America! No not the USA. America, or more correctly, the Americas and more precisely, Central, North and South America require many adjectives but scientifically there are three continents in what is the second largest island on the planet. Although the Olympic rings show five colours for a quintet of continents, of which two represent northern and southern parts of what are actually tricontinental islands that are plurally linked as the Americas! So, without Oceania nor Antartica, perhaps the Olympic symbol needs to be updated while some would say Latin America is really all of the Americas and therefore without ‘North America’ nor Antartica, we can consider Oceania more important than either. But you could walk from the North Pole without any marine transportation to Tierra del Fuego. Therfore, America is an island, and by far the larger part of the population is Latin. That is so, however despite some geographers’ claims that Canada has more islands than Chile, it has still never been categorically proven whether there are more ‘islas chileñas’ or ‘les isles canadenses’. You can be sure that in both extremes of the more diminutive of the two really enormous islands of this isolated planet, it is more accessible than ever before and that global warming is in effect at both poles. In spite of Denmark’s claim to Greenland and her islands and a great many Argentine islands there is little actual field research for the mapping of routes at each parameter of the American landmass. Without further a do, I’d like to summarise the geopolitical form of the least complicated continent of them all, South America.
Although this continent is larger than Europe, several times over, it really is almost tiny compared to Asia, and unlike Africa or indeed the Afroeurasian islandmass, South America is incredibly simple geopolitically considered. There is one, or possibly two if we include The Falkland Islands, strange anomalies here in the fairer of the Americas. Both French Guyana and the aforementioned almost Antarctic islands are European territories. Perhaps it is possible to discover why French Guyana is still part of Le Republique Française. I, for one, currently have no idea and yet I would still be reluctant to write on it without talking first with some residents of French Guyana. C’est mystique! And The Falkland Islands, well, I hope they can enjoy themselves there and I guess they know better than anyone, as they and their ancestors are the only people who have ever lived there. We can reasonably claim that English, international British English has always been spoken there, almost completely exclusively ever since some Welsh, Scots, Irish and English sheep farmers decided that it might be home!
However, real South America, the conical continent pertains merely 12 real nations and compared to ‘the developed’ world, these are much younger. Not as young as most African nations and yet virtually grandparents in comparison to some emerging European and Pacific island nations, the twilight twelve western nations of South America are almost exclusively Spanish speaking. As I’ve already mentioned a couple of parts that aren’t, let me also touchbase with the other two non-Iberian linguistically oriented natons of tropical rainforested South America. They are snuck in a nook or a cranny between the North Equatorial currents of the Atlantic, which brush their palm-fringed northern coastlines, and their dark, dense, lush forested hinterlands. Both Guyana and Surinam are so insignificant in business and administrative minds that they are said less frequently than the collocations ‘antidandruff shampoo’ or ‘artificial colourants’. Astoundingly, it is estimated that google or facebook are more valuable than either the English- or Dutch-speaking neighbours called Guyana and Suriname, respectively. When we consider that more people live in Lyon than all three of the non-Iberian territories of South America and that their combined territorial size is only beaten by Russia, Ukraine, Spain and France in comparison with European nations. Basically, there are very few people living in what are enormous territories giving extraordinarily low population densities. So, is it any wonder I say, “discover South America”.
Incidentally, it seems appropriate to write here that the north coast of South America, which is fairly lengthy, is probably the best place for tropical bird species observation. It also seems unbelievable, especially if you are an ornithologist, that until now I have hardly written on the topic, as South America may well be a birdspotters’ paradise. That triplicate of nations is cushioned in by Venezuela to the west, and Brasil to the south. It is also in this vacinity where the sun is most directly above your head if you happen to note midday because the equatorial line which joins north and south in peaceful harmony runs eastwards from Ecuador, with Quito sitting comfortably high in the Andes exactly on the equatorial circumference, then on through Colombia and northern Brasil. The westernmost point of this continent are As Islas Galapagos which are administered by the Ecuadoran government from upland Quito while the northernmost point is Punta Gallinas at the eastern extreme of Colombia’s north coast.
So, wow, we’ve already rushed by half a dozen of the twelve correctly defined nations of the least known continent and I’ve mentioned all the parts that are in the northern portion of the continent that points eastwards, like an arrowhead. But before you open a mapping website to confirm the easterly chevron that is really just a bit of humanity’s planetary uplands that jutt above the surface of our oceans. Coincidentally, as well as pertaining 12 nations, if you were to drill directly through this planet from equatorial Ecuador, aptly named, you would surface near the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, more than 12,700kilometres later! As has been written in this short article, the most prominent and most widely known mountains that jutt up farthest from sealevel are called The Andes, which are the western edge range that span from the southernmost Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia all along the incredibly long international frontier between Chile and Argentina. However, if you decide to travel northwards covering all of the world’s longest mountain range when you encounter Bolivia you will still have just as far to travel again to reach the northern edge of these wild mountains. The highest point, at 6,959metres, is Cerro Aconcagua, fairly easily accessible from the transAndean highway that connects SanTiago and Mendoza, although it would take you a while to reach the east coast and BuenosAires from Chile to Argentina. If you were to go that way you would also pass up the opportunity to take in the marvel of the driest part of this ever so moist planet. The Atacama lies inland from Antofagasta on the Pacific coast and it is estimated that less than a millimetre falls every 5 to 20 years. How we know that is also a mystery!
Following the volcanically active and ever heightening Andes northwards from landlocked Bolivia, which has the world’s highest capital city, La Paz, which really stands at 3,630metres above the salty slicks that cover around 70% of the planet’s surface, you head westwards into Peru, where you might already have planned a package trip to discover the unbelievable and often inexplicable wonders of the ancient Inca civilizations. In order to visit Peru’s capital Lima, you’d have to descend from the peaky, spiky Andean wildlands, whose most forested and most inaccessible warmer peaks are within Peruvian territory. In addition to hosting the greatest proportion of ‘Mors’, Peru also shares Titicaca with Bolivia, the continent’s largest freshwater lake. Unlike the southernmost two nations, Argentina and Chile, Bolivia and Peru also pertain some of the world’s largest river’s sources which trickle, rumble and cascade down from the Andes onto the lush green plains in the world’s largest river basin which has the Amazonas river at the continent’s heart, deep in the world’s largest tropical rainforest, Amazonia, where we have already proven there are over 112 distinct ecosystems. What about the geopolitical highlights?
Before mentioning the final two nations of South America, around the northern edges of the Amazon rainforest, Bogota, Colombia’s capital lies in the easternmost of three cordilleras at the northern terminus of the altitude induced Andes. Colombia is also the unique landlink with Central America at the impassable Darién forest of Panama. Colombia therefore has both Pacific and Caribbean coastlines and the island nations of Trinidad&Tobago or Grenada are actually far more easily reached than the central American mainland. In any case Caracas is the second best starting point to enter Latin America if you’re arriving from the Caribbean by boat. Some actually do head up to Caracas after taking in the wonders of Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall, where the water descends several hundred metres. The best city for arriving in South America having navigated the Caribbean is Georgetown, Guyana’s capital. Navigation is the most traditional and often the best form of transportation in those parts as the ancient civilizations of the Amazon basin and Caribbean travelled by canoe or kayak. Nevertheless, heading eastwards from Georgetown you can drive, fly or sail and you’ll stop in firstly at Paramaribo, Surinam’s principal city before continuing on east to Cayenne, which is French Guyana’s administrative centre. It isn’t far from there where you can enter Brazilian administrative systems but it won’t be by car as there still aren’t road links traversing that rainforested frontier, just like that between Colombia and Panama.
However, amazingly, and it truly is astounding if you visit a tropical rainforest, it is possible to cross the Amazon by car. From the southern side of the enormous Amazon river, you can drive from either Santarem or Belem all the way down to Brasilia, the recently designed and constructed 51 year-young capital of South America’s largest nation, Brasil. If you are to take on this trek of all treks to reach the last 2 nations that I haven’t mentioned you should head for Campo Grande before heading into landlocked Paraguay, whose capital is Assunción that strides the river Paraguay on the frontier with Argentina. It’s possible to sail down that river to the final nation but is best to head east to Foz Iguaçu where Argentina, Brasil and Paraguay meet near the spectacular eponomous waterfall. Not too far from there you can cruise downstream on the also eponomous river Uruguay, whose capital is Montevideo. This charming port city faces the Rio de la Plata from the northern side of a large ocean estuary into which those eponomous rivers; Parana (a state of Brasil), Paraguay and Uruguay all meet the southern Atlantic.
It may be purely coincidental that SOUTH AMERICA is really named Sul America or SuldasAmericas by most of its residents, the people of this land also say SolAmerica so neither by whim nor want, it is indirectly called Sunny America or SunAmerica and to be absolutely honest, I don’t think it is possible that there is a continent where the sun shines quite as much as it does here in the brighter, younger part of the western islandmass. So, nomatter how you approach it, why not start planning your best way to making the best of SOUTH AMERICA.
25 November 2011
03 October 2011
Os Gerais na Chapada Diamantina
MOORLANDS, ‘OS GERAIS’da CHAPADA DIAMANTINA
Sometimes and in a few diminishing areas being protected as natural habitats, heaths are also more widely known as moors. This may be partly because heaths are so small and valued so little by so few. Perhaps, heather, the plants, not your neighbour, are also undervalued! Furthermore, worth noting are the diversity of ecosystems that can be categorised as moorland. Moorlands, in general, have thin, arenitic soils that can sustain an enormous variety of grasses and flowering plants.
The local climate, latitude and altitude, in addition to inconsistent precipitation or prolonged dessication are the primary natural factors which effect soil formation and the width of range of vegetation. Trees may grow and occassionally in proliferation and with sufficient rainfall or near watercourses; fonts, sources, springs, burns, streams, rivers, lochans, lochs, lakes, ponds and reservoirs. In Brazil’s devoted ‘A Chapada Diamantina’ national park there is an array of wildlife on the higher plains. This area’s geology has been well accounted for because of its crystalline qualities while little consideration has been given to the mineral wealth taken from the rock platforms by the plants and trees that flourish in these immense landscapes. Often, rivercut valleys offer and provide idyllic harbours of tranquility where the greatest assortment of mammalia may be observed.
In many of these forested territories, near highland rivercourses, there may be wild cats, feline carnivores, and this article focusses on an area renowned for the possibility of such encounters. However, the infamous ‘onça pintada’ is no real threat to most humans and is an evermore rarely sighted cat species. Like the recognisable ‘pumas’,’jaguars’ and ‘black panthers’ or ‘çuçuaranas’, onças are by and large coy, shy and timorous in the presence of people and the moment they sense the presence of anyone, they usually flee for cover, so sightings are extraordinarily rare. If there are no herbivores there is little chance of finding carnivores because there is no natural food chain. When I last visited the uplands of Chapada Diamantina, the closest evidence of a food chain oriented towards mammals, asides a few apparently abandoned equine mortals, was a single raptor, soaring serenely above the craggy peaked forested areas and many small rodents, chinchilla-like specias, which are far bigger than hamsters. Those majestic birds may even accompany you along the trails but there is seldom reason to be wary as they are far more likely to snack on reptiles, snakes and rodents when they’re hungry!
These protected geographical zones of moorlands are within the ‘Parque Nacional Chapada Diamantina’. Often, but not necessarily, moorlands in Brazil are simply called ‘Gerais’, upland areas, that have been cleared of forest or that may never have been forested, where the sun can be rather intense and where there are risks of burnings or ‘forest fires’on the brittle, dry grasslands in spring. As with most Brazilian national parks, it is essential to be accompanied by local guides with awareness of the specific ecosystems. These guys may be your ‘guide and inspiration’, or even ‘guiding lights in a world of darkness’, but what you can expect are beards, dreads, ragged clothing, any assortment of gadgets&tools, impersonal silences or excessive, sometimes inaccurate communications, but under any circumstances, these are the people you should trust most in wildlands; your guides. You employ them to show you the best of your holiday and they work for you to give you an insight to delightful natural habitats. They usually know what they are paid for and like many of us, it is their knowledge that gives their work so much value, but you should ask as many questions as possible to stretch their capabilities more completely. You may be lucky enough to find bilingual or even multilingual guides, so if you’d like to appreciate the best of Brazil, it is best to learn Portuguese, or less ideally being reliant upon an interpreter. Incidentally, sometimes, these guys, amongst multilinguists, call themselves, ‘tour guides’, normally when they accompany international tourists who don’t speak the local language in any location. Communications are always fascinating and you’ll get more from everything by reading up before making the best of treading in any wildlands.
For the moorlands, you’ll be best equipped with a water bottle, light walking boots, long, light trousers, swimwear underneath, sunglasses, a hat and suncream, if it’s necessary. Binoculars and a zoom lensed camera may also be utilized and pale, naturally coloured clothes are most suitable, especially in browns, greens and dark yellows. Take your time when you’re there and you can even begin to see things differently, there on the ‘gerais’. Try focussing on the miniscule, appreciating the aromas, the plant species, the sandy soils, where you and your guides may find evidence of animals through their spore, the array of stones, rocks and the sensations that are all around you. These rare uplands are almost another world of wonderment. If you are animal spotting it is best to trek in silence as the truly wild mammals are so easily spooked. From a discreet spotting point and with a certain stealth, using high powered lenses you may film or simply appreciate furry creatures at distance.
During my most recent visit to ‘The Diamond Highlands’, I made a 70km trek amongst the domineering mountainscape escarpments from Capão, which is accessible by a regular minibus service from Palmeiras, in direction towards Andaraí. This route has many variabilities and regular guides will choose which best suits his or her tourists. It requires at least a nocturnal stopover and most decide to stay with Jaílton and his family near the confluence of Calisto and Piabas rivers at the foot of Castelão, an enormous pillar of wild, dark, vegetated rock. There are many of these towering, impenetrable mountains within and near this national park. However, ‘Castelo’ is penetrable, as there are caving routes within its astounding geological formation. Incidentally, there are many caverns and pot-holing day trips are readily available in and around the park.
A couple of hours or more from Capão is the highest point within the park, in the ‘Serra da Esbarracado’ but most just walk below it slightly to the east. It stands above the communities of Guiné which are just to the west, shaded by the mountains every morning. Munro bagging is not usually part of Brazilian mountaineering culture. Although ‘Lapinha’ or ‘Prefeitura’, where Já and his blooming family are growing up in a secluded paradise, is just a few hours walk from the neighbouring villages you can imagine being in the heart of a South American civilisation. In many ways that is exactly what his small farmstead is! He provides ideal camping space, log burning cooking facilities, running water and bunkbed accommodation at very low rates. If you ever have difficulties getting a fire started, as was my case, his sons may even start the stove with their cunning abilities. As with anywhere, keep any fire under control, carry any litter you make and leave it as you find it. When I arrived there, his mother-in-law hardly even looked at me and it is said she speaks only indigenous languages and clear, simple Brazilian Portuguese is also useful there.
Despite the area’s wildness, it is a real wilderness within scientific geographical definitions, there’s an uncanny calmness amongst most walkers and the residents have a charm beyond what the adjective charming normally conveys. Deep in ‘Vale do Paty’, and it can be described as a verdent canyon, the paths are well-trodden and it is best to stick to the trails that meander alongside the river Cachoeirão or Rio Paty. If the skies darken, it may be a blessing in disguise but be careful of flash flooding and avoid high ground during lightning storms, which like the south and southeast of Brazil are more likely between December and March, in the summer months when there is also most crowding. You can spend hours on barmy afternoons lolloping on freshwater beaches or rocky ledges surrounded by natural river pools, where you may spot fish and many more smaller amphibian species. Swimming and bathing is regular but you are advised not to use suncream or insect repellent before swimming.
Many natural species are uncategorised and you might like to ask more of the scientific communities. Photographic skills are also in short supply with communal spiders, grasshoppers and ants integrated with communal plant growth. In theory, this grouping strengthens their defensive systems while contrastingly creating a natural competition within each group. Survival of the fittest and fastest, especially if you see a hummingbird entangled in a massive spiderweb, being shared by its hungry spiders. They are best filmed from a disance as with ants! You may recieve several names for the same species on any given day and you may be tempted to coin a latin name, like ‘arachni comunale’. There is also a fair bit of multiple placenaming. There are also few books published for the Chapada Diamnatina national park and a resulting orally oriented knowledge that is passed through the generations and centuries. This is essentially a prioritised reason to employ a knowledgeable guide and then supply him or her with your photos of the diverse species. He may then compile scientific books of the plant or insect species, etc. According to local knowledge, there are chances of spotting several antelope species and a handful of cat species.
On my last rapid expedition to the area I had decided to spend a night deep down in Paty before then discovering ‘A Rampa’ or ‘escadaria’, an astounding feat of traditional engineering, which connects the town of Andaraí to the wilder parts. After traversing the river by bridge you should clamber up from Paty with water and plenty of energy along the incredible paved path or ‘staircase’, which rises from the valley floor up some 400 vertical metres to the Serra Roncador, where I camped back up above the canyon on the east central side amongst some scrubby sparsely distributed thorny bushes and trees, not far from the paved route back down to the east. I was awoken in the wee hours by a scratching sound unnervingly near to my head. The animal was outside the tent and repeatedly scraping its claws on the hard reddish brown ground less than a metre from my left ear. I thought for a while, knew where my penknife was and just continued listening calmly. I don’t know if it was a wolf, a feline or a stray undomesticated dog. It may have been an anteater, which can weigh in the vacinity of a couple of hundred kilos, or merely a badger or an armadillo, usually called a ‘tatu’. I didn’t test my luck, as black panthers are known to grow larger than leopards! When I awoke long after sunrise, because it was a misty morning, there was only a small area of spore exactly where I heard the beast. It appeared to have sharp pointed claws! Best not to panic under any circumstances.
Spring, summer and autumnal flowering spectacles are common, particularly on sunny days soon after heavy rains when everything appears to have been reborn in a lush display of spiralling vegatation. These moorlands continuously cycle through periods of dryness and wetness. A few ecologists argue in favour of periodic ‘burnings’ as a form of land management practise in order to goad greater generation, so-called ‘rebirthings’. What is sure to provide good debate and discussion, is the very issue of creating a delicate balance between diverse ecosystems within different national parks. Like most botanists, ecologists will generally argue against using fire as a tool for moorlands management. Many see fire as a sign of mismanagement and there are a select group of ill eqipped and under funded ‘brigadistas’, who will risk life and limb so as to protect this delicate area of incredible natural beauty from and against wildfires. These guys are local heros and some turn their hands to the more commercially oriented guiding fraternities, which may continually astound you with respected and yet refutable points of reference while talking over the details of natural life near and in the vacinity of ‘os gerais’.
Sometimes and in a few diminishing areas being protected as natural habitats, heaths are also more widely known as moors. This may be partly because heaths are so small and valued so little by so few. Perhaps, heather, the plants, not your neighbour, are also undervalued! Furthermore, worth noting are the diversity of ecosystems that can be categorised as moorland. Moorlands, in general, have thin, arenitic soils that can sustain an enormous variety of grasses and flowering plants.
The local climate, latitude and altitude, in addition to inconsistent precipitation or prolonged dessication are the primary natural factors which effect soil formation and the width of range of vegetation. Trees may grow and occassionally in proliferation and with sufficient rainfall or near watercourses; fonts, sources, springs, burns, streams, rivers, lochans, lochs, lakes, ponds and reservoirs. In Brazil’s devoted ‘A Chapada Diamantina’ national park there is an array of wildlife on the higher plains. This area’s geology has been well accounted for because of its crystalline qualities while little consideration has been given to the mineral wealth taken from the rock platforms by the plants and trees that flourish in these immense landscapes. Often, rivercut valleys offer and provide idyllic harbours of tranquility where the greatest assortment of mammalia may be observed.
In many of these forested territories, near highland rivercourses, there may be wild cats, feline carnivores, and this article focusses on an area renowned for the possibility of such encounters. However, the infamous ‘onça pintada’ is no real threat to most humans and is an evermore rarely sighted cat species. Like the recognisable ‘pumas’,’jaguars’ and ‘black panthers’ or ‘çuçuaranas’, onças are by and large coy, shy and timorous in the presence of people and the moment they sense the presence of anyone, they usually flee for cover, so sightings are extraordinarily rare. If there are no herbivores there is little chance of finding carnivores because there is no natural food chain. When I last visited the uplands of Chapada Diamantina, the closest evidence of a food chain oriented towards mammals, asides a few apparently abandoned equine mortals, was a single raptor, soaring serenely above the craggy peaked forested areas and many small rodents, chinchilla-like specias, which are far bigger than hamsters. Those majestic birds may even accompany you along the trails but there is seldom reason to be wary as they are far more likely to snack on reptiles, snakes and rodents when they’re hungry!
These protected geographical zones of moorlands are within the ‘Parque Nacional Chapada Diamantina’. Often, but not necessarily, moorlands in Brazil are simply called ‘Gerais’, upland areas, that have been cleared of forest or that may never have been forested, where the sun can be rather intense and where there are risks of burnings or ‘forest fires’on the brittle, dry grasslands in spring. As with most Brazilian national parks, it is essential to be accompanied by local guides with awareness of the specific ecosystems. These guys may be your ‘guide and inspiration’, or even ‘guiding lights in a world of darkness’, but what you can expect are beards, dreads, ragged clothing, any assortment of gadgets&tools, impersonal silences or excessive, sometimes inaccurate communications, but under any circumstances, these are the people you should trust most in wildlands; your guides. You employ them to show you the best of your holiday and they work for you to give you an insight to delightful natural habitats. They usually know what they are paid for and like many of us, it is their knowledge that gives their work so much value, but you should ask as many questions as possible to stretch their capabilities more completely. You may be lucky enough to find bilingual or even multilingual guides, so if you’d like to appreciate the best of Brazil, it is best to learn Portuguese, or less ideally being reliant upon an interpreter. Incidentally, sometimes, these guys, amongst multilinguists, call themselves, ‘tour guides’, normally when they accompany international tourists who don’t speak the local language in any location. Communications are always fascinating and you’ll get more from everything by reading up before making the best of treading in any wildlands.
For the moorlands, you’ll be best equipped with a water bottle, light walking boots, long, light trousers, swimwear underneath, sunglasses, a hat and suncream, if it’s necessary. Binoculars and a zoom lensed camera may also be utilized and pale, naturally coloured clothes are most suitable, especially in browns, greens and dark yellows. Take your time when you’re there and you can even begin to see things differently, there on the ‘gerais’. Try focussing on the miniscule, appreciating the aromas, the plant species, the sandy soils, where you and your guides may find evidence of animals through their spore, the array of stones, rocks and the sensations that are all around you. These rare uplands are almost another world of wonderment. If you are animal spotting it is best to trek in silence as the truly wild mammals are so easily spooked. From a discreet spotting point and with a certain stealth, using high powered lenses you may film or simply appreciate furry creatures at distance.
During my most recent visit to ‘The Diamond Highlands’, I made a 70km trek amongst the domineering mountainscape escarpments from Capão, which is accessible by a regular minibus service from Palmeiras, in direction towards Andaraí. This route has many variabilities and regular guides will choose which best suits his or her tourists. It requires at least a nocturnal stopover and most decide to stay with Jaílton and his family near the confluence of Calisto and Piabas rivers at the foot of Castelão, an enormous pillar of wild, dark, vegetated rock. There are many of these towering, impenetrable mountains within and near this national park. However, ‘Castelo’ is penetrable, as there are caving routes within its astounding geological formation. Incidentally, there are many caverns and pot-holing day trips are readily available in and around the park.
A couple of hours or more from Capão is the highest point within the park, in the ‘Serra da Esbarracado’ but most just walk below it slightly to the east. It stands above the communities of Guiné which are just to the west, shaded by the mountains every morning. Munro bagging is not usually part of Brazilian mountaineering culture. Although ‘Lapinha’ or ‘Prefeitura’, where Já and his blooming family are growing up in a secluded paradise, is just a few hours walk from the neighbouring villages you can imagine being in the heart of a South American civilisation. In many ways that is exactly what his small farmstead is! He provides ideal camping space, log burning cooking facilities, running water and bunkbed accommodation at very low rates. If you ever have difficulties getting a fire started, as was my case, his sons may even start the stove with their cunning abilities. As with anywhere, keep any fire under control, carry any litter you make and leave it as you find it. When I arrived there, his mother-in-law hardly even looked at me and it is said she speaks only indigenous languages and clear, simple Brazilian Portuguese is also useful there.
Despite the area’s wildness, it is a real wilderness within scientific geographical definitions, there’s an uncanny calmness amongst most walkers and the residents have a charm beyond what the adjective charming normally conveys. Deep in ‘Vale do Paty’, and it can be described as a verdent canyon, the paths are well-trodden and it is best to stick to the trails that meander alongside the river Cachoeirão or Rio Paty. If the skies darken, it may be a blessing in disguise but be careful of flash flooding and avoid high ground during lightning storms, which like the south and southeast of Brazil are more likely between December and March, in the summer months when there is also most crowding. You can spend hours on barmy afternoons lolloping on freshwater beaches or rocky ledges surrounded by natural river pools, where you may spot fish and many more smaller amphibian species. Swimming and bathing is regular but you are advised not to use suncream or insect repellent before swimming.
Many natural species are uncategorised and you might like to ask more of the scientific communities. Photographic skills are also in short supply with communal spiders, grasshoppers and ants integrated with communal plant growth. In theory, this grouping strengthens their defensive systems while contrastingly creating a natural competition within each group. Survival of the fittest and fastest, especially if you see a hummingbird entangled in a massive spiderweb, being shared by its hungry spiders. They are best filmed from a disance as with ants! You may recieve several names for the same species on any given day and you may be tempted to coin a latin name, like ‘arachni comunale’. There is also a fair bit of multiple placenaming. There are also few books published for the Chapada Diamnatina national park and a resulting orally oriented knowledge that is passed through the generations and centuries. This is essentially a prioritised reason to employ a knowledgeable guide and then supply him or her with your photos of the diverse species. He may then compile scientific books of the plant or insect species, etc. According to local knowledge, there are chances of spotting several antelope species and a handful of cat species.
On my last rapid expedition to the area I had decided to spend a night deep down in Paty before then discovering ‘A Rampa’ or ‘escadaria’, an astounding feat of traditional engineering, which connects the town of Andaraí to the wilder parts. After traversing the river by bridge you should clamber up from Paty with water and plenty of energy along the incredible paved path or ‘staircase’, which rises from the valley floor up some 400 vertical metres to the Serra Roncador, where I camped back up above the canyon on the east central side amongst some scrubby sparsely distributed thorny bushes and trees, not far from the paved route back down to the east. I was awoken in the wee hours by a scratching sound unnervingly near to my head. The animal was outside the tent and repeatedly scraping its claws on the hard reddish brown ground less than a metre from my left ear. I thought for a while, knew where my penknife was and just continued listening calmly. I don’t know if it was a wolf, a feline or a stray undomesticated dog. It may have been an anteater, which can weigh in the vacinity of a couple of hundred kilos, or merely a badger or an armadillo, usually called a ‘tatu’. I didn’t test my luck, as black panthers are known to grow larger than leopards! When I awoke long after sunrise, because it was a misty morning, there was only a small area of spore exactly where I heard the beast. It appeared to have sharp pointed claws! Best not to panic under any circumstances.
Spring, summer and autumnal flowering spectacles are common, particularly on sunny days soon after heavy rains when everything appears to have been reborn in a lush display of spiralling vegatation. These moorlands continuously cycle through periods of dryness and wetness. A few ecologists argue in favour of periodic ‘burnings’ as a form of land management practise in order to goad greater generation, so-called ‘rebirthings’. What is sure to provide good debate and discussion, is the very issue of creating a delicate balance between diverse ecosystems within different national parks. Like most botanists, ecologists will generally argue against using fire as a tool for moorlands management. Many see fire as a sign of mismanagement and there are a select group of ill eqipped and under funded ‘brigadistas’, who will risk life and limb so as to protect this delicate area of incredible natural beauty from and against wildfires. These guys are local heros and some turn their hands to the more commercially oriented guiding fraternities, which may continually astound you with respected and yet refutable points of reference while talking over the details of natural life near and in the vacinity of ‘os gerais’.
04 September 2011
Aymara
The Aymara or Aimara is an indigenous ethnic group in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America; about 2 million Aymara live in Bolivia, Peru and Chile. They lived in the region for many centuries before becoming associates with the Inca, and later with the Spanish speakers in the 16th century. The Aymara have existed in the Andes, in what is now western Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile, for time immemorial. Their language has undergone several marked transformations. The region where Tiwanaku and the modern Aymara are located, the Altiplano, was led by the Incas under Huayna Capac, who reigned between 1483&1523. It is likely that the Inca had a strong influence over the Aymara region for many generations. The architecture, for which the Inca are best known, is clearly modelled on the mountain people’s school of architecture. Although it is possible Aymarans were led by the Incas, some degree of autonomy was retained, with the splendid Inca civilization. There were a number of ethnic groups, which were later to be called Aymara by the Spanish. These were grouped with different chieftains, which included the Charqa, the Qharaqhara, the Quillaca, the Asanaqui, the Carangas, the SivTaroyos, the Haracapi, the Pacajes, the Lupacas and the Soras, amongst more. Upon arrival of the Spanish speaking Europeans and South Americans, all these groups were spread in what today is Bolivia.
Considering the languages, however, rather than their current distribution, it is clear that Aymara was once spoken much further north, at least as far north as central Peru, where most Andean linguists argue that is where Aymara actually originated. In fact, the Inca nobility may themselves originally have been Aymara-speakers, who switched to Quechua only shortly before the Inca expansion. For example, the Cuzco area has many Aymara placenames, and the so-called 'secret language of the Incas' actually appears to be a form of Aymaran. Some have argued that the Inca were a civil engineering specialist group who actually broke free from the Aymaras and that the Incas never spoke, merely constructing the wonders in and near the Andean mountains, as a sign of the power of their actions, or as a way of writing to the world and it’s gods that they were the real lords of it, as with the Nazca lines.
Aymara (Aymar aru) is an Aymaran language spoken by many in and around the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Amerindian languages with over 2 million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia. It is also spoken to a much lesser extent in Chile and in northwest Argentina.
Some linguists have claimed that Aymara is related to its more widely-spoken neighbor, Quechua. This claim, however, is still sometimes disputed. Furthermore, there are indeed similarities such as the nearly identical phonologies. Aymara is an agglutinating language and to a certain extent it is also polysynthetic. It has a subject-object-verb word order, unlike English which is predominantly subject+verb+object sequenced. Can you draw similarities with more languages, which we speak and write in South America?
How's about some practical knowledge? If you ask for some food, instead of ‘grande’ you can say ‘jacha’ and if you’d like to fish your food you can ask where there are ‘jacha challwa’. If you’d like to pick some fruit from a tree to balance your nutrition you should search for or ask for ‘quqa achu’ or ‘achu quqa’ and then you should ‘manq’aña’ calmly to avoid indigestion. If you’d like to find somewhere to sleep you can point at someone and say ‘yatiña ikiña’, which could be interpreted as ‘tu conheçes algun lugar pra dormir’. Additionally, you can encourage better health by saying ‘tuyuña’ near rivers and lakes,etc. Furthermore, you can always try ‘saraña’ and if your stroll gets boring why not just say ‘anataña’ and see how much fun you’ll have! If it’s cold then why not suggest a small ‘nina’ and if you’d like less wind maybe ‘illawa’ will do the trick. If you want everything near perfect then it is well advized that you insist and stress ‘suma’. Every ‘aruma’ may be starlit and you can expect ‘inti’ every ‘uru’.
Aymara Weavings
Why not start your next best quest with Aymara. It is truly American and the core to your knowing South America better than ever.
Considering the languages, however, rather than their current distribution, it is clear that Aymara was once spoken much further north, at least as far north as central Peru, where most Andean linguists argue that is where Aymara actually originated. In fact, the Inca nobility may themselves originally have been Aymara-speakers, who switched to Quechua only shortly before the Inca expansion. For example, the Cuzco area has many Aymara placenames, and the so-called 'secret language of the Incas' actually appears to be a form of Aymaran. Some have argued that the Inca were a civil engineering specialist group who actually broke free from the Aymaras and that the Incas never spoke, merely constructing the wonders in and near the Andean mountains, as a sign of the power of their actions, or as a way of writing to the world and it’s gods that they were the real lords of it, as with the Nazca lines.
Aymara (Aymar aru) is an Aymaran language spoken by many in and around the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Amerindian languages with over 2 million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia. It is also spoken to a much lesser extent in Chile and in northwest Argentina.
Some linguists have claimed that Aymara is related to its more widely-spoken neighbor, Quechua. This claim, however, is still sometimes disputed. Furthermore, there are indeed similarities such as the nearly identical phonologies. Aymara is an agglutinating language and to a certain extent it is also polysynthetic. It has a subject-object-verb word order, unlike English which is predominantly subject+verb+object sequenced. Can you draw similarities with more languages, which we speak and write in South America?
How's about some practical knowledge? If you ask for some food, instead of ‘grande’ you can say ‘jacha’ and if you’d like to fish your food you can ask where there are ‘jacha challwa’. If you’d like to pick some fruit from a tree to balance your nutrition you should search for or ask for ‘quqa achu’ or ‘achu quqa’ and then you should ‘manq’aña’ calmly to avoid indigestion. If you’d like to find somewhere to sleep you can point at someone and say ‘yatiña ikiña’, which could be interpreted as ‘tu conheçes algun lugar pra dormir’. Additionally, you can encourage better health by saying ‘tuyuña’ near rivers and lakes,etc. Furthermore, you can always try ‘saraña’ and if your stroll gets boring why not just say ‘anataña’ and see how much fun you’ll have! If it’s cold then why not suggest a small ‘nina’ and if you’d like less wind maybe ‘illawa’ will do the trick. If you want everything near perfect then it is well advized that you insist and stress ‘suma’. Every ‘aruma’ may be starlit and you can expect ‘inti’ every ‘uru’.
Aymara Weavings
Why not start your next best quest with Aymara. It is truly American and the core to your knowing South America better than ever.
29 July 2011
Cidade Negra ‘Os Sinais’
O mundo inteiro viu seus sinais Até parece isso não assustar Eu vejo coisas que não são normais Vejo preço disso tudo custar
Desequilibro da natureza Quanto vale um megaton?
Se o sol não aparecer, quando voçê acordar? Se o sol não aparecer, quando voçê acordar?
Aaah, voçê já parou pra pensar? Aaah, que pode acontecer?
Aaah, o sentimento pode mudar
Sol vem mais um dia Pra olhar pro céu
O mundo inteiro viu seus sinais Até parece isso não assustar Vejo coisas que não são normais Eu vejo preço disso tudo custar
Desequilibro da natureza Quanto vale um megaton?
Se o sol não aparecer, quando voçê acordar?
Aaah, voçê já parou pra pensar? Aaah, que pode acontecer?
Aaah, o sentimento pode mudar
Sol vem mais um dia Pra olhar pro céu
O HOMEN QUEM FAZ A GUERRA
A nova era depois de cristo, rap e reggae caminhando unidos, Cidade Negra e Rappin’ Hood, É parçeria, som de atitude, é reggae roots, é rap do raiz, O som de minha praia aqui me faz feliz, mensagem positiva pra todo nossa gente, abaixa guerra! Há paz, esta presente?
O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor Manipula a vitoria, mudou tudo da historia, tudo da razão Ele já não lembra mais das lagrimas do passado das filas desperdiçadas Ela não sabe que perdeu grande parte da sua vida e todo seu sutil amor Ele perdeu o por do sol, Ele perdeu a lua no seu quintal e não sentiu o cheiro do mar
O homen fez a guerra quase explodiu terra, o homen poluiu o mundo acritude e atmosfera,
Fazer cabou com tudo, se achou dono de mundo, por enquanto suas pais com família quem virou defuntos, o homen diz que avisa, só um improvisa, 51 trabalhador e soa a camisa, sou, preza a amizade, não faça de covarde, nunca conheçer mais oyei tomou sabotagem, não se tem seu piedade, não acredite em deus, quanto mais melhor, que se danem os plebeus, diz em pouco dinheiro, batalha o dia inteiro, o céu é seu futuro, por couco luta dos guerreiros, drama dos brasileiros, vejo todos os dias, enquanto poucos ganhem, canta a maioria, dinheiro pros playboys, armas é toca nas favelas, esse é do Rappin’ Hood, o homen ainda faz a guerra
O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor Manipula a vitoria, mudou tudo da historia, tudo da razão Ele já não lembra mais das lagrimas do passado das filas desperdiçadas Ela não sabe que perdeu grande parte da sua vida e todo seu sutil amor Ele perdeu o por do sol, Ele perdeu a lua no seu quintal e não viu as torres do mar
Homen sem tempo, grana é seu movimento, Amigo é dinheiro, no bolso seu argumento observamos o sorriso de uma criança, nunca aprendeu se criar o amor e esperança, Nunca estudou sobre a vida de Marcus Garvey, nunca entendeu a mensagem de Bob Marley, não sentiu na pele o que é ter necessidade, nunca saberá conviver na simplicidade, Diz que humildade é coisa de otário, Que vai ganhar pra sempre, Aquele mínimo salário, Prá jah eu oro agora, pedindo um profissão, força e saúde, pra cantar mais um refrão.
Digam: Eu sou vencedor, eu sou o senhor, vai
Ele perdeu o por do sol, Ele não viu a lua no seu quintal ele não viu as cores do mar
Like many established musical groupings there have been many alterations in the core band, which began in 1986 with Da Gama and Rãs Bernardo in the beginning alongside Bino and Lazão, who have also worked with an enormous host of Brazilian musicians and singers. Tony Garrido has been holding the microphone fort since 1994 but he’s been sharing his mike with many more performers. Some might argue that Liminha, Paul Ralphes, Alexandre Massau, Nelson and Alex Meirelles are also integral members of Cidade Negra as they have and may well work again more closely with Bino, the bassist, Lazão, the drummer and Garrido or more singers and rappers. Da Gama, the principal guitarist over the years may also return. In addition to Rappin’ Hood, featured on the 2004 album, Perto de Deus who might have his own publication on this site there is an array of world-renowned Brazilian artists including Gabriel Pensador, Jorge Mautner, Lulu Santos, Marcos Valle, Marisa Monte, MV Bill, Nando Reis, Os Paralamos de Sucesso and Zé Ramalho and the ‘real’ doesn’t stop there, so-to-speak, as there is an equally impressive select few of musicians and singers who have worked with Cidade Negra on the international scene, including Angelique Kidjo, Anthony B, Aswad, Inner Circle, Shabba Ranks and Steel Pulse, who are spanning every continent in this genre of modern, popular, massively appealing music. The 1999 compilation of their songs, Hits&Dubs was almost a world tour of REGGAE with too many musicians and featured singers, ragas, and rappers to mention them all. The band travelled around the globe producing and recording artists in each continent before digitally remastering their works of art almost as the millennium began. May you enjoy these lyrics and if you haven’t already you can get your digits directing the disc selling sites on the internet to have your choice of CIDADE NEGRA cd’s and dvd’s delivered directly to you in the upcoming weeks. Months and years. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, this is being posted because I’ve just read the band are back in the studio recording afresh (: , . . .
Bandas de reggae: Skank, Forfun, Cidade Negra, O Rappa, Maskavo, Chiclete com Banana, Harmonia do Samba, Bad Brains, Soldiers of Jah Army (Portuguese Edition)
Que Assim Seja
O mundo inteiro viu seus sinais Até parece isso não assustar Eu vejo coisas que não são normais Vejo preço disso tudo custar
Desequilibro da natureza Quanto vale um megaton?
Se o sol não aparecer, quando voçê acordar? Se o sol não aparecer, quando voçê acordar?
Aaah, voçê já parou pra pensar? Aaah, que pode acontecer?
Aaah, o sentimento pode mudar
Sol vem mais um dia Pra olhar pro céu
O mundo inteiro viu seus sinais Até parece isso não assustar Vejo coisas que não são normais Eu vejo preço disso tudo custar
Desequilibro da natureza Quanto vale um megaton?
Se o sol não aparecer, quando voçê acordar?
Aaah, voçê já parou pra pensar? Aaah, que pode acontecer?
Aaah, o sentimento pode mudar
Sol vem mais um dia Pra olhar pro céu
O HOMEN QUEM FAZ A GUERRA
A nova era depois de cristo, rap e reggae caminhando unidos, Cidade Negra e Rappin’ Hood, É parçeria, som de atitude, é reggae roots, é rap do raiz, O som de minha praia aqui me faz feliz, mensagem positiva pra todo nossa gente, abaixa guerra! Há paz, esta presente?
O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor Manipula a vitoria, mudou tudo da historia, tudo da razão Ele já não lembra mais das lagrimas do passado das filas desperdiçadas Ela não sabe que perdeu grande parte da sua vida e todo seu sutil amor Ele perdeu o por do sol, Ele perdeu a lua no seu quintal e não sentiu o cheiro do mar
O homen fez a guerra quase explodiu terra, o homen poluiu o mundo acritude e atmosfera,
Fazer cabou com tudo, se achou dono de mundo, por enquanto suas pais com família quem virou defuntos, o homen diz que avisa, só um improvisa, 51 trabalhador e soa a camisa, sou, preza a amizade, não faça de covarde, nunca conheçer mais oyei tomou sabotagem, não se tem seu piedade, não acredite em deus, quanto mais melhor, que se danem os plebeus, diz em pouco dinheiro, batalha o dia inteiro, o céu é seu futuro, por couco luta dos guerreiros, drama dos brasileiros, vejo todos os dias, enquanto poucos ganhem, canta a maioria, dinheiro pros playboys, armas é toca nas favelas, esse é do Rappin’ Hood, o homen ainda faz a guerra
O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor O homen quem faz a guerra não tem tempo de fazer o amor Manipula a vitoria, mudou tudo da historia, tudo da razão Ele já não lembra mais das lagrimas do passado das filas desperdiçadas Ela não sabe que perdeu grande parte da sua vida e todo seu sutil amor Ele perdeu o por do sol, Ele perdeu a lua no seu quintal e não viu as torres do mar
Homen sem tempo, grana é seu movimento, Amigo é dinheiro, no bolso seu argumento observamos o sorriso de uma criança, nunca aprendeu se criar o amor e esperança, Nunca estudou sobre a vida de Marcus Garvey, nunca entendeu a mensagem de Bob Marley, não sentiu na pele o que é ter necessidade, nunca saberá conviver na simplicidade, Diz que humildade é coisa de otário, Que vai ganhar pra sempre, Aquele mínimo salário, Prá jah eu oro agora, pedindo um profissão, força e saúde, pra cantar mais um refrão.
Digam: Eu sou vencedor, eu sou o senhor, vai
Ele perdeu o por do sol, Ele não viu a lua no seu quintal ele não viu as cores do mar
Like many established musical groupings there have been many alterations in the core band, which began in 1986 with Da Gama and Rãs Bernardo in the beginning alongside Bino and Lazão, who have also worked with an enormous host of Brazilian musicians and singers. Tony Garrido has been holding the microphone fort since 1994 but he’s been sharing his mike with many more performers. Some might argue that Liminha, Paul Ralphes, Alexandre Massau, Nelson and Alex Meirelles are also integral members of Cidade Negra as they have and may well work again more closely with Bino, the bassist, Lazão, the drummer and Garrido or more singers and rappers. Da Gama, the principal guitarist over the years may also return. In addition to Rappin’ Hood, featured on the 2004 album, Perto de Deus who might have his own publication on this site there is an array of world-renowned Brazilian artists including Gabriel Pensador, Jorge Mautner, Lulu Santos, Marcos Valle, Marisa Monte, MV Bill, Nando Reis, Os Paralamos de Sucesso and Zé Ramalho and the ‘real’ doesn’t stop there, so-to-speak, as there is an equally impressive select few of musicians and singers who have worked with Cidade Negra on the international scene, including Angelique Kidjo, Anthony B, Aswad, Inner Circle, Shabba Ranks and Steel Pulse, who are spanning every continent in this genre of modern, popular, massively appealing music. The 1999 compilation of their songs, Hits&Dubs was almost a world tour of REGGAE with too many musicians and featured singers, ragas, and rappers to mention them all. The band travelled around the globe producing and recording artists in each continent before digitally remastering their works of art almost as the millennium began. May you enjoy these lyrics and if you haven’t already you can get your digits directing the disc selling sites on the internet to have your choice of CIDADE NEGRA cd’s and dvd’s delivered directly to you in the upcoming weeks. Months and years. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, this is being posted because I’ve just read the band are back in the studio recording afresh (: , . . .
Bandas de reggae: Skank, Forfun, Cidade Negra, O Rappa, Maskavo, Chiclete com Banana, Harmonia do Samba, Bad Brains, Soldiers of Jah Army (Portuguese Edition)
Que Assim Seja
28 June 2011
Copa America
Conmebol has played an important role in world football since 1916, when between the 2nd and the 17th of a cold July in Buenos Aires the first ever Copa America was hosted in celebration of 100 years of Argentine independence from Spain. Centennial celebrations have become a major part of international football tournaments with the first ever world cup being hosted in Montevideo in 1930, celebrating, . . yeah, you’ve guessed it, 100 years of Uruguayan independence from Spain. Conmebol was officially formed during that first South American championship and has organized 42 continental tournaments in the following 95 years and this Saturday, the 1st of July 2011, the 43rd edition begins in Buenos Aires.
Unusually, several nations from other continents have participated, including Costa Rica, USA and Mexico most frequently. Surprisingly, Japan has also participated, back in 1999 and even humble Honduras competed in 2001! Amazingly, Honduras’ participation is recorded statistically as far superior to Japan’s while most of us would recognize Japan as a footballing nation of note, while Honduras are purely participative in most respects.
There are many unique aspects to this continent’s tournament but I shall add that it is the longest established continental tournament and it is also the most frequently performed continental championship, occurring evry two years. Perhaps our South American competitive sports fields are part of the reason for such a peaceful continent. As nations we compete on the grass inside stadiums and there is no reason to decide more things beyond purely diplomatically.
Conmebol’s footballing conflicts have worldwide respect and a formidable reputation in addition to being extraordinary spectacles. Part of the wonder of South American football is that there are several minnows, or nations that are usually considered football fodder for the principle pioneers and these encounters can produce goal splurges, good entertainment and a training spectacle for the matches that are more evenly balanced in the final weeks of the tournament.
We can expect second phase dominance from Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay, although all permanent members are improving and there seems to be a spiralling improvement in standards. So, just do it, book your flight to Buenos Aires and make the best of this right now. If you can’t make it down, check these website links and you can make the best from right where you are. Just use your internet connections and follow this most noble of continental sporting events with livestream technologies.
http://www.conmebol.com/secciones/copa_america.html
http://www.stream2watch.com/
http://www.soccertvlive.net/
Unusually, several nations from other continents have participated, including Costa Rica, USA and Mexico most frequently. Surprisingly, Japan has also participated, back in 1999 and even humble Honduras competed in 2001! Amazingly, Honduras’ participation is recorded statistically as far superior to Japan’s while most of us would recognize Japan as a footballing nation of note, while Honduras are purely participative in most respects.
There are many unique aspects to this continent’s tournament but I shall add that it is the longest established continental tournament and it is also the most frequently performed continental championship, occurring evry two years. Perhaps our South American competitive sports fields are part of the reason for such a peaceful continent. As nations we compete on the grass inside stadiums and there is no reason to decide more things beyond purely diplomatically.
Conmebol’s footballing conflicts have worldwide respect and a formidable reputation in addition to being extraordinary spectacles. Part of the wonder of South American football is that there are several minnows, or nations that are usually considered football fodder for the principle pioneers and these encounters can produce goal splurges, good entertainment and a training spectacle for the matches that are more evenly balanced in the final weeks of the tournament.
We can expect second phase dominance from Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay, although all permanent members are improving and there seems to be a spiralling improvement in standards. So, just do it, book your flight to Buenos Aires and make the best of this right now. If you can’t make it down, check these website links and you can make the best from right where you are. Just use your internet connections and follow this most noble of continental sporting events with livestream technologies.
http://www.conmebol.com/secciones/copa_america.html
http://www.stream2watch.com/
http://www.soccertvlive.net/
11 June 2011
Acarajé
Can you imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago, travelling from Africa or Europe to the Americas in a wooden ship? Or canoeing the Labrador Straits on a long summers’ day or a few? You can pick up an atlas before visiting the Americas or just keep using the net.
I think we should all make intercontinental historical learning part of our personal identities and just reading a little and then imagining sailing across the enormous Atlantic or the vast Pacific, for weeks, or even months on end, in a tiny vessel, a little bigger than a double decker bus! Whether by choice or as was more common, forced to travel and work on the flimsy vessels that carried so little material wealth, to finally, if we survived the horrific transatlantic journey, begin ‘another life’ in a strange land, South America.
Many Europeans were enticed onto the Iberian boats because of economic debt and were told it was work to free them from possible imprisonment or other punishments. Freedom was almost certainly used as encouragement to enter the ocean-going fray, as well as a few silver or gold-looking coins. The Atlantic appeared to be the only frontier between Africa&Europe and North&South America. For many Africans who arrived in the ‘new world’ soon after the Spanish&Portuguese, there were some familiarities on this side of the second largest of the planet’s oceans; a tropical climate, similar vegetation, red soil and many inventive and innovative African migrants also made a home from home; carrying intellectual heritage, continuing with African traditions. Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Buffalo Soldier’ tells this history succinctly, as does the disc, “Survival”. That experience has been expounded for centuries, ever since the mercantile systems enslaved us.
The positivity of those horrors is probably most abundantly apparent in the northeast of Brazil within the continent of South America, where American culture is most ostentatiously represented in so many aspects of life, especially in Bahia, where most of us are proud of a shared African heritage. We can all take pride from so many survival experiences, whether contemporary or through shared historical, human heritage.
In this piece of writing, I’d like to focus our attention on a single icon of Afro-Brazilian life. There are dozens of possible cultural items in Brazil that can be considered exclusively African. We can argue the traditional clothing of a ‘bahiana’ is the closest thing we have to national Brazilian dress, without neglecting indigenous clothing styles, although that oft disproportionately immense robe, ostentatiously resembles traditional European fashions, it is currently almost always worn by African-looking well-built women. I can add that at some point this site will receive a post on the musical genres that have been firmly concentrated in Bahia and the powerful influence of Bahian music, not only on the rest of Brasil but also on neighbouring nations around the globe. I can also make reference with many more Afro-Brazilian iconographic realities.
For this month, my choice of Afro-Brazilian iconography is the humble ‘acarajé’. Although it is nothing huge, it is in fact an incredibly simple example of culinary cunning, with cultural weight, strength and depth. This delicious street snack is widely recognized to have its roots in west Africa and has been passed from generation to generation, thus evolving as a truly Brazilian, tropical, family snack. To prepare acarajé, we use some flour, normally from mandioca; a popular root vegetable, oil, herbs and spices.
If there are similarities in western Africa, I’d love to know more of the cauldron wielding men&women, who fry for a living in or near millennia of marketplaces. While a most usual ingredient as a filling, is ‘vatapá’, which could have its very own post (come to think of it, why not write a book on vatapá) itself, any filling might be added to taste, for any and every ‘acarajé’. When preparing this deep fried aperitif, we also like to have another simple additional item at the ready and many expect to be able to add this pungent condiment in order to fire up our acarajés. Of course, it is pepper, but as is regular, from Cuba to Buenos Aires and probably in more South American locations (we’ll probably just be referring to Latin America in a few hundred years) , there is a certain reputation in the Americas of the Atlantic, for the best and most overpowering of chilli sauces and if you can try it, then you should, with ‘malagueta’, possibly the most intense of all the peppers. As always, worldbound pepper pungencies could be compared!
It is recommended that if you are visiting Salvador, you should top up your energy levels with street stall salespersons, who are often referred to as ‘bahianas’. They are easily identifiable, wearing huge white dresses, colourful headscarves, sometimes incessantly smiling and are to be found at many tourist points. Their culinary expertise is more than admirable and those cumbersome dresses are an internationally recognized cultural emblem, most closely associated with Salvador, Bahia, the northeast, Brazil and South America. How some Bahian women have continued to adorn themselves with such a splendid display of robing is really astounding, considering our tropical climate. They may tell you how and why, if they have the time or the inclination to explain in all their glowing details! I suggest spending a little of your time and money with those wonderful bahiana women, as they will make your holiday so much more pleasurable, not only with their delicious traditional cuisine but moreso, with their charming conversation and irrepressible personalities.
Acarajé (German Edition)
Acarajé, is just a pinnacle of Brazilian culinary deftness! Enjoy!
I think we should all make intercontinental historical learning part of our personal identities and just reading a little and then imagining sailing across the enormous Atlantic or the vast Pacific, for weeks, or even months on end, in a tiny vessel, a little bigger than a double decker bus! Whether by choice or as was more common, forced to travel and work on the flimsy vessels that carried so little material wealth, to finally, if we survived the horrific transatlantic journey, begin ‘another life’ in a strange land, South America.
Many Europeans were enticed onto the Iberian boats because of economic debt and were told it was work to free them from possible imprisonment or other punishments. Freedom was almost certainly used as encouragement to enter the ocean-going fray, as well as a few silver or gold-looking coins. The Atlantic appeared to be the only frontier between Africa&Europe and North&South America. For many Africans who arrived in the ‘new world’ soon after the Spanish&Portuguese, there were some familiarities on this side of the second largest of the planet’s oceans; a tropical climate, similar vegetation, red soil and many inventive and innovative African migrants also made a home from home; carrying intellectual heritage, continuing with African traditions. Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Buffalo Soldier’ tells this history succinctly, as does the disc, “Survival”. That experience has been expounded for centuries, ever since the mercantile systems enslaved us.
The positivity of those horrors is probably most abundantly apparent in the northeast of Brazil within the continent of South America, where American culture is most ostentatiously represented in so many aspects of life, especially in Bahia, where most of us are proud of a shared African heritage. We can all take pride from so many survival experiences, whether contemporary or through shared historical, human heritage.
In this piece of writing, I’d like to focus our attention on a single icon of Afro-Brazilian life. There are dozens of possible cultural items in Brazil that can be considered exclusively African. We can argue the traditional clothing of a ‘bahiana’ is the closest thing we have to national Brazilian dress, without neglecting indigenous clothing styles, although that oft disproportionately immense robe, ostentatiously resembles traditional European fashions, it is currently almost always worn by African-looking well-built women. I can add that at some point this site will receive a post on the musical genres that have been firmly concentrated in Bahia and the powerful influence of Bahian music, not only on the rest of Brasil but also on neighbouring nations around the globe. I can also make reference with many more Afro-Brazilian iconographic realities.
For this month, my choice of Afro-Brazilian iconography is the humble ‘acarajé’. Although it is nothing huge, it is in fact an incredibly simple example of culinary cunning, with cultural weight, strength and depth. This delicious street snack is widely recognized to have its roots in west Africa and has been passed from generation to generation, thus evolving as a truly Brazilian, tropical, family snack. To prepare acarajé, we use some flour, normally from mandioca; a popular root vegetable, oil, herbs and spices.
If there are similarities in western Africa, I’d love to know more of the cauldron wielding men&women, who fry for a living in or near millennia of marketplaces. While a most usual ingredient as a filling, is ‘vatapá’, which could have its very own post (come to think of it, why not write a book on vatapá) itself, any filling might be added to taste, for any and every ‘acarajé’. When preparing this deep fried aperitif, we also like to have another simple additional item at the ready and many expect to be able to add this pungent condiment in order to fire up our acarajés. Of course, it is pepper, but as is regular, from Cuba to Buenos Aires and probably in more South American locations (we’ll probably just be referring to Latin America in a few hundred years) , there is a certain reputation in the Americas of the Atlantic, for the best and most overpowering of chilli sauces and if you can try it, then you should, with ‘malagueta’, possibly the most intense of all the peppers. As always, worldbound pepper pungencies could be compared!
It is recommended that if you are visiting Salvador, you should top up your energy levels with street stall salespersons, who are often referred to as ‘bahianas’. They are easily identifiable, wearing huge white dresses, colourful headscarves, sometimes incessantly smiling and are to be found at many tourist points. Their culinary expertise is more than admirable and those cumbersome dresses are an internationally recognized cultural emblem, most closely associated with Salvador, Bahia, the northeast, Brazil and South America. How some Bahian women have continued to adorn themselves with such a splendid display of robing is really astounding, considering our tropical climate. They may tell you how and why, if they have the time or the inclination to explain in all their glowing details! I suggest spending a little of your time and money with those wonderful bahiana women, as they will make your holiday so much more pleasurable, not only with their delicious traditional cuisine but moreso, with their charming conversation and irrepressible personalities.
Acarajé (German Edition)
Acarajé, is just a pinnacle of Brazilian culinary deftness! Enjoy!
03 May 2011
Araucaria Araucana A.K.A.Monkey Puzzle Tree
Conservation status; Vulnerable (IUCN 2.3)
scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Araucariaceae
Genus: Araucaria
Species: A. Araucana
binomial
Araucaria Araucana
(Molina) K. Koch
Araucaria Araucana, which is also popularly called The Monkey Puzzle Tree, is an extraordinary evergreen tree growing up to 40 metres tall with a 2 metres trunk diameter. The tree is native to south central Chile, west central Argentina and southern Brasil. Araucaria Araucana is the hardiest species in the conifer genus Araucaria. Because of the species' great age it is sometimes described as a living fossil.
Araucaria Araucana is the national tree of Chile.
The leaves are thick, tough, triangular and scale-like, measuring 3–4 cm long, 1–3 cm broad at the base, and with sharp edges towards their tips. Astoundingly, these small leaves persist for 10–15 years or more and usually cover most of the tree except for the older branches. The leaf character is an adaptation to lower temperatures, altitude and desiccation.
It is usually dioecious, with the male and female cones on separate trees, however occasional individuals exquisitely bear cones of both genders from various branches elevated by the same trunk and roots. The male (pollen) cones are oblong and aubergine- or eggplant-shaped, 4 cm long at first, expanding to 8–12 cm long by 5–6 cm broad at pollen release. The tree is wind pollinated and most commonly grows in areas free from annoyingly airborne insects and all that they entail! The female (seed) cones, which mature in autumn, March to May in the southern hemisphere, about 18 months after pollination, are globose or globe-like in formation, large for conifers, measuring 12–20 cm in diameter, and hold about 200 seeds. The cones disintegrate on maturing thus releasing the 3–4 cm long nut-like seeds, which are then dispersed by mostly jays, squirrels and other rodent-like four-legged creatures.
Despite appearing like an extraordinarily long parasol it is rare to find people shading under their umbrella like layered branches. However, a certain range of mammals can be found in the remnant natural habitats that these trees dominate in various South American nations which could include Uruguay and Paraguay in addition to Argentina, Brasil and Chile. It has been argued that further north at varying altitudes in the Andes and its foothills in Peru, Bolivia and even Ecuador and Colombia, certain areas could be developed to create more widespread safer havens, thus lessening the vulnerability of this ‘threatened’ species. It has received a conservation status ranking and despite European distribution there are few signs, beyond its stronghold, of non-governmental organisations or governments planning to introduce the species on any large-scale outside of South America. Additionally, we might attempt to replicate its natural habitat as a further measure beyond its wide diaspora, being used mostly decoratively in landscape gardening and city park planning. However, its ornamental usage may be beneficial for endless reasons.
Its native habitat is on the lower slopes of the Chilean and Argentine south central Andes, typically above 1,000 metres at those latitudes, in regions with heavy snowfall in winter. Juvenile trees exhibit a broadly pyramidal or conical predominance, which naturally develops into the distinctive umbrella form of mature specimens as the tree ages and heightens. It is planted, preferably in well drained, slightly acidic, volcanic soil but will tolerate many soil types provided they drain sufficiently well.
This succinctly suggests that gullying, landslips and soil surface slides may be prevented with this innocuous rather attractive looking tree. In areas of heavy and concentrated precipitation soil binding plants are usually the first form of defence against the combined effects of rain and loose soils. More studies on the efficiency of Araucarias as tools to avoid resident danger in the proximity to risky housing locations may prove this to be a useful in advance planted tree, thus protecting possible areas for construction. Obviously, the angle of the slopes, the soil cohesion proficiency and the compatibilities of these various factors may lead to greater planning and investment for urban growth management.
Araucaria Araucana is also a popular garden tree, planted for its unusual effect of the thick, 'reptilian' bark on its branches and trunk and with an unusually symmetrical appearance. In addition to being compared to dinosaur-sized reptiles, the bark resembles some political maps with a seemingly haphazard linear scaly surface. However, it is only with touch you can truly feel how exquisite a plant species it really is!
It grows best in temperate climates with abundant precipitation, tolerating temperatures as low as around −20 °C. It is far and away the hardiest member of its genus, and can grow well in western and possibly north central Europe and Asia (northwest fringes including the Faroe Islands and Smøla in western Norway), the west coast of North America (north to the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada) and in pocketed locations on the northeast coast as well. It has been growing in New Zealand and southeastern Australia and its range of growth areas could be expanded further in the northern Pacific in albino tiger territories of Russia, China and Japan. It is tolerant of coastal salt spray, but studies have so far suggested some sensitivity towards exposure to pollution, although it may be found in many more cities for the future.
Its seeds are edible, similar to large pine nuts, and are extensively harvested in Chile and in more traditional communities of southern Brasil. The tree has some potential to be a food crop in more areas in the future, thriving in climates with cool oceanic summers (e.g. western Scotland) where other nut crops do not grow well. A group of six female trees with one male for pollination could yield several thousand seeds per year. Since the cones drop, harvesting is easy. The tree, however, does not yield seeds until it is around 30–40 years old, which up until now has been discouraging investment in planting orchards (although yields at maturity can be immense). Once established, it can live possibly as long as 1,000 years (Gymnosperm Database). Valued because of its long, straight trunk, its current rarity and vulnerable status mean its wood is now rarely used; it is also sacred to some members of the Mapuche Amerindian culture.
Before the tree became protected by law in 1971, there were lumber-mills in the Araucanía Region that, if you haven’t just guessed, specialises in Araucarias (seeking confirmation?). This species is listed in the CITES, Appendix I, as an endangered species.
First ‘found’ in Chile in the 1780s, it was named Pinus araucana by Molina in 1782. In 1789, de Jussieu had erected a new genus called Araucaria based on the species, and in 1797 Pavón published a new description of the species which he called Araucaria Imbricata (an invalid name, as it did not use Molina's older species epithet). Finally in 1873, after several further redescriptions, Koch published the combination Araucaria Araucana, validating Molina's name in the genus. The name Araucana is derived from the native Araucanians who used the nuts (seeds) of the tree in Chile. A group of Araucanians living in the Andes, the Pehuenches, owe their name to their diet based on harvesting of the Araucaria seeds. Pehuen signifies Araucaria and che people in Mapudungun, . . .
In Britain before 1850, it had been known as "Joseph Bank's Pine" or "Chile Pine", though it is not a true pine. The origin of the popular English name Monkey Puzzle Tree derives from its early cultivation in Britain in about 1850, when the species was still very rare in gardens and not widely known. The proud owner of a young specimen at Pencarrow garden near Bodmin in Cornwall was showing it to a group of friends. We can picture the scene, a bit like an art gallery as bystanders to an artform and one remarked, "It would puzzle a monkey to climb that!". As the species had no existing, popular, marketable name, first 'Monkey-puzzler' slid, then 'Monkey Puzzle' stuck.
In France it is known as désespoir des singes or 'monkeys' despair' and thus ‘desperate monkeys’. The species’ Mapuche name, Pehuén is now becoming more widely used as an upcoming disentangled new name in English. So, perhaps we are now beginning a diaspora for the Pehuenches’ Pehuén.
scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Araucariaceae
Genus: Araucaria
Species: A. Araucana
binomial
Araucaria Araucana
(Molina) K. Koch
Araucaria Araucana is the national tree of Chile.
The leaves are thick, tough, triangular and scale-like, measuring 3–4 cm long, 1–3 cm broad at the base, and with sharp edges towards their tips. Astoundingly, these small leaves persist for 10–15 years or more and usually cover most of the tree except for the older branches. The leaf character is an adaptation to lower temperatures, altitude and desiccation.
It is usually dioecious, with the male and female cones on separate trees, however occasional individuals exquisitely bear cones of both genders from various branches elevated by the same trunk and roots. The male (pollen) cones are oblong and aubergine- or eggplant-shaped, 4 cm long at first, expanding to 8–12 cm long by 5–6 cm broad at pollen release. The tree is wind pollinated and most commonly grows in areas free from annoyingly airborne insects and all that they entail! The female (seed) cones, which mature in autumn, March to May in the southern hemisphere, about 18 months after pollination, are globose or globe-like in formation, large for conifers, measuring 12–20 cm in diameter, and hold about 200 seeds. The cones disintegrate on maturing thus releasing the 3–4 cm long nut-like seeds, which are then dispersed by mostly jays, squirrels and other rodent-like four-legged creatures.
Despite appearing like an extraordinarily long parasol it is rare to find people shading under their umbrella like layered branches. However, a certain range of mammals can be found in the remnant natural habitats that these trees dominate in various South American nations which could include Uruguay and Paraguay in addition to Argentina, Brasil and Chile. It has been argued that further north at varying altitudes in the Andes and its foothills in Peru, Bolivia and even Ecuador and Colombia, certain areas could be developed to create more widespread safer havens, thus lessening the vulnerability of this ‘threatened’ species. It has received a conservation status ranking and despite European distribution there are few signs, beyond its stronghold, of non-governmental organisations or governments planning to introduce the species on any large-scale outside of South America. Additionally, we might attempt to replicate its natural habitat as a further measure beyond its wide diaspora, being used mostly decoratively in landscape gardening and city park planning. However, its ornamental usage may be beneficial for endless reasons.
Its native habitat is on the lower slopes of the Chilean and Argentine south central Andes, typically above 1,000 metres at those latitudes, in regions with heavy snowfall in winter. Juvenile trees exhibit a broadly pyramidal or conical predominance, which naturally develops into the distinctive umbrella form of mature specimens as the tree ages and heightens. It is planted, preferably in well drained, slightly acidic, volcanic soil but will tolerate many soil types provided they drain sufficiently well.
This succinctly suggests that gullying, landslips and soil surface slides may be prevented with this innocuous rather attractive looking tree. In areas of heavy and concentrated precipitation soil binding plants are usually the first form of defence against the combined effects of rain and loose soils. More studies on the efficiency of Araucarias as tools to avoid resident danger in the proximity to risky housing locations may prove this to be a useful in advance planted tree, thus protecting possible areas for construction. Obviously, the angle of the slopes, the soil cohesion proficiency and the compatibilities of these various factors may lead to greater planning and investment for urban growth management.
Araucaria Araucana is also a popular garden tree, planted for its unusual effect of the thick, 'reptilian' bark on its branches and trunk and with an unusually symmetrical appearance. In addition to being compared to dinosaur-sized reptiles, the bark resembles some political maps with a seemingly haphazard linear scaly surface. However, it is only with touch you can truly feel how exquisite a plant species it really is!
It grows best in temperate climates with abundant precipitation, tolerating temperatures as low as around −20 °C. It is far and away the hardiest member of its genus, and can grow well in western and possibly north central Europe and Asia (northwest fringes including the Faroe Islands and Smøla in western Norway), the west coast of North America (north to the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada) and in pocketed locations on the northeast coast as well. It has been growing in New Zealand and southeastern Australia and its range of growth areas could be expanded further in the northern Pacific in albino tiger territories of Russia, China and Japan. It is tolerant of coastal salt spray, but studies have so far suggested some sensitivity towards exposure to pollution, although it may be found in many more cities for the future.
Its seeds are edible, similar to large pine nuts, and are extensively harvested in Chile and in more traditional communities of southern Brasil. The tree has some potential to be a food crop in more areas in the future, thriving in climates with cool oceanic summers (e.g. western Scotland) where other nut crops do not grow well. A group of six female trees with one male for pollination could yield several thousand seeds per year. Since the cones drop, harvesting is easy. The tree, however, does not yield seeds until it is around 30–40 years old, which up until now has been discouraging investment in planting orchards (although yields at maturity can be immense). Once established, it can live possibly as long as 1,000 years (Gymnosperm Database). Valued because of its long, straight trunk, its current rarity and vulnerable status mean its wood is now rarely used; it is also sacred to some members of the Mapuche Amerindian culture.
Before the tree became protected by law in 1971, there were lumber-mills in the Araucanía Region that, if you haven’t just guessed, specialises in Araucarias (seeking confirmation?). This species is listed in the CITES, Appendix I, as an endangered species.
First ‘found’ in Chile in the 1780s, it was named Pinus araucana by Molina in 1782. In 1789, de Jussieu had erected a new genus called Araucaria based on the species, and in 1797 Pavón published a new description of the species which he called Araucaria Imbricata (an invalid name, as it did not use Molina's older species epithet). Finally in 1873, after several further redescriptions, Koch published the combination Araucaria Araucana, validating Molina's name in the genus. The name Araucana is derived from the native Araucanians who used the nuts (seeds) of the tree in Chile. A group of Araucanians living in the Andes, the Pehuenches, owe their name to their diet based on harvesting of the Araucaria seeds. Pehuen signifies Araucaria and che people in Mapudungun, . . .
In Britain before 1850, it had been known as "Joseph Bank's Pine" or "Chile Pine", though it is not a true pine. The origin of the popular English name Monkey Puzzle Tree derives from its early cultivation in Britain in about 1850, when the species was still very rare in gardens and not widely known. The proud owner of a young specimen at Pencarrow garden near Bodmin in Cornwall was showing it to a group of friends. We can picture the scene, a bit like an art gallery as bystanders to an artform and one remarked, "It would puzzle a monkey to climb that!". As the species had no existing, popular, marketable name, first 'Monkey-puzzler' slid, then 'Monkey Puzzle' stuck.
In France it is known as désespoir des singes or 'monkeys' despair' and thus ‘desperate monkeys’. The species’ Mapuche name, Pehuén is now becoming more widely used as an upcoming disentangled new name in English. So, perhaps we are now beginning a diaspora for the Pehuenches’ Pehuén.
12 April 2011
Assunção
Although it may not be the first or most popular of South American capital cities, Assunção has its advantages as a starting point for this most charming continent. Some would say it is a perfect berthing location and perhaps because of its distance from any coastline, it is probably more representative of the fundamental SouthAmericanism that you may be searching for. I’d like to add that never having visited Paraguay this piece may be inaccurate and is certainly a challenge for me to do justice with these few simple words but this is exactly what this blog is designed to do; create communications on South America by and for, firstly South Americans and also for our global peoples. Let’s begin by considering the importance of one of the main indigenous languages of the continent: Guarani. Paraguay means ‘big river’ and it is the country where you can learn more Guarani, more quickly and as Guarani is primarily an oral language it is particularly appropriately named as a primarily spoken language it is intrinsically, characteristically fluid and dynamic.
To summarise, Paraguay is a democratic republic and there is no historical evidence of any monarchism. Rivers are important in this central nation. Assunção is the largest city with an expanding population of over half a million. Including the surrounding cities which together form a single metropolitan conglomeration of almost 2 and a half million inhabitants with advanced human development indicators. The central part of Assunção is between the river Paraguai and its confluence with Pilcomayo but there are many hills each with their own economic and social functions, for example, Lomo Cachinga, where you can find medical care. In addition to its modernity, there is a remarkable natural proximity with a species diversity to be envied within easy distances of the capital. Its characteristic climatic conditions have enabled its progress with a pleasant annual average of 23 degrees with over a metre of precipitation. In the southern summer some find the temperatures are unpleasantly oppressive.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
maximum (°C) 33 33 32 28 25 23 23 24
Sep Oct Nov Dec Ave
26 29 31 32 28,2
minimum(°C) 23 22 21 19 16 14 14 14 Sep Oct Nov Dec Ave
16 18 20 22 18,2
Precipitation (mm) Ja 4 013,2 F 3 098,8 Mar 2 921 Ap 3 987,8
M 2 794 J 1 828,8 Jy 1 066,8 Au 1 955,8 S 2 006,6
O 2 946,4 N 3 886,2 D 3 352,8 Annual 33 858,2
Fonte: The Weather Network[13] 9 de Novembro de 2008
That's over 33 metres every year!
Although only a little over 60% of residents speak Spanish as a first language, surprisingly few speak Guarani, slightly more than 10%, it is actually Jopará, which is the second most spoken language in Assunção.
Palacio de los López
Panteão Nacional dos Heróis
Cabildo
Catedral Metropolitana de Assunção
Hotel Guaraní
Teatro Municipal Ignacio A. Pane
Igreja da Santísima Trindade
The number of schools has doubled since 1982 and Assunção’s educational indices are developed world statistics with a doubling of university students since 1962. The mercosul’s best public technical college is claimed to be in this capital, amongst all the member states. As tourists, there’s a lot to see and do in Assunção and it could be the best starting point for better learning what it is, to be truly South American. It is also ranked as being one of the safest of all American cities of medium to large scale.
Estádio Defensores del Chaco located in Bairro Sajonia
Like most South American cities, football is the first sport and recently Paraguai has undergone a resurgence, with growth and development the envy of most nations, both in its club teams’ international representations and also in its traditional red, white and blue national colours.
Comparing Assunção with Geneva would be folly but Switzerland or any continentally landlocked nation often brings comparative geographical case studies. However, superficial academic studies will not provide you with a South American living experience and it is usually with communications we can get close to a real life experience. So without further ado, ‘kuavã’ and welcome with a hug to the world of Guarani. In Paraguay, if you want to know something you can access internet freely without censorship but most people learn and get information by asking a question and most Paraguayos are happy to give ‘mongeta’ or advice. The accuracy of the advice is another matter for interpretation It may seem difficult but in a short while you can ‘aúva’ or get hold of Guarani, the most widely recognised indigenous language of all the Americas. It may be because that language ‘mbovyá’, simply makes people happy.
Historically, Gaurani has travelled more than any other American language with examples of it popping up in every continent, like ‘piraña’ or piranha, one of the most infamous fish species on the planet. More suave are the various plant and tree species that we find all around the world, like ‘araucaria’, the exquisite monkey puzzle, which flourishes in drier, acidic soils and at altitude or in cooler climate areas more towards the southern cone. Another, often associated with colonial Africa is the ‘jacarandã’, simplified in English to jacaranda with a syllable stress movement. Some consider it a shrub but it can grow to reasonable height, a few diminutive metres and is usually planted by town planners in central islands on multiple lane high streets as a traffic divider or creating shaded avenues for cyclists, walkers or market stallholders. It flowers in various colours and although it has no nutritional value for us it has already been widely distributed and utilised with minimal effect on indigenous species beyond South America. However, you will probably find more of those in Bulawayo than Assunçâo!
You may wish to see more of Paraguay than its organic sprawling cityscapes, so planning your trip to the country may take some forethought.
If your guide or travel agent says ‘koè rã’ he is referring to the next day and you could be invited to ‘ereko’, walk together in his office or anyplace really. If you take a trip to a national park or forest area you may see people and livestock, who are ‘karu’ or hungry and although Paraguay has no ocean or saltwater, fishing is how many still avoid malnutrition and it can be considered to be a national past-time. If you like fishing there are few nations better to follow your passion with a ‘pinda’, which you will need to catch any, and I can assure you, even piranha fishing is fun. As you know, it can be hot in the sun, so you may want to find a waterfall, river or a modern ‘jau’ to freshen up from your sweat and toil.
While it is not a requirement as most of us speak Spanish in Paraguay I highly recommend buying a Guarani dictionary for everyone in South America and before arriving you should seek to buy at least a pocket dictionary for Guarani in your country. There are several publishers and there probably ought to be more in the future. Additionally, you can expect to be able to find dictionaries and phrasebooks for Aymara and Chechua, although these are most closely associated with northern neighbours to Paraguay.
Assunção is undergoing a period of urban transformation in its approximation of Paraguay’s bicentennial centennial celebrations. These reformations are physical, while almost 100% have potable water and electricity, the superficial architectural aspects are being renovated and many new buildings are in construction. Simultaneously, the city’s transportation systems are being renewed with practical solutions for automotive congestion and the city council is providing better bus networks and cycle routes while the international airport is already up to standard. Like many Spanish speaking neighbours when we’ll be marking 200 years of independence from Spain.
Aeroporto Internacional Silvio Pettirossi
There are many sister cities;
• La Plata, Argentina, 20/02/1993[56]
• Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Resistencia, Argentina
• Posadas, Argentina
• Santa Fé, Argentina
• Iquique, Chile
• Campinas, Brasil
• Curitiba, Brasil
• São Paulo, Brasil
• Caracas, Venezuela, 1982[57]
• Trujillo, Perú
• Chimbote, Perú
• Santo Domingo, República Dominicana
• Chiba, Japão
• Madrid, España
• Miami, Estados Unidos
• Nova Iorque, Estados Unidos
• Taipé, República da China (Taiwan)
• Bogotá, Colombia
• Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
• Ciudad de México, México
• Puebla de Zaragoza, México, 2009[58]
Writing system
Main article: Guaraní alphabet
Guaraní became a written language relatively recently. The modern Guaraní alphabet is basically a subset of the Latin alphabet (with "J", "K" and "Y" but not "W"), complemented with two diacritics and six digraphs. Its orthography is largely phonemic, with letter values mostly similar to those of Spanish. The tilde is used with many letters that are considered part of the alphabet. In the case of Ñ/ñ, it differentiates the palatal nasal from the alveolar nasal (as in Spanish), whereas it marks stressed nasalisation when used over a vowel (as in Portuguese): ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ, ỹ. (Nasal vowels have been written with several other diacritics: ä, ā, â, ã.) The tilde also marks nasality in the case of G̃/g̃, used to represent the nasalized velar approximant by combining the velar approximant "G" with the nasalising tilde (note that the letter G/g with tilde, which is unique to this language, was introduced into the orthography relatively recently during the mid-20th century and there is disagreement over its use, and it has not been made available as a precomposed character in Unicode, which may cause typographic inconveniences or imperfect rendering when using computers and fonts that do not properly support the complex layout feature of glyph composition).
Only stressed nasal vowels are written as nasal. If an oral vowel is stressed, and it's not the final syllable, it's marked with an acute accent: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý. That is, stress falls on the vowel marked as nasalized, if any, else on the accent-marked syllable, and if neither appears, then on the final syllable.
To summarise, Paraguay is a democratic republic and there is no historical evidence of any monarchism. Rivers are important in this central nation. Assunção is the largest city with an expanding population of over half a million. Including the surrounding cities which together form a single metropolitan conglomeration of almost 2 and a half million inhabitants with advanced human development indicators. The central part of Assunção is between the river Paraguai and its confluence with Pilcomayo but there are many hills each with their own economic and social functions, for example, Lomo Cachinga, where you can find medical care. In addition to its modernity, there is a remarkable natural proximity with a species diversity to be envied within easy distances of the capital. Its characteristic climatic conditions have enabled its progress with a pleasant annual average of 23 degrees with over a metre of precipitation. In the southern summer some find the temperatures are unpleasantly oppressive.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
maximum (°C) 33 33 32 28 25 23 23 24
Sep Oct Nov Dec Ave
26 29 31 32 28,2
minimum(°C) 23 22 21 19 16 14 14 14 Sep Oct Nov Dec Ave
16 18 20 22 18,2
Precipitation (mm) Ja 4 013,2 F 3 098,8 Mar 2 921 Ap 3 987,8
M 2 794 J 1 828,8 Jy 1 066,8 Au 1 955,8 S 2 006,6
O 2 946,4 N 3 886,2 D 3 352,8 Annual 33 858,2
Fonte: The Weather Network[13] 9 de Novembro de 2008
That's over 33 metres every year!
Although only a little over 60% of residents speak Spanish as a first language, surprisingly few speak Guarani, slightly more than 10%, it is actually Jopará, which is the second most spoken language in Assunção.
Palacio de los López
Panteão Nacional dos Heróis
Cabildo
Catedral Metropolitana de Assunção
Hotel Guaraní
Teatro Municipal Ignacio A. Pane
Igreja da Santísima Trindade
The number of schools has doubled since 1982 and Assunção’s educational indices are developed world statistics with a doubling of university students since 1962. The mercosul’s best public technical college is claimed to be in this capital, amongst all the member states. As tourists, there’s a lot to see and do in Assunção and it could be the best starting point for better learning what it is, to be truly South American. It is also ranked as being one of the safest of all American cities of medium to large scale.
Estádio Defensores del Chaco located in Bairro Sajonia
Like most South American cities, football is the first sport and recently Paraguai has undergone a resurgence, with growth and development the envy of most nations, both in its club teams’ international representations and also in its traditional red, white and blue national colours.
Comparing Assunção with Geneva would be folly but Switzerland or any continentally landlocked nation often brings comparative geographical case studies. However, superficial academic studies will not provide you with a South American living experience and it is usually with communications we can get close to a real life experience. So without further ado, ‘kuavã’ and welcome with a hug to the world of Guarani. In Paraguay, if you want to know something you can access internet freely without censorship but most people learn and get information by asking a question and most Paraguayos are happy to give ‘mongeta’ or advice. The accuracy of the advice is another matter for interpretation It may seem difficult but in a short while you can ‘aúva’ or get hold of Guarani, the most widely recognised indigenous language of all the Americas. It may be because that language ‘mbovyá’, simply makes people happy.
Historically, Gaurani has travelled more than any other American language with examples of it popping up in every continent, like ‘piraña’ or piranha, one of the most infamous fish species on the planet. More suave are the various plant and tree species that we find all around the world, like ‘araucaria’, the exquisite monkey puzzle, which flourishes in drier, acidic soils and at altitude or in cooler climate areas more towards the southern cone. Another, often associated with colonial Africa is the ‘jacarandã’, simplified in English to jacaranda with a syllable stress movement. Some consider it a shrub but it can grow to reasonable height, a few diminutive metres and is usually planted by town planners in central islands on multiple lane high streets as a traffic divider or creating shaded avenues for cyclists, walkers or market stallholders. It flowers in various colours and although it has no nutritional value for us it has already been widely distributed and utilised with minimal effect on indigenous species beyond South America. However, you will probably find more of those in Bulawayo than Assunçâo!
You may wish to see more of Paraguay than its organic sprawling cityscapes, so planning your trip to the country may take some forethought.
If your guide or travel agent says ‘koè rã’ he is referring to the next day and you could be invited to ‘ereko’, walk together in his office or anyplace really. If you take a trip to a national park or forest area you may see people and livestock, who are ‘karu’ or hungry and although Paraguay has no ocean or saltwater, fishing is how many still avoid malnutrition and it can be considered to be a national past-time. If you like fishing there are few nations better to follow your passion with a ‘pinda’, which you will need to catch any, and I can assure you, even piranha fishing is fun. As you know, it can be hot in the sun, so you may want to find a waterfall, river or a modern ‘jau’ to freshen up from your sweat and toil.
While it is not a requirement as most of us speak Spanish in Paraguay I highly recommend buying a Guarani dictionary for everyone in South America and before arriving you should seek to buy at least a pocket dictionary for Guarani in your country. There are several publishers and there probably ought to be more in the future. Additionally, you can expect to be able to find dictionaries and phrasebooks for Aymara and Chechua, although these are most closely associated with northern neighbours to Paraguay.
Assunção is undergoing a period of urban transformation in its approximation of Paraguay’s bicentennial centennial celebrations. These reformations are physical, while almost 100% have potable water and electricity, the superficial architectural aspects are being renovated and many new buildings are in construction. Simultaneously, the city’s transportation systems are being renewed with practical solutions for automotive congestion and the city council is providing better bus networks and cycle routes while the international airport is already up to standard. Like many Spanish speaking neighbours when we’ll be marking 200 years of independence from Spain.
Aeroporto Internacional Silvio Pettirossi
There are many sister cities;
• La Plata, Argentina, 20/02/1993[56]
• Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Resistencia, Argentina
• Posadas, Argentina
• Santa Fé, Argentina
• Iquique, Chile
• Campinas, Brasil
• Curitiba, Brasil
• São Paulo, Brasil
• Caracas, Venezuela, 1982[57]
• Trujillo, Perú
• Chimbote, Perú
• Santo Domingo, República Dominicana
• Chiba, Japão
• Madrid, España
• Miami, Estados Unidos
• Nova Iorque, Estados Unidos
• Taipé, República da China (Taiwan)
• Bogotá, Colombia
• Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
• Ciudad de México, México
• Puebla de Zaragoza, México, 2009[58]
Writing system
Main article: Guaraní alphabet
Guaraní became a written language relatively recently. The modern Guaraní alphabet is basically a subset of the Latin alphabet (with "J", "K" and "Y" but not "W"), complemented with two diacritics and six digraphs. Its orthography is largely phonemic, with letter values mostly similar to those of Spanish. The tilde is used with many letters that are considered part of the alphabet. In the case of Ñ/ñ, it differentiates the palatal nasal from the alveolar nasal (as in Spanish), whereas it marks stressed nasalisation when used over a vowel (as in Portuguese): ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ, ỹ. (Nasal vowels have been written with several other diacritics: ä, ā, â, ã.) The tilde also marks nasality in the case of G̃/g̃, used to represent the nasalized velar approximant by combining the velar approximant "G" with the nasalising tilde (note that the letter G/g with tilde, which is unique to this language, was introduced into the orthography relatively recently during the mid-20th century and there is disagreement over its use, and it has not been made available as a precomposed character in Unicode, which may cause typographic inconveniences or imperfect rendering when using computers and fonts that do not properly support the complex layout feature of glyph composition).
Only stressed nasal vowels are written as nasal. If an oral vowel is stressed, and it's not the final syllable, it's marked with an acute accent: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý. That is, stress falls on the vowel marked as nasalized, if any, else on the accent-marked syllable, and if neither appears, then on the final syllable.
28 February 2011
Carnaval
Carnival of Brazil (Carnaval in Portuguese) is an annual festival held forty-six days before Easter. On certain days of lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival," from carnelevare, "to remove (literally, "raise") meat." Carnival celebrations are believed to have roots in the pagan festival of Saturnalia, which, adapted to Christianity, became a farewell to bad things in a season of religious discipline to practice repentance and prepare for Christ's death and resurrection.
Rhythm, participation, and costumes vary from one region of Brazil to another. In the southeastern cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, huge organized parades are led by samba schools. Those official parades are meant to be watched by the public, while minor parades ("blocos") allowing public participation can be found in other cities. The northeastern cities of Salvador, Maceio and Recife have organized groups parading through streets, and public interacts directly with them. This carnival is heavily influenced by African-Brazilian culture. Crowds follow the 'trios elétricos' floats through most cities’ streets.
Carnival is the most famous holiday in Brazil and has become an event of huge proportions. The country stops completely for almost a week and festivities are intense, day and night, mainly in coastal cities. The consumption of beer accounts for 80% of annual consumption and tourism receives 70% of annual visitors. The government distributes condoms and launches awareness campaigns at this time to prevent the spread of AIDS. FREE CONDOMS!
Modern Brazilian Carnival originated in Rio de Janeiro in 1641 when the city's bourgeoisie imported the practice of holding balls and masquerade parties from Paris. It originally mimicked the European form of the festival, later absorbing and creolizing elements derived from Native American and African cultures.
Blocos are generally associated with particular neighbourhoods; they include both a percussion or music group and an entourage of revellers. Block parades have become an expressive feature of Rio's Carnival. Today, they number more than 100 and the groups increase each year. Blocos can be formed by small or large groups of revellers with a distinct title with an often funny pun. They may also note their neighbourhood or social status. Before the show, they gather in a square, then parade in sections of the city, often near the beach. Some blocos never leave one street and have a particular place, such as a bar, to attract viewers. Block parades start in January, and may last until the Sunday after Carnival.
Samba schools are very large groups of performers, financed by respected organizations (as well as illegal gambling groups), who work year round in preparation for Carnival. Samba Schools perform in the Sambadrome, which runs four entire nights. They are part of an official competition, divided into seven divisions, in which a single school is declared the winner, according to costume, flow, theme, and band music quality and performance. Some samba schools also hold street parties in their neighbourhoods, through which they parade along with their followers.
Originated in Bahia from the African rhythms, it was brought to Rio de Janeiro around 1920 and is still together with Samba-pagode and Samba-reggae (the band Olodum from Salvador da Bahia made samba-reggae famous) SAMBA is one of the most popular styles of Brazil. From intimate samba-cancões (samba songs) sung in bars to explosive drum parades performed during carnival, samba always evokes a warm and vibrant mood. Samba developed as a distinctive kind of music at the beginning of the 20th century in Rio de Janeiro (then the capital of Brazil). In the 1930s, a group of musicians led by Ismael Silva founded in the neighbourhood of Estácio de Sá the first Samba School, 'Deixa Falar'. They transformed the musical genre to make it fit better the carnival parade. In the following years, samba has developed in several directions, from the gentle samba-canção to the drum orchestras which make the soundtrack of carnival parade. One of these new styles was the bossa nova, made by middle class white people. It got increasingly popular over time, with the works of João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. In the sixties, Brazil was politically divided, and the leftist musicians of bossa nova started to gather attention to the music made in the favelas. Many popular artists were discovered at this time. Names like Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho, Velha Guarda da Portela, Zé Keti, and Clementina de Jesus recorded their first albums. In the seventies, the samba got back to radios air waves. Composers and singers like Martinho da Vila, Clara Nunes and Beth Carvalho dominated the hit parade and are still respected and admired contemporarily.
At the beginning of the eighties, after having been sent to the underground due to styles like disco and Brazilian rock, Samba reappeared in the media with a musical movement created in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. It was the pagode, a renewed samba, with new instruments, like the banjo and the tantan, and a new language, more popular, filled with slangs. The most popular names were Zeca Pagodinho, Almir Guineto, Grupo Fundo de Quintal, Jorge Aragão, and Jovelina Pérola Negra. Various samba schools have been founded throughout Brazil. A samba school combines the dancing and party fun of a night club with the gathering place of a social club and the community feeling of a volunteer group. During the spectacular Rio Carnival famous samba schools parade in the Sambódromo. An event that should not be missed.
Brasil has many distinct instruments and of course musicians within its myriad of cultural exponents and carnival without the Cuíca (Portuguese pronunciation: [kuika]) would be absurd. A cuíca is a Brazilian friction drum often used in samba music. The tone it produces has a high-pitched squeaky timbre. It has been called a 'laughing gourd' due to this sound.
The body of the cuíca is normally made of metal, gourd or synthetic material. It has a single head, normally six to ten inches in diameter (15–25 cm), made of animal skin. A thin bamboo stick is attached to the centre of, and perpendicular to, the drum head, extending into the drum's interior. The instrument is held under one arm at chest height with the help of a shoulder strap. To play the cuíca, the musician rubs the stick up and down with a wet cloth held in one hand, using the thumb of the other hand to press down on the skin of the drum near the place where the stick is attached. The rubbing motion produces the sound and the pitch is increased or decreased by changing the pressure on the thumb.
The cuíca plays an important rhythmic role in samba music of all kinds. It is particularly notable as a fixture of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival groups, which feature entire sections of cuíca players.
Rhythm, participation, and costumes vary from one region of Brazil to another. In the southeastern cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, huge organized parades are led by samba schools. Those official parades are meant to be watched by the public, while minor parades ("blocos") allowing public participation can be found in other cities. The northeastern cities of Salvador, Maceio and Recife have organized groups parading through streets, and public interacts directly with them. This carnival is heavily influenced by African-Brazilian culture. Crowds follow the 'trios elétricos' floats through most cities’ streets.
Carnival is the most famous holiday in Brazil and has become an event of huge proportions. The country stops completely for almost a week and festivities are intense, day and night, mainly in coastal cities. The consumption of beer accounts for 80% of annual consumption and tourism receives 70% of annual visitors. The government distributes condoms and launches awareness campaigns at this time to prevent the spread of AIDS. FREE CONDOMS!
Modern Brazilian Carnival originated in Rio de Janeiro in 1641 when the city's bourgeoisie imported the practice of holding balls and masquerade parties from Paris. It originally mimicked the European form of the festival, later absorbing and creolizing elements derived from Native American and African cultures.
Blocos are generally associated with particular neighbourhoods; they include both a percussion or music group and an entourage of revellers. Block parades have become an expressive feature of Rio's Carnival. Today, they number more than 100 and the groups increase each year. Blocos can be formed by small or large groups of revellers with a distinct title with an often funny pun. They may also note their neighbourhood or social status. Before the show, they gather in a square, then parade in sections of the city, often near the beach. Some blocos never leave one street and have a particular place, such as a bar, to attract viewers. Block parades start in January, and may last until the Sunday after Carnival.
Samba schools are very large groups of performers, financed by respected organizations (as well as illegal gambling groups), who work year round in preparation for Carnival. Samba Schools perform in the Sambadrome, which runs four entire nights. They are part of an official competition, divided into seven divisions, in which a single school is declared the winner, according to costume, flow, theme, and band music quality and performance. Some samba schools also hold street parties in their neighbourhoods, through which they parade along with their followers.
Originated in Bahia from the African rhythms, it was brought to Rio de Janeiro around 1920 and is still together with Samba-pagode and Samba-reggae (the band Olodum from Salvador da Bahia made samba-reggae famous) SAMBA is one of the most popular styles of Brazil. From intimate samba-cancões (samba songs) sung in bars to explosive drum parades performed during carnival, samba always evokes a warm and vibrant mood. Samba developed as a distinctive kind of music at the beginning of the 20th century in Rio de Janeiro (then the capital of Brazil). In the 1930s, a group of musicians led by Ismael Silva founded in the neighbourhood of Estácio de Sá the first Samba School, 'Deixa Falar'. They transformed the musical genre to make it fit better the carnival parade. In the following years, samba has developed in several directions, from the gentle samba-canção to the drum orchestras which make the soundtrack of carnival parade. One of these new styles was the bossa nova, made by middle class white people. It got increasingly popular over time, with the works of João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. In the sixties, Brazil was politically divided, and the leftist musicians of bossa nova started to gather attention to the music made in the favelas. Many popular artists were discovered at this time. Names like Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho, Velha Guarda da Portela, Zé Keti, and Clementina de Jesus recorded their first albums. In the seventies, the samba got back to radios air waves. Composers and singers like Martinho da Vila, Clara Nunes and Beth Carvalho dominated the hit parade and are still respected and admired contemporarily.
At the beginning of the eighties, after having been sent to the underground due to styles like disco and Brazilian rock, Samba reappeared in the media with a musical movement created in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. It was the pagode, a renewed samba, with new instruments, like the banjo and the tantan, and a new language, more popular, filled with slangs. The most popular names were Zeca Pagodinho, Almir Guineto, Grupo Fundo de Quintal, Jorge Aragão, and Jovelina Pérola Negra. Various samba schools have been founded throughout Brazil. A samba school combines the dancing and party fun of a night club with the gathering place of a social club and the community feeling of a volunteer group. During the spectacular Rio Carnival famous samba schools parade in the Sambódromo. An event that should not be missed.
Brasil has many distinct instruments and of course musicians within its myriad of cultural exponents and carnival without the Cuíca (Portuguese pronunciation: [kuika]) would be absurd. A cuíca is a Brazilian friction drum often used in samba music. The tone it produces has a high-pitched squeaky timbre. It has been called a 'laughing gourd' due to this sound.
The body of the cuíca is normally made of metal, gourd or synthetic material. It has a single head, normally six to ten inches in diameter (15–25 cm), made of animal skin. A thin bamboo stick is attached to the centre of, and perpendicular to, the drum head, extending into the drum's interior. The instrument is held under one arm at chest height with the help of a shoulder strap. To play the cuíca, the musician rubs the stick up and down with a wet cloth held in one hand, using the thumb of the other hand to press down on the skin of the drum near the place where the stick is attached. The rubbing motion produces the sound and the pitch is increased or decreased by changing the pressure on the thumb.
The cuíca plays an important rhythmic role in samba music of all kinds. It is particularly notable as a fixture of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival groups, which feature entire sections of cuíca players.
01 February 2011
Finding the best in South America: Finding the best in South America: VIBRAÇÕES
Finding the best in South America: Finding the best in South America: VIBRAÇÕES
http://reggaebrasilhistoria.blogspot.com/
http://reggaebrasilhistoria.blogspot.com/
VIBRAÇÕES
Sometimes, yes, just occassionally, in my personal experience, is it possible that a piece of art can really move me. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar, like a gig, a concert, a play, a theatrical event, a movie, a documentary, a book, a piece of music or maybe even a new videogame, which has taken hold of you for a while. As a red herring, so inaccessible, completely non-reciprical and unsustainable as an industry, irrevocably unecological, a film might buzz you for a few conversations until you realise those who haven’t seen it may and when they do they probably won’t remember it was you who raved about it. If it is a book, you’ve probably discovered you’re better just buying it for them or lending them the same copy of it and then talking with them all about it and books really are forever and really are value for money.
If it was a live event, like a music concert, then you lived it together there and then. Maybe you do that every weekend with the best techno dj’s? I love books and music as treasured possessions, although I wouldn’t kill for them. However, I would kill to defend friends and family. I guess I’m like most humans in that it is within me, an atavistic self but you should know, I cannot imagine life without books and music and reading doesn’t adrenalin rush me, whereas good live musicianship does! It is accessible and reciprical, interactive and almost as easy as storytelling. What’s more, as a human artform it is one of our most established, traditional and most definitely, dynamic and South Americans know so!
However, there are so many musical forms that roam around the world and there are so many phases and evolutions in so many genres that each young person’s dreamtribe may always be re-emerging with followers of the latest innovative group of talented musicians, producers, aficionados and all the entailing entourage of promotional methodologies. What was innovative when Stevie Wonder or David Bowie made their flagstaff discs? It was merely ‘pop’, if you can grasp my disparaging intonation at the word, ‘pop’, and the resulting merely negotiable social gatherings. Was it to invite a friend or a few to their first hearing of the lp, a ‘long’ player, an album of songs, that might last for an hour or a few, if they were recording to give value for your money, to give a party to play the disc to your friends. A shite, short party, really, so therefore a dj, music for hours smoothly mixed. I can really picture them with ‘Ziggy Stardust’, . . . when reggae was budding it’s first album under the guise of The Wailers, ‘Burnin’. Although ‘blues’ parties had been ruling the musical airwaves for decades before, with dj’s playing reggae, ska and anything else you care to throw on the decks!
Of course, nowadays the music industry is never so simple and while many of us, who appreciate good musicianship with intelligence, are realizing that THE live concert is the real test of any album, or compilation of songs that are adorned with track listings and numerology, the sequencing of pieces of music, the disc cover, etc. So, if getting there to your local venue involves connecting up on the worldwide web to screen a concert via the internet, a fluidstream, in the comfort of your chosen place with all the people who you’d most like to have an intimate and private viewing of a concert with, you’re still dependent on the production, cameramanship, sound control, broadcast and of course the fans who are really there, really making the concert what it is in that hall or stadium, in that city. It is always still better to really be there at the concert, doing the gig, making it the event it could be.
That unforgettable, unsurmountable, best ever public show of what makes music so untouchable, so unrepeatable, so, . . . . je ne sais quoi! Some of you may be thinking, well, buying the disc of THE live concert or of the best moments of a live tour, so you can then repeat the experience is just the ticket, . . . mmm, well, almost, as we say, you just have to be there.
On one of the few occassions during this millenium that moved me and a few thousand more in a venue that holds greater significance than most can imagine was just a few months ago and still rings clear and true in my memory, like the dawning of a new millenium of the stars and moon in a blue sky before the planet earth girates to hide the sun below the western horizons. You know what I’m digging at,don’t you? Late afternoon, early evening and there’s the moon, majestically defying daylight, and if you stop and look closely enough, you can observe twinkling starlight with a blue backdrop, like the antipodean national flags, or the Brazilian flag. Yes, South America, also shares those international symbols of the night invading the day, and one of our more famous football clubs, Cruzeiro, also play in a daysky blue with white star southern cross, holding the fray. There are actually, tangentially a surprisingly large proportion of national flags with stars but returning to the evening of emotional stirrings that were brought about by a group of musicians, who can knock the cotton white socks of any sporting event you can imagine, ensembled as VIBRAÇÕES.
They’ve been writing, recording and holding forth at concert events for most of this millenium and besides getting the retro roots label so many can claim, like all live musicians, these guys take you forwards if you can grasp what they are projecting. Lyrical nouse, poetic justice, historical prose, futuristic enlightenments, whatever collocations are strung together, whoever delves deep to string up their best musical journalistic techniques, a beginning should be encompassed with an open mind. Together with some love of Jamaica, reggae and the religion that has flourished, rastafari, we’ll guide and support your love of this group. Some knowledge of the history of the land where they are writing their songs and an advanced knowledge of Portuguese may also be kind of handy in getting your head round Luis de Assis’ incomparable lyrics.
Still not convinced? Remember, ‘Get Up, Stand Up’? Learn those lyrics and sing them for a while. Then try remembering ‘Buffalo Soldier’, that was the song that got me reggae engaged, aged 10 in rural Scotland when I also became a reggae soldier of world peace. When you can understand those lyrics, then you’ll be able to get close enough to understand something of the roots of reggae. Then get the feeling of ‘Positive Vibrations’, which may have been the song that inspired Vibrações nomenclature(it certainly inspired ASWAD, London’s most famed regguerros). There’s a generation of innovation and musical engineering since then, and now we are experiencing a rebirth of all sorts of roots music, but reggae is the only one sprouting new growth in every continent. The very first world music is really all around the globe and flourishing everywhere. We write and sing in any language you can name, and some of us don’t mind not knowing the words we´re singing. In South America, there are hundreds of bands devoted to reggae and thousands more musicians who are playing this world music, not to mention those dj’s spinning the remixes of reggae songs and dub tracks, and we sing it in English, South American & Jamaican English, or in all its emergences, there are any number of versions of English, but mostly in Spanish and Portuguese, here in South America. I’ve witnessed and we, who are there, all appreciated, a Brazilian Japanese singer, who had translated ‘Who the Cap Fits’, singing in enchanting Japanese, backed by Brazilian musicians, making more than a subtle point of the fact that music traverses all frontiers.
Come to think of it, it is astounding how such a small island of so few people has made such an astounding contribution to the cultural contingencies of this really ever so grand a planet.
Jamaica is just amazing and Usain Bolt is the fastest ever human to have graced it. Jamaicaland, . . . recalling so many reggae events through these decades, the eighties, nineties and these two decades of this millennia, just goes to show, that when you get the chance, attend a concert, get your buckwild, rasclad arse down to the venue, and enjoy yourself; let loose for a while, free yourself for good. I would travel the world to catch a gig with VIBRAÇÕES! Why don’t you? For the time being, you might just find your energy is well invested getting more familiar with the diaspora of South American music and dance that has been encapsulating the world over for just about as long as you may be able to imagine. And remember, music really does traverse all frontiers, but it’s the lyrics and melodies that make something more than a feeling.
If it was a live event, like a music concert, then you lived it together there and then. Maybe you do that every weekend with the best techno dj’s? I love books and music as treasured possessions, although I wouldn’t kill for them. However, I would kill to defend friends and family. I guess I’m like most humans in that it is within me, an atavistic self but you should know, I cannot imagine life without books and music and reading doesn’t adrenalin rush me, whereas good live musicianship does! It is accessible and reciprical, interactive and almost as easy as storytelling. What’s more, as a human artform it is one of our most established, traditional and most definitely, dynamic and South Americans know so!
However, there are so many musical forms that roam around the world and there are so many phases and evolutions in so many genres that each young person’s dreamtribe may always be re-emerging with followers of the latest innovative group of talented musicians, producers, aficionados and all the entailing entourage of promotional methodologies. What was innovative when Stevie Wonder or David Bowie made their flagstaff discs? It was merely ‘pop’, if you can grasp my disparaging intonation at the word, ‘pop’, and the resulting merely negotiable social gatherings. Was it to invite a friend or a few to their first hearing of the lp, a ‘long’ player, an album of songs, that might last for an hour or a few, if they were recording to give value for your money, to give a party to play the disc to your friends. A shite, short party, really, so therefore a dj, music for hours smoothly mixed. I can really picture them with ‘Ziggy Stardust’, . . . when reggae was budding it’s first album under the guise of The Wailers, ‘Burnin’. Although ‘blues’ parties had been ruling the musical airwaves for decades before, with dj’s playing reggae, ska and anything else you care to throw on the decks!
Of course, nowadays the music industry is never so simple and while many of us, who appreciate good musicianship with intelligence, are realizing that THE live concert is the real test of any album, or compilation of songs that are adorned with track listings and numerology, the sequencing of pieces of music, the disc cover, etc. So, if getting there to your local venue involves connecting up on the worldwide web to screen a concert via the internet, a fluidstream, in the comfort of your chosen place with all the people who you’d most like to have an intimate and private viewing of a concert with, you’re still dependent on the production, cameramanship, sound control, broadcast and of course the fans who are really there, really making the concert what it is in that hall or stadium, in that city. It is always still better to really be there at the concert, doing the gig, making it the event it could be.
That unforgettable, unsurmountable, best ever public show of what makes music so untouchable, so unrepeatable, so, . . . . je ne sais quoi! Some of you may be thinking, well, buying the disc of THE live concert or of the best moments of a live tour, so you can then repeat the experience is just the ticket, . . . mmm, well, almost, as we say, you just have to be there.
On one of the few occassions during this millenium that moved me and a few thousand more in a venue that holds greater significance than most can imagine was just a few months ago and still rings clear and true in my memory, like the dawning of a new millenium of the stars and moon in a blue sky before the planet earth girates to hide the sun below the western horizons. You know what I’m digging at,don’t you? Late afternoon, early evening and there’s the moon, majestically defying daylight, and if you stop and look closely enough, you can observe twinkling starlight with a blue backdrop, like the antipodean national flags, or the Brazilian flag. Yes, South America, also shares those international symbols of the night invading the day, and one of our more famous football clubs, Cruzeiro, also play in a daysky blue with white star southern cross, holding the fray. There are actually, tangentially a surprisingly large proportion of national flags with stars but returning to the evening of emotional stirrings that were brought about by a group of musicians, who can knock the cotton white socks of any sporting event you can imagine, ensembled as VIBRAÇÕES.
They’ve been writing, recording and holding forth at concert events for most of this millenium and besides getting the retro roots label so many can claim, like all live musicians, these guys take you forwards if you can grasp what they are projecting. Lyrical nouse, poetic justice, historical prose, futuristic enlightenments, whatever collocations are strung together, whoever delves deep to string up their best musical journalistic techniques, a beginning should be encompassed with an open mind. Together with some love of Jamaica, reggae and the religion that has flourished, rastafari, we’ll guide and support your love of this group. Some knowledge of the history of the land where they are writing their songs and an advanced knowledge of Portuguese may also be kind of handy in getting your head round Luis de Assis’ incomparable lyrics.
Still not convinced? Remember, ‘Get Up, Stand Up’? Learn those lyrics and sing them for a while. Then try remembering ‘Buffalo Soldier’, that was the song that got me reggae engaged, aged 10 in rural Scotland when I also became a reggae soldier of world peace. When you can understand those lyrics, then you’ll be able to get close enough to understand something of the roots of reggae. Then get the feeling of ‘Positive Vibrations’, which may have been the song that inspired Vibrações nomenclature(it certainly inspired ASWAD, London’s most famed regguerros). There’s a generation of innovation and musical engineering since then, and now we are experiencing a rebirth of all sorts of roots music, but reggae is the only one sprouting new growth in every continent. The very first world music is really all around the globe and flourishing everywhere. We write and sing in any language you can name, and some of us don’t mind not knowing the words we´re singing. In South America, there are hundreds of bands devoted to reggae and thousands more musicians who are playing this world music, not to mention those dj’s spinning the remixes of reggae songs and dub tracks, and we sing it in English, South American & Jamaican English, or in all its emergences, there are any number of versions of English, but mostly in Spanish and Portuguese, here in South America. I’ve witnessed and we, who are there, all appreciated, a Brazilian Japanese singer, who had translated ‘Who the Cap Fits’, singing in enchanting Japanese, backed by Brazilian musicians, making more than a subtle point of the fact that music traverses all frontiers.
Come to think of it, it is astounding how such a small island of so few people has made such an astounding contribution to the cultural contingencies of this really ever so grand a planet.
Jamaica is just amazing and Usain Bolt is the fastest ever human to have graced it. Jamaicaland, . . . recalling so many reggae events through these decades, the eighties, nineties and these two decades of this millennia, just goes to show, that when you get the chance, attend a concert, get your buckwild, rasclad arse down to the venue, and enjoy yourself; let loose for a while, free yourself for good. I would travel the world to catch a gig with VIBRAÇÕES! Why don’t you? For the time being, you might just find your energy is well invested getting more familiar with the diaspora of South American music and dance that has been encapsulating the world over for just about as long as you may be able to imagine. And remember, music really does traverse all frontiers, but it’s the lyrics and melodies that make something more than a feeling.
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