Once leaving Santarem for the Planalto area (highlands), we leave sandy savanna country and get into clay soils, which make for nasty mud holes during the rainy season. Our Bosque Santa Lucia is only 3 kilometers from the main highway, BR-163, but those 3 kilometers of dirt road have been a real challenge over the last 27 years. I remember only too well my first tour at the Bosque in 1987, when I took three visitors from Holland for an ecological tour. At that time it wasn't much more than a one-lane trail with the forest coming right to the edges of road. I left the car on the highway and we walked in the 3 kilometers, did the tour at the Bosque and then walked back out. Yesterday, April 29, 2008, I had to do the same thing because of a big mud hole located not far from the highway. The situation was much worse than in 1987! On getting close to the "lake" I stepped into a thin coating of mud that was slicker than you know what. Before I could think twice I went up into the air and landed on my left side into the mud. Luckily I had taken my camera out of my back pocket just before, or it could have been worse for me and the camera too. I got up without feeling any broken bones and nobody was round to witness the show, so it was on to the mud hole. The attached image shows more or less where I "hit it".
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Difficult access, continued
Once leaving Santarem for the Planalto area (highlands), we leave sandy savanna country and get into clay soils, which make for nasty mud holes during the rainy season. Our Bosque Santa Lucia is only 3 kilometers from the main highway, BR-163, but those 3 kilometers of dirt road have been a real challenge over the last 27 years. I remember only too well my first tour at the Bosque in 1987, when I took three visitors from Holland for an ecological tour. At that time it wasn't much more than a one-lane trail with the forest coming right to the edges of road. I left the car on the highway and we walked in the 3 kilometers, did the tour at the Bosque and then walked back out. Yesterday, April 29, 2008, I had to do the same thing because of a big mud hole located not far from the highway. The situation was much worse than in 1987! On getting close to the "lake" I stepped into a thin coating of mud that was slicker than you know what. Before I could think twice I went up into the air and landed on my left side into the mud. Luckily I had taken my camera out of my back pocket just before, or it could have been worse for me and the camera too. I got up without feeling any broken bones and nobody was round to witness the show, so it was on to the mud hole. The attached image shows more or less where I "hit it".
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