Kate+G

//April 13th -// The chief produce of this part of the country is is coffee. Each tree, after one harvest, yield five pounds of fruit eventually translating to about one pound of dried beans. There can be up to five harvests a year. Oil is also produced greatly in this part. Oil can be used to fullest extent, various machines are used to break down and obstract the needed parts of it. Oil in Brazil is often found offshore and after it is drilled from the ground, the oil is then pumped through pipes to waiting factories inland.

Agiculture is not as it once was, before slaves were contiously over worked. A slave was considered to be able to live on an agricultural farm of some sort for seven years before they would die. Now-a-days most farming is done by machines and cost less to run and will run longer than man-power. A machine can do more work than any man and does not need any breaks, food or water. Walking onto a farm, I was aghast to find only two men who's jobs were to oil the machines!

//April 14th// - Leaving the Copacabana Palace, we drove to another hotel in the "state" of Rio Macâe. The hotel was called the Bandeirantes and is run by a local family. Almost all of the town has been cleared of trees, although many houses have a tree in the front yard. With all the petreleum [oil] that this town brings in, how great their population is, at a higher elavation all you see is houses. But when petroleum is no longer used at such a great extent throughout the world, how quickly this "state" will fall! Driving through Rio Macâe, the roads can be so consumed by cars and trucks that it is necessary to park the car and walk to our destination. The aboundently beautiful beaches bring in a steady flow of tourisim forming another industry from which money is attained. These beaches are swarmed with people sunbathing, swimming and surfing. The weather has stayed in the seventies and is prooving to be quite sunny with a breeze. But while staying at the Bandeirantes, I am finding that the actual temperature seems to be doubled in the inner most part of the "state", perhaps that is the cause for all the white houses and buildings.

//April 18th// - In returning [ to Rio de Janeiro] we spent two days at the Copacabana Palace and I researched the Amazon Rainforest, much of which is endanged. Each year the Amazon and all it's natural wonders are slowly disappearing. It started when loggers clear cut the land looking for valuable wood. Soon after the loggers moved out famers came in and used the land for livestock. The farmers would fallow the loggers once their crops were overtaken by weeds and the land was eaten bare by the the livestock. It continued like that for awhile and now the rainforest is threatened by deforestation. There are two main highways running through the Amazon. This is helping settlement increase as well as deforestation. Environmentalists are working around the clock to help prevent further damage but it seems to no avail. The days of this spectacle, with all it's feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, are numbered.

//April 19th -// Leaving Copacabana, during the first two days, we retraced our steps. Taking the car, we drove along the back roads for on the highways we repeatedly got stuck in trafic. The drive proved to be pretty, ridding along the coast it was wonderfully refreshing to see open ocean rather than continous streets of houses and buildings. On the evening of the 23rd we arrived in Rio [the city], having finished our pleasant little excursion.

The hotel in which I stayed was located at the base of the well known mountain of the Corcovado that rise 2300 feet in the air. At the peak of this mountain stands the larger than life size statue; Christ the Redeemer. On the edge of the cove in Rio is the Sugar Loaf Mountain, that seems odly out of place. " Nothing can be more stricking than the effect of these rounded masses of naked rock rising out of the most luxuriante vegetation." -//Charles Darwin.//

The ocean shores form Rio's southern boundary, while the north and west are bordered by mountains. The eastern border is formed by Guanabara Bay. I often wonder if the moutains surroundig Rio will stay the rich green color they are now... Or will they too suffer from deforestation? For the time being they'll stay lush and green and will continue to be a magnificant getaway from the vast city that grows beneith them.