**Atlantic
Rain Forest
Brazil's Atlantic forests were thriving for 20 million years before the Amazon
River started flowing and the Andes rose from the plains. Isolated from other
wet forests, the flora and fauna of these forests have evolved to make the
region a world leader in endemics. Of the 21 primate species and subspecies
found in the Atlantic forest, 19 are endemic. Close to 160 bird species are
endemic to the Atlantic forests and edge habitats. In terms of endemics, the
forests of southeastern Brazil are often likened to Madagascar.
One other comparison to Madagascar is just as telling. The Atlantic forest is considered the second most endangered tropical forest ecosystem, following Madagascar. Over 95% of the original forests are gone, and only isolated patches remain. Many of the world's most striking creatures live a precarious existence in a series of spectacular parks, reserves and unprotected areas.
What happened you wonder? Brazil has rich iron ore deposits and pig iron is a major export with the USA being the number one importer of Brazilian pig iron. Pig iron is made by combining iron ore with charcoal and that charcoal is made by burning wood. A whole culture has formed around the production of charcoal. Some 60,000 migrant workers in Brazil move from forest to forest clear-cutting, burning, producing the charcoal, then moving on, they are known as The Charcoal People. Eucalyptus plantations are planted in the wake of the destruction to be harvested for more charcoal. The climate is Brazil is ideal for these plantations to grow quickly and harvesting can take place every 5 years or so. If the land isn't used for eucalyptus, then soy and cattle utilize the land, both large export commodities for Brazil. All the folks that eat soy and think they are doing right by the earth should think hard about where their soy comes from and at what cost…
With 95% of the Atlantic Rain Forest gone, the Charcoal People of Brazil are moving north to the last big forest, the Amazon…
Day One---
We all arrived in Sao Paulo the morning of the 6th and flew together to Belo Horizonté. There we would meet our guide and begin our journey. As we arrived and moved toward baggage claim we met our guide. He was waiting with a "Focus Tours" sign. His name was Fabricio Dorileo and he was much younger than I expected, only 20 years old. I wondered right away how well he would know the species we were going to see. Turns out he really knew his stuff! We also met our driver for this portion of the trip, Marclei. He drives a large Mercedes Van that seats around 8 people comfortably, so the 6 of us had plenty of room.
Being lunchtime already, the first place we went was a nice Brazilian BBQ restaurant, very high class place. I felt a little underdressed in my travel clothes, but just enjoyed the moment and didn't worry about it. The food was amazing, beef, chicken, pork, in all different varieties brought right to your table, still on the BBQ skewer, along with a fully stocked salad bar. The tour price included all the food, but we had to pay for our drinks.
Brazil was going to play in the world cup on the 13th and the country was really behind their team. Whether we were in the city or in the country, the Brazilian flags were out in force and everyone had soccer on their mind. The national pride was overwhelming.
After the fancy lunch, we hit the supermarket for some things then finally
got on the road. Our driver Marclei was a pretty aggressive driver and it
wasn't long before he scared the crap out of me. It seems that everyone in
Brazil drives really fast, really close together, with pedestrians just inches
away. It took a while to finally get out of town, but once in the countryside
the roads were no less scary. There are semi trucks everywhere and not enough
room for 2 lanes, but everyone drives like they have 2 lanes each way. I normally
don't get frazzled by such things, but honestly after a while I just put my
head down, I couldn't watch. Tailgating at any speed is the norm here. Driving
less than 12 inches from the guy in front of you at 60mph waiting for a chance
to pass was a little crazy! By my count, I had nearly lost my life in a tragic
traffic accident in Brazil like 20 times in the first hour! I finally told
myself, "Time to relax, if it is my time, it is my time", and I
soon calmed down.
Our first destination was the Caraça Sanctuary and Biological Park. Originally the site of a seminary school built in the 1700's, it is maintained by priests to this day in the middle of one of the best patches Atlantic rain forest left in existence. So beautiful are the mountains around the sanctuary that Dom Pedro II, the second emperor of Brazil, stated, "Caraça alone is worth the voyage to Minas." The monastery and surrounding biological preserve do not allow dogs to protect the few remaining endangered maned wolves that live in the area.
The monastery is around 4000 foot in elevation and the weather was quite a
bit cooler than we all expected as night fell. I was glad I brought a fleece
and the temperatures dropped into the low 50s. This place is not your popular
foreign tourist destination. Besides Focus Tours, I don't know of anyone else
coming here besides locals, at least it looked that way after viewing the
visitor log.
The meals were cooked over a small wood burning stove and the dinner that first night was rice, beans, beef, and chicken. Turns out that this is the standard fair and we ate LOTS of meat on this trip. This was fine for Dave and me, but Brian and Shannon are vegetarians and I think they ate quite a bit of rice and beans! ;-)
The rooms were very quaint; I guess what you'd expect at a working monastery.
No adornments besides a cross on the wall over the twin beds. Being nice and
cold at night, I slept like a king!
Day 2---
We met at 6am for wildlife watching. For the duration of this trip, we would meet every morning at 6am, quick breakfast, then on to hikes or whatever. We'd have a break before and after lunch, then back at it around 2:30pm until dark. Every day was like this and was exactly how I would have planned it!
There were nature trails in every direction from the monastery. The bird life was extraordinary. I was overwhelmed. Normally I know most of the birds when I'm out birding, but everything was saw was completely foreign to me and if not for our knowledgeable guide, we'd have not identified much. Here are just a few of the critters we saw that morning.
Rufous-bellied Thrush (Looks just
like a robin), Rufous-collared Sparrow, & Masked Water-Tyrant
During the afternoon break Dave and I explored the grounds more thoroughly
and found some catacombs beneath the church! The floor was the bare bedrock
foundation and they dated back hundreds of years!
The afternoon walk was awesome because we happened across a tree full of black
tufted-eared marmosets. They were feeding on tree sap from small holes they
had chewed into the bark. We got surprisingly close to these guys and we all
got some great photos!
We also saw a Violet-capped Woodnymph feeding on the sap from the holes that
the marmosets made.
As we headed back to the monastery at dusk we noticed lots of fresh maned
wolf tracks along a creek bottom. This preserve is well known for its maned
wolves. For the last 20 years the priests have fed the wolves at the base
of the steeple tower and the wolves had become quite habituated to humans.
If you were lucky, you could snap a picture of one.
After dinner that night we all agreed to try and stay up to see one of the wolves feeding. I had strong mixed emotions over the wolves. On one hand they are sealing the fate of the wolves by habituating them to humans and getting them dependent on supplemental feeding. On the other, the feeding might be the last thing keeping them from going extinct. Regardless, the gothic feel of it all with wolves sneaking around the church walkways to feed at night was wild and exhilarating!
I stayed up until 10pm or so, but I was exhausted and I needed sleep, so I gave in. However Brian was determined and sometime after 11pm an adult maned wolf slowly crept up the stairs. Brian hid in the shadows mere feet away. As it began to feed Brian took a couple pictures. Pretty damn cool, made me wish I had toughed it out and stayed up.
Day 3---
Six o'clock in the morning came really early to Brian this morning. He ended up staying out until after 1am trying to get more pictures of the wolves. He was feeling pretty bad now and likely caught a cold virus the night before. After the morning walk I got some photographs of the ornate art inside the church. The intricate stained glass and elegant artwork were a marvel to look at.
We left the preserve before lunch because we had a long drive to our next destination. It was about a 4.5 hour drive. We arrived in the town of Ipanema and all got rooms at the one hotel in town. It was already late, but we went out for dinner at a small outdoor restaurant a half mile away. Along the walk the town was bustling with music and activity. Out of nowhere our guide shouted, potoo!!! I honestly had no idea what the hell a potoo was, but as it turned out, on top of one of the light poles sat a great potoo! It's the largest of the nightjar family. It looks like an owl, but flies with its mouth agape catching insects. It was white and nearly double the size of a great horned owl. It was cool as hell!! Nobody carried a camera to dinner that night though so no pictures! Damn!
Day 4---
We left the hotel at 6 am and headed to the Caratinga Biological Research Station about 45 minutes away. The primary goal of the research station is to study the Muriqui monkey, the largest primate in the Americas, the largest mammal endemic to Brazil and one of the most endangered primates on Earth. This monkey is fast becoming the "mountain gorilla" of South American Ecotourism and Caratinga is the only place to see them. Roughly 25% of the species is found in the 957 hectare forest at the Estação Biológica de Caratinga. It is estimated that less than 600 survive in the wild in Brazil.
At the station headquarters we met one of the field biologists working with the Muriqui. Her name was 'Melye' (Hope I spelled that right), she was attractive, wore a large machete on her hip, and rode a motorcycle to her study sites! Oh my!!!!!!!! Where are women like her back home I wondered! After regaining control of my imagination, we headed off into the forest. Shannon had the first of many dramatic moments this morning. The trail traversed a down tree for about 50 feet, a really large tree, and her and Brian stopped in the middle of it to look at something, then it happened… She slipped and down she went, it was a petty hard hit on her left hip and then off the tree, down into the mass of mosses, funguses, ferns, and spider webs beneath this enormous log. Thankfully, no life threatening injuries, just a bruised hip and we continued on.
This is a picture of the log she
fell from.She fell off to the right, about an 8 foot drop.
The bird life was amazing and
I spotted our first toucan of the trip, a black-necked aracari. No pictures
of this bird though, as with most birds, you get a few quick looks and they
are gone. It is very difficult to get photographs. Here are a few I did manage
to get that day.
Black-capped Capuchin and a couple Brown Howler Monkeys
A strange inguana we caught and
a Rufous-tailed Jacamar
That evening at dinner Brian was absent. He was getting worse and worse and decided to stay in the room while we all went out to eat. I drank several of the Brazilian Brahma beers along with a Caipirinha (a famous Brazilian drink made with sugar cane alcohol) at dinner and afterward decided to go explore the town some. I had seen an internet cafe that I wanted to check out. I wanted to try to get a message to my buddy Jayson who was competing the following day in a big bodybuilding show in Albuquerque. One thing about Brazil is that nobody speaks English or Spanish, it's Portuguese or nothing at all. So, dealing with the young man at the internet cafe turned out to be pretty entertaining. I kept holding up money and saying email and internet, and he knew what I wanted, but he was asking me something and I didn't know what he wanted. Finally he shoved his keyboard at me and I realized he wanted me to set up a username and password for a machine. There were three young ladies sitting nearby laughing and giggling at me and then they came up to introduce themselves. Their only English was "My name is…", so we flirted for a while, nobody knowing what the heck the other was saying! It was really comical. I finally got my computer and sent a message to Jayson and answered a few emails and headed back to the hotel. Another totally fun, and invigorating day was coming to an end. So far, the trip was not disappointing in the least! I was having the time of my life!
Day 5---
Another early morning yielded
more gems. Every time we went on a walk we were getting 20 new bird species
and more mammals. We got some great looks at a Brown-throated three-toed sloth
as he lumbered through the trees. What a cool animal!
Funny side note here, my sister has an irrational fear of sloths!! I dunno, she has never been out of Phoenix, so I don't know where the fear comes from, but it makes me laugh! ;) Anyway, the station manager Antonio, went out with us today to try and find one of the groups of Muriqui. We drove all around the preserve in his Toyota Hilux. A truck I would love to have back home. It was a double cab, diesel engine, 5-speed manual tranny, and manual locking hubs. Why we can't these in the US I'll never understand. I rode in the back with Fabricio, it was a ton of fun!
We stopped at a high point in the topography where they had erected a canopy
tower. We climbed up searched the surrounding forest for the Muriqui. In the
distance the forest boundaries were apparent with cattle farms and soy and
coffee plantations on all sides. The next picture shows how close the park
boundary is with the next hill over being completely cleared.
Shannon then had another of her dramatic moments. That poor girl… At one of the stops, we all got out to glass the trees and she unknowingly stood right on top of an anthill!!! She found out soon enough, we all did, as she started shrieking trying to get the hundreds of ants off her. Brian quickly came to her aid and the rest of us moved to the other side of the truck as we suspected he'd have to strip her to get all the ants. There were a LOT of ants on her. Luckily for everyone there it wasn't me because I have no bashfulness, I'd have been nekkid in three seconds flat to get those damn ants off me!!! After ten minutes or so, the crisis was over, she got a few dozen bites and they were hurting, but she was a real trooper and took the pain and we went on.
Sorry, no pictures of Shannon freaking out, I didn't have the heart to do that to her! ;-)
We never did find the Muriqui, which saddened me, but being the one of the world's most endangered animals, I can see why. Here is a picture of one from one of the books at the station headquarters.
We took off after lunch for our trip back to Belo Horizonté. We had a good 5 hour drive to get there and we napped most of the way. Brian was now starting to feel even worse and he slept the whole way back. We arrived, all dirty and dingy from all our field activities to a 5-star hotel for the night in Belo Horizonté. There were some impending elections at the time and some important political figure had walked in right at the same time our grungy troop entered. We got some entertaining looks from security!
Brian once again skipped dinner, which was unfortunate. The dinner was fantastic! After dinner as I was getting ready for bed, I got a call from a very nervous Shannon, Brian was worse. I went to check on him and he was pretty bad. I'm pretty sure he was running at least a 102 degree fever and he had the chills pretty bad. Whatever he had really had him sick now. I told Shannon to let his body do what it needs to do to get rid o the infection and we'd assess him in the morning. We had to leave the hotel at 6:30am to make our flight. I went back to the room and Dave and I worked out the Plan B of what we had to do in case he needed to be evacuated home the next day. It was a real low moment in the trip for me, contemplating an early ending.
Here is the Full Image Gallery for Part I of this trip (recently fixed this link)
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