Tomorrow is here....

Sometimes people are amazed when I say that most Brazilians are very worried about the environment and care about sustainability. Non-Brazilians instantly start remembering the cutting of the rain forest.

 In December 2015 President Dilma of Brazil opened the Museum of Tomorrow here in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). We all know something has to change about our behavior towards sustainability. The term "tomorrow" is far more urgent than the more abstract "future". A nice article about the museum was published in the Guardian.



It is one of the most fantastic buildings (by the architect Santiago Calatrava) I have ever seen. It is as amazing as the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the radiant white curves makes one think of Oscar Niemeyer's soft lined buildings . This is a stunning image; a primitive reptile or an elegant flying fish like structure....stepping out of the the Guanabara Bay into the city.

 

Going inside is like walking into the mouth of an alligator.

Inside the museum is beautiful, but nothing beats the outside.

This place made me really think of Niemeyer. (The Cathedral of Brasilia / the Edificio da Bienal in São Paulo) Brazilian structures.

Our blue planet hangs (or should hang....my fault) right in the middle.

Dancing veils on a glass plate.... fantastic.

Large panels with pictures of our Earth. (On Google there are also some good pictures "from above"...)

Also interesting pictures of people all over the world on columns inside a kind of cube. It was so busy I didn't even think of taking a picture myself.

Everywhere a lot of interactive information on consoles and then again information on huge pillars.

The only physical object in the museum is the "Churinga". A "tool" of Australian Aboriginals. It symbolizes the connection with the past and the future. The knowledge and values we want to share with following generations....

From within the museum you look over the basin with the star. On the horizon is the bridge across the Guanabara Bay to Niteroi



From this angle the museum is like a magic bird landing on its peninsula in front of the old Rio.

Majestic.

Playfull.... The "Feathers" or maybe "Wings" move on the energy from solar panels.

Puffed Star II ( 6 meters in diameter) by Frank Stella.

It was hot (alsmost 40 degrees), so it was nice sitting for some time in the shade.






Everything is still new and clean. You hardly see the difference between a reflection and the real thing.

As the Museum reflects its surroundings, at the same time it reflects on the surroundings. The originally very poor and dangerous neighborhood is becoming a hot spot for tourists. The original inhabitants have been "moved". Now is the time for entrepreneurs.... to change old buildings into trendy apartments.... Prices will explode. The city is where the work is.... affordable houses are far away. Public transport is a bottleneck. Busses bloc the narrow streets. The traffic jam is enormous.
Eventually when everything is going as planned and the (above ground) metro is finished (Olympic Games!!) then half the busses will disapear and the traffic will be able to run as it should.

Birds on the beach

At the beach in Brazil one expects to find crows and seagulls. But look what comes along when people have a feeding place for birds. The food consisted of fruit: Mamão (Papaya), banana, orange, limão (lemon). The feeding table was under some trees, the weather was mostly overcast and I had to take the pictures through a window. Outside I couldn't get near without disturbing them. So the pictures are in no way perfect, but it gives an impression of the birds that were there. I had never seen any of the colorful ones on my earlier visits. After some study on the Internet I found that a lot of these birds are tanagers. 

Male Brazilian Tanager

Red necked tanager

Green headed Tanager 

Blue dacnis

I have no idea about these birds. Also a tanager?? or maybe a kind of finch??

Outside the light is so much better! These beautiful lapwings were all over the beach. 

Southern Lapwing

I love these small birds. One of the tyrant family. Masked water tyrant

This bright yellow tyrant was sitting near us in a beach hut. Probably waiting for something tasty. 

Great Kiskadee  (large tyrant flycatcher)

 There were seagulls, although not many.

Finally the scavengers... Here they call them crows, but they are  Black vultures .

This bag with garbage is waiting for the garbage truck that is arriving. The vultures are there first!! Impressive birds. This one is standing in one of the small rivers that run down form the mountains.

The end of a busy day?? Or just drying its feathers before the next job?

Sleeping like an elephant seal

The Peninsula Valdes is a peninsula near the Argentinian town of Puerto Madryn. The peninsula is almost an island. Just a very small isthmus connects it to the mainland. Peninsula Valdes is dry and almost barren, the domain of more than 80.000 sheep. It is the coast that is extremely beautiful and interesting. Not only because of the animals like elephant seals, penguins, sea lions and many different birds are to be seen there. But also because of it's coastal formations as such. At the Punta Delgada beach you just sit and look (to hot to move anyway). Quiet not to disturb the sleeping sea elephants... Although you hear them grunting and farting all the time. 

Rocky "pots" with seawater

An overview of the coast at Punta Delgada

Divers rock formations

The elephant seals sleep in the (hot) sun. Not much else to do now. Must be nice though to be partly in the water.  

Now and then (but not to often) moving to do a bit of neighborly barking....

We were not allowed anymore to walk freely on the beach, as we were 9 years ago. Then I saw a male elephant seal ferreting about in the dry sand.... He was BIG. So I can imagine that besides the aspect of nature conservation, there might also be an aspect of safety in keeping the tourists at a distance.

More about Peninsula Valdes

The Wikipedia about Valdes

The road to Ubatuba

The first time I heard the name Ubatuba it sounded very exotic to me. Where could that be? I was told that we could go the beach there.

Only in the north-east of Brazil wide rivers go to sea. In the rest of the country rivers flow into the country and most of them end up in the Rio de la Plata in Argentina. The Portuguese that landed at Rio the Janeiro thought they found a river (in January)…. But alas no river just a large bay. It is because right behind the coast lies a mountain range: The Serra do Mar. 

The clouds from the ocean bump into the mountains and provide the water to sustain the rain forest (the Mata Atlântica) on the coast. 

So when you want to go to the sea you have to cross the serra. From Taubaté it is 90 kilometers by bus across the Serra do Mar. 

The landscape on the land side of the serra reminds me of England; nice flowing green hills. Only the vegetation is different. Plumes of bamboo, palm trees, banana plants and too many Eucalyptus trees. There are cows and horses grazing. Some meadows are full with anthills. The earth is bright red. Erosion is everywhere.

After three quarters of the trip you reach a pass on around 1000 meters. Once you passed that pass the road goes down. I tried to count the very steep curves. There are at least 25 of them. The bus slows down to first gear and needs the left lane to round the curves. 

Here in Brazil they even sing a song about a bus driver Barbosa going over the serra: O Barbosa, essa curva é  perigosa.

At the end of the curves the first house you see has an “SOS breaks service” sign….  and sells bananas. 

Finally we arrive in Ubatuba. Ubatuba is an Indian name and it means “many canoes”. Ubatuba has some fine old Portuguese houses. 

But there is something far more interesting here. The Tropic of Capricorn reaches the continent of Latin America in Ubatuba. You have to search for the small sign in the grass behind a seat. But there it is!

 Next time we will go to some of the 84 beautiful beaches of Ubatuba!