The staging point for the majestic Sheets of Maranhão Nat’l Park is the tiny, dune-invaded town of Barreirinhas, itself an enigmatic gem. If the most rewarding and accessible parts of Brazil are at the end of long dirt roads, that dissuade most drivers from visiting, this also holds true for […]
Brazil is full of surprises, beyond the memes of beach, jungle, and soccer. One of the country’s greater natural wonders (among many) is the Sheets of Maranhão, in the far northern state of the same name. The national park encompasses one of the world’s rarest and most perplexing ecosystems. The […]
Inhotim, a major contemporary art complex in the midst of extensive botanic gardens, is less than an hour from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais. It is It is both far larger than the 500-acre Storm King Art Center in New York’s Hudson Valley, and much more tropically exuberant, […]
Alcântara – which Atlas and I toured one day, after a 90 minute catamaran sail from São Luis – is one of the most curious enigmas (of many) in Brazil. Like the country, it contains both the very old and the very (even overly) new. “Alcântara, built with the sugar […]
The Rivers Amazon by Alex Shoumatoff My rating: 3 of 5 stars I came to the author’s second published work well-disposed. He married a beautiful Brazilian woman, as did I, and I had already read and enjoyed his The Capital of Hope, on the Phoenix-like creation of Brasília in an […]
São Luis, MA (Maranhão), is located on Brazil’s remote northern coast. The roads are so poor for most of the northern coast that tourists never drive there, only fly. After the slow and rocky ferry crossing, Atlas and I arrived past nine o’clock and still found ourselves eighteen kilometers from […]
Chapter 19 of To Belém & Back describes a fascinating encounter one night in a remote part of the Amazon. While no batuque was currently planned, Dona Fatima implied that it was for lack of “materials,” the righting of which could motivate a gathering that very night. So I immediately […]
“It was high time to take Atlas on another adventure, something on the order of Bananal Island, and it didn’t take long to settle on just such an opportunity, another isle no less. Belém sits across from Isla de Marajó, the largest delta island in the world, bigger than Switzerland. […]
Inhotim, a major contemporary art complex in the midst of extensive botanic gardens, is less than an hour from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais. Here are shots previously unpublished, from 2013-2015 when taking photographs was not yet encouraged in the galleries. Inhotim is a wonder to behold, alone […]
As I tease the reader at book’s start: “Belém, a decaying colonial city at the mouth of the monstrous Amazon River, the capital of Pará, and one of Brazil’s oldest ports. I like places that time has passed by, for no better reason than I identify with them.” [To Belém […]
