Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, our second day and now we better understand that all of Brazil, everywhere and everything, does indeed exist here in this amazing city. Colorful, vivacious, beautiful, young, impoverished, crippled, dirty and gray, all together, blended and scattered, but often polarized, singular and unique, dazzling or painfully sorrowful, a city of point/counter-point, music to an opera or perhaps better, a dance. Yes, they would like that, not a waltz, nor a dirge, and certainly not a samba. Something fast, but not all smiles and colorful feathers and when it’s over you don’t sit down and chat, you go on or you just go away.
Many of us took the morning walk through Rio: palaces, important squares, narrow streets of the old Colonial area, churches and monasteries. All of this from open vehicles with panoramic views and quadraphonic sounds. There was even a sighting of the fabled blue Morpho butterfly, lovely in the sun, quick, flickering, now coy, then bold and always just perfect. Lost? No, invited I’m sure for this is Rio where all things can be and where color and beauty are especially welcomed, particularly admired and surprisingly abundant.
Meanwhile, for some of the more feral of our company, there was a longer excursion, a more distant trek up over the hills behind the city, back in time, down in volume and a bit slower of pace. We were in search of some small remnant of the once mighty Atlantic Forest and its most famous inhabitant, the golden lion tamarin. The city gives way to suburbs, small towns, then villages, farms and ranches. Many of the hills have a bit of forest on their brows, high centered or off to one side like a jaunty, fuzzy beret. See the silver leaves, those trees scattered in the green woods? Bad luck, for they indicate that it is not primary Atlantic Forest, but rather it has been cut over at some time in the not too distant past and is now secondary forest. Too bad, for it is simply not good enough for the golden lion tamarin, but unfortunately it is just fine for its competitor, the tufted-ear marmoset, a recent invader, smaller but more aggressive than the tamarin.
So what happened? Why are there so few golden lion tamarins, less than a thousand in the wild? Were they eaten? Probably not, they are a bit small, a pound or two at most, and very secretive. They breed well in zoos, thousands more could be released, but there is precious little habitat for them. Almost all of the Atlantic Forest was destroyed long ago for firewood, plantation, farm, ranch and lumber. Now there are just bits and pieces, all told less than 5% of the original forest. But 5% is a lot more than none and now people know and people care in Brazil, in the United States, in Canada, in Britain and the rest of Europe. Land is being bought and rehabilitated, farmers are cooperating and small family bands of golden lion tamarins once again inhabit the forest, albeit a different forest, small and impoverished; a different monkey, unskilled, born and raised in captivity. I’ll bet they were afraid when they spent their first night here, their first week, even their first year. They cannot completely take care of themselves, so there are feeding stations to help, to augment, until their young grow up and maybe their young too. That’s what is important, that they survive until we can fix what we have done, if we do really care and it is just a banana anyway and they really like them. But we will remember, we must remember that they will not be free until they are free of us, nothing ever is.
Rio de Janeiro, our second day and now we better understand that all of Brazil, everywhere and everything, does indeed exist here in this amazing city. Colorful, vivacious, beautiful, young, impoverished, crippled, dirty and gray, all together, blended and scattered, but often polarized, singular and unique, dazzling or painfully sorrowful, a city of point/counter-point, music to an opera or perhaps better, a dance. Yes, they would like that, not a waltz, nor a dirge, and certainly not a samba. Something fast, but not all smiles and colorful feathers and when it’s over you don’t sit down and chat, you go on or you just go away.
Many of us took the morning walk through Rio: palaces, important squares, narrow streets of the old Colonial area, churches and monasteries. All of this from open vehicles with panoramic views and quadraphonic sounds. There was even a sighting of the fabled blue Morpho butterfly, lovely in the sun, quick, flickering, now coy, then bold and always just perfect. Lost? No, invited I’m sure for this is Rio where all things can be and where color and beauty are especially welcomed, particularly admired and surprisingly abundant.
Meanwhile, for some of the more feral of our company, there was a longer excursion, a more distant trek up over the hills behind the city, back in time, down in volume and a bit slower of pace. We were in search of some small remnant of the once mighty Atlantic Forest and its most famous inhabitant, the golden lion tamarin. The city gives way to suburbs, small towns, then villages, farms and ranches. Many of the hills have a bit of forest on their brows, high centered or off to one side like a jaunty, fuzzy beret. See the silver leaves, those trees scattered in the green woods? Bad luck, for they indicate that it is not primary Atlantic Forest, but rather it has been cut over at some time in the not too distant past and is now secondary forest. Too bad, for it is simply not good enough for the golden lion tamarin, but unfortunately it is just fine for its competitor, the tufted-ear marmoset, a recent invader, smaller but more aggressive than the tamarin.
So what happened? Why are there so few golden lion tamarins, less than a thousand in the wild? Were they eaten? Probably not, they are a bit small, a pound or two at most, and very secretive. They breed well in zoos, thousands more could be released, but there is precious little habitat for them. Almost all of the Atlantic Forest was destroyed long ago for firewood, plantation, farm, ranch and lumber. Now there are just bits and pieces, all told less than 5% of the original forest. But 5% is a lot more than none and now people know and people care in Brazil, in the United States, in Canada, in Britain and the rest of Europe. Land is being bought and rehabilitated, farmers are cooperating and small family bands of golden lion tamarins once again inhabit the forest, albeit a different forest, small and impoverished; a different monkey, unskilled, born and raised in captivity. I’ll bet they were afraid when they spent their first night here, their first week, even their first year. They cannot completely take care of themselves, so there are feeding stations to help, to augment, until their young grow up and maybe their young too. That’s what is important, that they survive until we can fix what we have done, if we do really care and it is just a banana anyway and they really like them. But we will remember, we must remember that they will not be free until they are free of us, nothing ever is.
