Both / And (now with improved typing...)
On the road into Manaus, a new evangelical church next to a 'love hotel'. This is not a place of either/or. It's religious zeal and sexual license, built and ruined. In the centre of modern Manaus, once-proud houses are stripped cadavers - the opposite of piranha victims, their skins intact, facades still ornamented as they were in the dates proclaimed at their heads: 1896, 1900, but the carapace is empty, like that of the exploded cicadas - triumphant foliage overwhelming the strangled belle epoque villa. Land and water mingle, as do male and female, clothed and naked, in one moment.
Even the elements are less delineated here. Earth and water share the same locations, ceding dominance to the other, Persephone-like, for half the year as the forest becomes submerged, or rises to become dry land again.
And in the humidity, air and water mingle. At times it's as damp and slowing as if we had been transported to some Little Mermaid-like underwater kingdom, where life goes on recognisably, but submerged, slowed down by the weight of water. Lighter too, though - gravity loses some of its power and life floats a little bit. And during the torrential rains it really does make hardly any difference whether you're on solid ground or under water.
Fire is the one element humans bring to the Amazon - we will watch later as our guide lights tree sap on the sodden leaves and it will seem a tiny gesture of defiance. (more on that in another entry, eventually)
Writing in a hammock - a piece of furniture that's almost a bodily extension. It moulds itself to you, responds to your movement, tranbsforms gravity into comfort.
Manaus like Darlington - proud of havimg built itself, not without a certain ruthlessness towards those too weak to survive the process. Its monuments are of Trade - the Market and the Customs House are more imposing and lavishly styled than the Cathedral. No prince's palace, no lavish seat of government - places to buy and sell (these on every scale) and houses for its rulers to display their triumph on a bloated but still domestic scale. Does Darlington have an Opera House? Wakefield certainly does. What would Manuas make of Hansel and Gretel?
With its aerobic swimercise in the wave-machine equipped pool (led for an exclusively female group by the leaner and more indolent of the two lifeguards) there's a potential for White Mischief-style decadence here. But I suspect Manuas 1900 is more like a contemporary oil state, catapulted to wealth and demonstrating the fact by defying its location. Before we left I read a review of a restaurant at a luxury Dubai hotel where all the ingredients were shipped in, frozen. The perversity of that in Manaus being, as Journey to the River Sea brings out, that this is a city amid a profusion of delicious, naturally occuring food. But the point is not the taste (at least it wasn't according to that Dubai restuarant review), it's the flamboyant indifference to the merely practical. Manaus was simply before its time - all its wealthy residents wanted was the year-round choice consecrated by our supermarkets.
Our guide shares jungle survival tips from his national service. Military bases line the road into Manaus, one proclaiming its effectiveness in effecting Brazilian Amazon 'integration', But he says they're all just lazy and the vast Brazilian army, with no wars to fight, simply a hedge against unemployment. I'm not so sure - what state puts so many soldiers in one place for nothing?
Even the elements are less delineated here. Earth and water share the same locations, ceding dominance to the other, Persephone-like, for half the year as the forest becomes submerged, or rises to become dry land again.
And in the humidity, air and water mingle. At times it's as damp and slowing as if we had been transported to some Little Mermaid-like underwater kingdom, where life goes on recognisably, but submerged, slowed down by the weight of water. Lighter too, though - gravity loses some of its power and life floats a little bit. And during the torrential rains it really does make hardly any difference whether you're on solid ground or under water.
Fire is the one element humans bring to the Amazon - we will watch later as our guide lights tree sap on the sodden leaves and it will seem a tiny gesture of defiance. (more on that in another entry, eventually)
Writing in a hammock - a piece of furniture that's almost a bodily extension. It moulds itself to you, responds to your movement, tranbsforms gravity into comfort.
Manaus like Darlington - proud of havimg built itself, not without a certain ruthlessness towards those too weak to survive the process. Its monuments are of Trade - the Market and the Customs House are more imposing and lavishly styled than the Cathedral. No prince's palace, no lavish seat of government - places to buy and sell (these on every scale) and houses for its rulers to display their triumph on a bloated but still domestic scale. Does Darlington have an Opera House? Wakefield certainly does. What would Manuas make of Hansel and Gretel?
With its aerobic swimercise in the wave-machine equipped pool (led for an exclusively female group by the leaner and more indolent of the two lifeguards) there's a potential for White Mischief-style decadence here. But I suspect Manuas 1900 is more like a contemporary oil state, catapulted to wealth and demonstrating the fact by defying its location. Before we left I read a review of a restaurant at a luxury Dubai hotel where all the ingredients were shipped in, frozen. The perversity of that in Manaus being, as Journey to the River Sea brings out, that this is a city amid a profusion of delicious, naturally occuring food. But the point is not the taste (at least it wasn't according to that Dubai restuarant review), it's the flamboyant indifference to the merely practical. Manaus was simply before its time - all its wealthy residents wanted was the year-round choice consecrated by our supermarkets.
Our guide shares jungle survival tips from his national service. Military bases line the road into Manaus, one proclaiming its effectiveness in effecting Brazilian Amazon 'integration', But he says they're all just lazy and the vast Brazilian army, with no wars to fight, simply a hedge against unemployment. I'm not so sure - what state puts so many soldiers in one place for nothing?
posted by Carl Miller at 5:00 pm
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