macaw hole“: another privately owned tourist attraction. Just a huge hole on the ground (about 150-200 meters diameter) about 10 floors deep. Macaws love to fly in here in pairs. Before the hole was a popular tourist attraction, it was a trash dump and mafia body dump for many years. Our driver served in the army, he said he saw many skeletons down there. There were also two caimens down there–but how on earth did them get there? Do they ever plan to come out?

Anyway, the macaws are beautiful albeit not quite as plentiful as in some other time. We probably donnated more blood to the mosquitoes than the entrace tickets would have paid for.

We found Internet connection at the hotel. Now we know all about the storm in Seattle and the trade of A.I. to Denver. Hail to Globalization!