24 Aug 2001
A half moon lights the western sky as the plane lifts
away from Houston Intercontinental Airport. For over a decade I have dreamed of this
moment - the beginning of an odyssey to faraway places to see and photograph
birds. This, the first leg of the journey, is to southern South America: to
Mata Atlântica, the coastal rainforest of Brazil, one of the most endangered ecosystems
on the planet; to the Ibera, a vast freshwater marsh in northern Argentina; to Isla
Robinson Crusoe, home of the endemic Juan Fernandez Firecrown hummingbird; to southern
Peru, where live more different plants and animals than any other place on earth.
To be honest, I am not the world adventurer type: 50something,
arthritic shoulders, nearsighted, no sense of direction. I have been inspired,
however, by those who went before: pioneers such as Henry W. Bates, whose book
Travels on the Rivers Amazon introduced me to the wonders of the tropics; Alfred
Russell Wallace, Darwin's contemporary, who looked at tropical life from an evolutionary
point of view; later writers, such as Alexander Skutch, who has lived in Costa Rica since
the 1930s and written extensively on tropical bird life, and George Schaller, who tells
such interesting stories about mammals..
Later - At midnight I watch a violent thunderstorm over the Andes,
then sleep as the plane arcs across the Amazon to São Paulo. There I am met by Eduardo
Justiniano, a Brazilian photographer who will accompany me to Parque Estadual
Intervales, 220 km southwest of the city. Located in the Serra de Paranapiacaba
mountains, Intervales and adjacent tracts preserve some 48,000 ha of Mata Atlântica - one
of the largest parcels of intact forest remaining. Once stretching from northern
Brazil into Argentina, Mata Atlântica is now confined to less than 2% of its original
range. It has almost always been an island ecosystem, surrounded by scrub and
savannah, the caatinga, on the north and west, by grasslands to the south, and
the Atlantic to the east. As climate fluctuated in the past, Mata Atlântica was
separated from Amazonian rainforest, then joined, now separated again. The forest
birds, derived from Amazonia, have evolved in splendid isolation; most occur here and
nowhere else.
25 Aug 2001
Brazil is a bargain for the budget ecotourist. Due to a special promotion, my rental
Volkswagon Gol is $17/day for 3 weeks; my chalet at Intervales costs $16/day, meals
included. Accomodations are not plush: we sleep on bunk beds, and the
bare plank floor has a decided slope. There is a hot shower, not always a sure thing
in the tropics. Whatever Intervales lacks in luxury is more than made up by
the marvelous cusine. Breakfast is fresh papaya and avocado, then bread,
cheese and ham, washed down by Brazilian coffee - Starbucks should be half so good.
Lunch and dinner, also served buffet style, feature local organically-grown meat and
vegetables. After a typical salad comes the inevitable beans and rice,
followed by savory roast pork, chicken or beef. My favorite dessert is Romeo and
Juliet, a fine white cheese eaten with guava jam concentrate. With each meal I drink
suco de maracuja, passion fruit juice - besides being tasty, it is the only thing
I can order in Portuguese.