Brazil (Amazon)
Belém
Strategically placed on the Amazon river estuary close to the mouth of the mighty Rio Tocantins, BELÉM was founded by the Portuguese in 1616 as the City of Our Lady of Bethlehem (Belém). Its original role was to protect the river mouth and establish the Portuguese claim to the region, but it rapidly became established as an Indian slaving port and a source of cacao and spices from the Amazon. Such was the devastation of the local population, however, that by the mid-eighteenth century a royal decree was issued in Portugal to encourage its growth: every white man who married an Indian woman would receive “one axe, two scissors, some cloth, clothes, two cows and two bushels of seed”. wpeBC.jpg (11407 bytes)
Despite the decree, a shrinking labour force and, in the 1780s, the threat of attack by a large contingent of Munduruku Indians meant that Belém was deep in decline before the end of the century. In the nineteenth century, it sank still further, as the centre of the nation’s bloodiest rebellion, before the town experienced an extraordinary revival as the most prosperous beneficiary of the Amazon rubber boom. By the end of the nineteenth century, Belém was a very rich town, accounting for close to half of all Brazil’s rubber exports. At this time rubber was being collected from every corner of the Amazon. As a result of the boom, thousands of poor people moved into Belém from the Northeast, bringing with them new cultural inputs such as music and dance, and, of course, the candomblé and macumba Afro-Brazilian religions. After the crash of 1914, the city suffered another disastrous decline – but it kept afloat, just about, on the back of Brazil nuts and the lumber industry.

The wealth generated by the rubber boom is still evident in the shape of the modern city, whose elegant central avenues lead from the luxuriant Praça da República down to the port, past a historical sector which is replete with Portuguese colonial architecture. It’s a friendly city with a Parisian feel and a surprisingly modern skyline. Always warm and often hot (and often wet, too), the climate is generally very pleasant, with an average temperature of 25°C. Belém remains the economic centre of the North, and the chief port for the Amazon.

The Cabanagem Rebellion

The Cabanagem Rebellion ravaged the region around Belém for sixteen months between January 1835 and May 1836, in the uncertain years following Independence and the abdication of Pedro I. Starting with political division among Brazil’s new rulers, it rapidly became a revolt of the poor against racial injustice: the cabanos were mostly black and Indian or mixed-blood settlers who lived in relative poverty in cabana huts on the flood plains and riverbanks around Belém and the lower Amazon riverbanks. Following years of unrest the pent-up hatred of generations burst into Belém in August 1835. After days of bloody fighting, the survivors of the Belém authorities fled, leaving the cabanos in control. In the area around the city many sugar mills and fazendas were destroyed, their white owners being put to death. Bands of rebels roamed throughout the region, and in most settlements their arrival was greeted by the non-white population’s spontaneously joining their ranks, looting and killing. The authorities described the rebellion as “a ghastly revolution in which barbarism seemed about to devour all existing civilization in one single gulp”.

The rebellion was doomed almost from the start, however. Although the leaders declared independence from Brazil and attempted to form some kind of revolutionary government, they never had any real programme, and nor did they succeed in controlling their own followers. A British ship became embroiled in the rebellion in October 1835, when it arrived unwittingly with a cargo of arms which had been ordered by the authorities before their hasty departure a couple of months previously. The crew were killed and their cargo confiscated. Five months later, the following March, a British naval force arrived demanding compensation from the rebels for the killings and the lost cargo. The leader of the cabanos, Eduardo Angelim, met the British captain and refused any sort of compromise; British trade was threatened, too, and the fleet commenced a blockade of the fledgling revolutionary state. Meanwhile, troops from the south prepared to fight back, and in May 1836 the rebels were driven from Belém by a force of 2500 soldiers under the command of Francisco d’Andrea. Mopping-up operations continued for years, and by the time the Cabanagem Rebellion was completely over and all isolated pockets of armed resistance had been eradicated, some 30,000 people are estimated to have died – almost a third of the region’s population at that time.

The City
The Praça da República, an attractive central park with plenty of trees affording valuable shade, is a perfect place from which to get your bearings and start a walking tour of Belém’s downtown and riverfront attractions. The praça itself is sumptuously endowed with fine statues and columns focusing on its fountain centrepiece. Overlooking it is the most obvious sign of Belém’s rubber fortunes: the nineteenth-century Rococo Teatro da Paz, dripping with Neoclassical fixtures, the opera house where Anna Pavlova once danced. Beside it, modern reality is reflected in the young men cleaning other people’s big cars on the pavement, using the roots of the old trees as cupboards for their buckets and sponges.

Bosque Rodrigo Alves

About half an hour by yellow bus marked “Avenida Almirante Barroso” from Ver O Peso market, and a worthwhile outing for a breath of fresh air, the Bosque Rodrigo Alves botanical gardens (Tues–Sun 9am–noon & 3–4.30pm) are actually a small reserve of relatively virgin plant life – or as virgin as is possible within the confines of a large modern city. There’s also a well-stocked lake and mini-zoo, and archeological exhibits from the region are on display.

Avenida Nazaré: The Basílica and Museu Goeldi 
Two of the most important and worthwhile sights in Belém lie about fifteen minutes’ walk inland from the Praça da República along Avenida Nazaré. The first is the Basílica de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré on Praça Justo Chermont. Created in 1908, and supposedly modelled on St Peter’s in Rome, it rates – internally at least – with the most beautiful temples in South America. It somehow manages to be both ornate and simple at the same time, a cruciform structure with a fine wooden ceiling and attractive Moorish designs decorating the sixteen main arches. Most importantly, however, this is home to one of the most revered images in Brazil, Nossa Senhora de Nazaré. The story of the image is littered with miracles: it is said to have been originally sculpted in Nazareth in the early years of Christianity, from where it found its way to Spain by the eighth century. Here it had to be hidden from the Moors, and somehow survived to end up in Portugal, where the first important miracle occurred in the twelfth century, when the mayor of Porto de Mós, Fuas Roupinho, was saved from certain death (plunging off the edge of a cliff on horseback) by the intervention of the Virgin. He built a chapel in celebration, and from there the Jesuits brought the image to Brazil in the seventeenth century. On the first attempt to bring it to Belém, the image was lost in the jungle, and rediscovered in 1700 by a rancher. He built a rough shrine to house the Virgin, and word of its miraculous properties rapidly spread; today that shrine has grown to an impressive church, and the cult of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré is stronger than ever.

The most obvious sign of the thriving cult is the annual Cirio de Nazaré (Festival of Candles), for which something approaching a million people flock to Belém on the second Sunday in October, many having saved all year to afford it. A copy of the image is carried in a vast parade made up of thousands of young people, who between them also carry an old 380-metre-long anchor rope that weighs well over a ton; by touching the rope, the faithful, according to traditional belief, will receive the blessing of Our Lady. The procession makes votive offerings – usually in the form of model houses, boats and trucks made out of palm trees – as it goes along its route from the cathedral to the basilica, and two weeks later it returns; in between are all the usual secular festivities of a Brazilian celebration. If you hope to stay at this time of year, you’ll need to book a room well in advance.

Two long blocks up Avenida Magalhães Barata (the continuation of Nazaré) from the basilica, you’ll find the excellent Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi at no. 376 (Tues–Thurs 9am–noon & 2–5pm, Fri 9am–noon, Sat & Sun 9am–5pm; museum $2, zoological gardens $2). The gardens alone are worth a visit and, quite apart from the collections of plants, birds, animals and Indian artefacts, any money you spend here goes not only to the upkeep of the museum and its grounds but also to a wide programme of research in everything from anthropology to zoology. Founded in 1866, this is one of only two Brazilian research institutes in the Amazon, and plays a vital role in developing local expertise.

Set in the compact but beautifully laid-out botanical gardens here is a small zoo. Tapirs, manatees, big cats, huge alligators, terrapins, electric eels and an incredible selection of birds make this place an important site for anyone interested in the forest. By Brazilian standards the animals are reasonably kept, too. The museum, particularly the geology, ecology, archeology and anthropology sections, is equally fascinating and well organized. There’s an excellent description of the region from its pre-ceramic hunter-gatherer stage (10,000–1000 BC) through the period of early ceramics and incipient agriculture (3000–200 BC) until the emergence of forest agriculture as encountered by the Portuguese in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some of the early Marajó island ceramics are particularly impressive: marvellous pots and bowls which are virtually the only reminder of a culture that had already vanished when the Portuguese arrived. Finally, the museum’s souvenir shop has probably the best selection of T-shirts and other souvenirs in Belém – it’s not the cheapest place in town, but quality is high and the money goes to a good cause.

Cidade Velha

Heading down Presidente Vargas towards the river, the old part of town – the Cidade Velha – lies off to the left, full of crumbling Portuguese colonial mansions and churches. The oldest church of all is the Igreja das Mercês, Rua Frutuoso Guimarães 31. Architecturally it’s nothing special, but as a living, working relic it’s totally fascinating, full of quaint little touches. The holy water, for example, is dispensed from an upside-down rum bottle with the label half torn off.

This is a pleasant area to wander, and it’s not much further to the river docks and the hectic and anarchic market in Amazonian produce, overlooked closely by the old fort. Ver O Peso market is not quite the colourful spectacle it once was, but it remains the liveliest spot in town early in the morning (apart from one or two of the more energetic nightclubs). Ver O Peso (“see the weight”) was originally a slave market, but these days its main commodities are fish, fruit and vegetables, manioc flour, nuts and other jungle produce. There’s not much that is aimed at tourists, but Ver O Peso is one of the most interesting traditional markets in all South America and is a good reason in itself to visit Belém. There are sections devoted to aromatic oils, medicinal plants and herbs, and an expanding sector selling locally produced craft goods. It can be a dangerous place, so leave your valuables somewhere safe, and it’s not a good idea to go to the market area at any time other than the morning. In recent years, the riverfront promenade northeast of the market has been cleaned up and turned into an attractive pedestrian walkway, lined with tourist-oriented stalls.

The nearby square, Praça Dom Pedro, offers views across to the Forte do Castelo (daily 8am–11pm), an old fort built by the Portuguese in 1616, and today taken over by a bar, artesanato shop and the luxurious Circulo Militar restaurant. Opposite the fort are two more important churches: the eighteenth-century Igreja Santo Alexandre, which now houses a small religious art museum, and the finer Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Graça on Praça Frei Caetano Brandão. The cathedral was built in 1748, though it has been renovated many times since, including in the nineteenth century when the original wooden altar was replaced by one of marble and alabaster, over 10m high, designed by Luca Garimi; the interior of the cathedral is hung with some fine paintings.

The architectural highlights of Cidade Velha, however, dominate the square behind the old port and Ver O Peso. Together with the Opera House in Manaus, the magnificent palaces of Lauro Sodré and Antônio Lemos are the finest buildings left by the rubber boom. Until recently the seat of the mayor and state governor respectively, and more than a little run-down, they have been sensitively restored, with the addition of museums, and thrown open to the public for under $1.50 each. No visit to Belém would be complete without seeing them.

The Palácio Lauro Sodré (Tues–Fri 10am–5pm), completed in the 1890s at the height of the rubber boom, has an elegant blue and white Neoclassical colonnaded exterior and a series of airy arched courtyards which are occasionally used as galleries for travelling exhibitions. Upstairs is the Salão Nobre, a huge suite of reception rooms running the entire length of the frontage with crystal chandeliers, beautiful inlaid wooden floors and Art Nouveau furniture, marred only by a few grim paintings. A separate section of the palace houses the Museu do Estado do Pará (Tues–Fri 9am–6pm, Sat, Sun & holidays 9am–1pm), which has an archive of around 6000 historical pieces plus collections of Art Nouveau and modern art.

Next door, painted a dazzling white, is the Palácio Antônio Lemos (Tues–Fri 10am–6pm, Sat 10am–1pm), built in the 1770s by Antônio Landí, a talented emigré Italian, who was also an artist and sketched the first scientifically accurate drawings of Amazonian fauna. It was from here that the joint Portuguese–Spanish border commissions set out to agree the frontiers of Brazil in colonial times. Pará’s independence from Portugal in 1822 and adhesion to the Republic in 1888 were declared from here, and it was on the staircase here that President Lobo de Souza was shot down on January 7, 1835, in the early hours of the Cabanagem Rebellion. The palácio later became the centre of days of street fighting at the rebellion’s height, which left hundreds dead. Today it houses the Museu de Arte de Belém, containing paintings dating back to the eighteenth century, but it is the palace building itself which is the real highlight. Apart from the magnificent central staircase, carved from marble during the rubber boom, the ground floor and half of the first floor are still much as they were in the eighteenth century, uncluttered and elegant. The reception rooms overlooking the square were rebuilt at the turn of the century with no expense spared and, perhaps even more than the Manaus Opera House, give an idea of what an extrordinary period the rubber boom was.

Arrival, orientation and information

Belém’s Rodoviária is situated some 2km from the centre on Avenida Governador José Malcher, near the Almirante Barroso ring road: any bus from the stops opposite the entrance to the Rodoviária will take you downtown. If you want Praça da República, catch the #316 or #904, or take one with “P. Vargas” on its route card; for the port area take the #318 bus. There are excellent facilities and services at the Rodoviária, including a Parátur information office (not always open, even when it’s meant to be). If you’re coming by scheduled airline, you’ll arrive at Belém airport, 15km out of town (tel 091/211-6039), which has a Belémtur office (tel 091/211-6151), also with unreliable opening hours. There’s the usual system of co-op taxis opposite the arrivals hall, for which you buy a ticket at the kiosk, but this is a ludicrously expensive way of getting into town ($15 for a fifteen-minute ride). Instead, you can walk to the opposite end of the terminal where you’ll find the taxi stand for ordinary city cabs, which are much cheaper. Or you can take the “Marex Arsenal” bus from the airport to the Rodoviária and continue into town from there. Boats dock on the river near the town centre, from where you can walk or take a local bus up Avenida Presidente Vargas (not recommended if you have luggage or late at night), or catch a taxi.

Avenida Presidente Vargas is the modern town’s main axis, running from the Praça da República and the landmark Teatro da Paz right down to the riverfront. Buses coming into Belém centre from the airport and Rodoviária travel down Avenida Assis de Vasconcelos, which is more or less parallel. Most of the hotels, restaurants, shops and businesses are along Presidente Vargas, or just off it. On block 7 you’ll find the FUNAI office and shop and the Varig offices, and on block 6 the VASP office and the telephone company. The central post office, one of the most impressive in South America, is on block 4, and the ENASA riverboat company building at the end of the avenida on the riverfront.

As well as the somewhat erratic offices at the airport and Rodoviária, tourist information is available at Parátur offices downtown at the Feira de Artesanato do Estado on Praça Maestro Waldemar Henrique (previously Praça Kennedy; Mon–Fri 8am–6pm; tel 091/212-0575 or 212-0669 ext 217). Belémtur’s main office is at Av. Gov. José Malcher 592 (Mon–Fri 8am–noon & 2–6pm; tel 091/242-0900). Maps and town guides can be bought cheaply from the newspaper stands on Avenida Presidente Vargas or in the shop inside the foyer of the Belém Hilton.

Eating, drinking and nightlife

Belém is a great place to eat out, and an opportunity to get acquainted with the distinctive cuisine of the Amazon region. 

As you might expect from the richest freshwater ecosystem in the world, fish takes pride of place in Amazonian cooking. You’ll come across dozens of species, the best being peixe nobre (the noble fish), which Amazonians prize above all others for its flavour. There are many kinds of huge, almost boneless fish, including pirarucu, tambaqui and filhote, which come in dense slabs sometimes more like meat, and are delicious grilled over charcoal. Smaller, bonier fish, such as surubim, curimatã, jaraqui, acari and tucunaré can be just as succulent, the latter similar to a large tasty mullet. Fish in the Amazon is commonly just barbecued or fried; its freshness and flavour need little help. It’s also served no escabeche (in a tomato sauce), a leite de coco (cooked in coconut milk) or stewed in tucupi.

The other staple food in Amazônia is manioc. Farinha, a manioc flour and a staple food throughout Brazil, is supplied at the table in granulated form – in texture akin to gravel – for mixing with the meat or fish juices with most meals, and is even added to coffee. Less bland and more filling, manioc is also eaten throughout Amazônia on its own or as a side dish, either boiled or fried (known as macaxeira in Manaus and western Amazônia or mandioca elsewhere). A more exciting form of manioc, tucupi, is produced from its fermented juices. This delicious sauce can be used to stew fish in or to make pato no tucupi (duck stewed in tucupi). Manioc juice is also used to make beiju (pancakes) and doce de tapioca, a tasty cinnamon-flavoured tapioca pudding. A gloopy, translucent manioc sauce also forms the basis of one of Amazônia’s most distinctive dishes, tacacá, a shrimp soup gulped from a gourd bowl and sold everywhere from chichi restaurants to street corners. Other typical regional dishes include maniçoba, pieces of meat and sausage stewed with chicory leaves, and vatapá, a north Brazil version of the Bahian shrimp dish.

Finally, no stay in the Amazon would be complete without sampling the remarkable variety of tropical fruits the region has to offer, and which form the basis for a mouthwatering array of sucos and ice creams. Most have no English or even Portuguese translations. Palm fruits are among the most common; you are bound to come across açai, a deep purple pulp mixed with water and drunk straight, with added sugar, with tapioca or thickened with farinha and eaten. Other palm fruits include taperebá, which makes a delicious suco, bacuri and buriti. Also good, especially as sucos or ice cream, are açerola (originally Japanese, although Amazonians will swear blind it is regional; it came over with the first Japanese settlers in the 1920s), peroba, graviola, ata (also called fruta de conde) and, most exotic of all, capuaçu, which looks like an elongated brown coconut and floods your palate with the tropical taste to end all tropical tastes.

For quick Brazilian snacks and plenty of local atmosphere try the Café Milano on Avenida Presidente Vargas and the Bar do Parque at Praça da República. The best places for ice creams are the Casa dos Sucos on Presidente Vargas, offering a wide variety of local fruit flavours, and Tribon, Rua Municipalidade 1643.

  • Avenida, Av. Nazaré 1086 (tel 091/223-4015). One of Belém’s best restaurants with a great setting overlooking the basilica, excellent food and air-conditioning – though it’s fairly expensive and a bit short on atmosphere.
  • Casa Portuguesa, Senador Manuel Barata 897. Located directly behind Restaurant Inter with surprisingly inexpensive but superb-quality local and Portuguese food, cabaña-style decor and a quiet atmosphere.
  • Cheiro Verde, Av. Bras de Aguiar, near the Equatorial Palace Hotel and Praça de Nazaré. Excellent and cheap comida por kilo restaurant; vegetarian options as well as meat and fish, and very good salad bar. Always packed and lively; live music after 9pm on Friday and Saturday nights.
  • Circulo Militar, Praça Frei Caetano Brandão (tel 091/223-4374). Situated within the grounds of the city’s historic fort, this expensive restaurant serves delicious food – try the lobster or filhote na brasa (an Amazon fish, charcoal-grilled), and pudim de cupuaçu for dessert – and offers panoramic views over a busy part of the Amazon.
  • Gostosão, Rua Aristides Lobo 388. Just off block 4 of Avenida Presidente Vargas, this inexpensive restaurant serves good evening meals – and very good fish salads.
  • Inter, 28 de Setembro 304. Superb value, large delicious helpings and local specialities, frequented mostly by Belém’s office workers at lunchtime.
  • Lá em Casa, Av. Gov. José Malcher 247 (tel 091/222-9164). Good, moderately priced food, eaten underneath an enormous mango tree, with a retractable roof in case of rain. Regional dishes are recommended: the menu has a helpful English translation.
  • Miako, Trav. 1 de Março 766 (tel 091/223-4485). The city’s large Japanese population supports this pricey restaurant, located behind the Hilton, which serves great Japanese food and a wide selection of sucos made from Amazonian fruit.
  • Sabor da Terra, Av. Souza Franco (also called Docas) 600. The food is nothing special but the highlight is the floor show afterwards, which is touristy but very good as these things go: regional dances and music, well staged, with especially good dancers. Reasonably priced: around $20 a head, excluding drinks.
  • Trevu’s, 28 de Setembro 177. Perhaps the best-value budget lunchtime café in town, offering a reasonable comida por kilo choice. Live music and dancing on Friday evenings.

Nightlife
Belém can be a very lively place, especially at weekends, but one of the best bars is also the quietest, the Bar do Forte on the battlements of the old Portuguese fort overlooking Ver O Peso market; the entrance is just past the Circulo Militar restaurant. Here you sit outside, among eighteenth-century cannon pointing out to sea, and the view is marvellous especially at sunset. The other outdoor bar in the centre is the Bar do Parque, a famous meeting spot right in the heart of the Praça da República in front of the theatre. It’s open all day and there’s always something going on, including, very often, a batucada playing live music on weekend nights. There are also some bars strung along the upmarket Avenida Bras de Aguiar: the Spazzio Verdi and Gío’s restaurants in block 8 of the avenida are popular eating and meeting places day and night.

Belém’s real nightlife rarely begins much before 10 or 11pm, when the focus switches to the western bairro of Condor, on the banks of the Rio Guamá. There are numerous clubs to choose from, particularly lively on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and you’ll need to take a taxi there and back. Lapinha, Trav. Padre Eutiquio 390 (tel 091/249-2290; no entry charge), is the best-known and most enjoyable, though it doesn’t get going much before midnight. It’s not too glitzy, there’s usually good food and a live band at weekends, and it may be the only club in the world which has three toilets – “Men”, “Women” and “Gay”. Other places to try are the much more upmarket Palácio dos Bares in Condor, which often has good samba bands, and the Bar Teatro Maracaibo, Alcindocacela 1299 (tel 091/222-4797).

Another good area after dark is the Avenida Souza Franco, which everyone calls Docas, a short taxi ride or walk from the centre: head up Avenida Gov. José Malcher from Praça da República, turn left down Quintino Bocaiuva, take the second right and keep going for another five minutes – it’s the broad street with a canal in the middle to your left. It has two nightclubs, Spectrum and Back Street Bar, which usually have DJs playing a mixture of international and Brazilian dance music to a young crowd; they occasionally host live shows by local bands. It’s hard to call it more sedate, but at least you can sit down at the nearby Miralha, which has good live Brazilian music on weekend nights, and good food every night.

The other live music spot is the African Bar on the dock road just past the start of Avenida Presidente Vargas; it has great pseudo-African decor, complete with thatched roof, and is surprisingly cheap. Both Brazilian and international music – mostly electronic dance – is played, and it’s always lively and crowded with the fashionable young.

Belém is a good place for a night at the cinema. A couple of fine old theatres with cavernous interiors and refreshingly enormous screens make even bad films enjoyable to watch: check out the Olímpia, on Presidente Vargas almost next door to the Hilton, and the Nazaré, on the praça by the cathedral, which show mainstream releases. There’s a good triple-screen arthouse, Cinema 1-2-3, behind the Iguatemi mall in Batista Campos: take any bus with an “Iguatemi” card in front, get out at the mall, and walk through it. Plenty of bars and restaurants in the same street cater for the after-show crowd, if you want to make a night of it.

Accommodation
There are plenty of hotels in Belém, many of them expensive and only some of them worth the money asked. The more expensive and mid-price hotels are located on Avenida Presidente Vargas. Other, more basic hotels tend to be found in the narrow streets behind, between Avenida Presidente Vargas and the old heart of town by Avenida Portugal, the government palace and the fort. The nearest place to camp is at Benfica, some 15km east of town.
  • Belém Hilton, Av. Presidente Vargas 882 (tel 091/242-6500, fax 225-2942, belemhil@amazon.com.br). Belém’s best and most expensive hotel dominates the Praça da República. Although usually exorbitant, the Hilton occasionally has radical price reductions at slack times of year. $125–175.
  • Equatorial Palace, Av. Bras de Aguiar 621 (tel 091/241-2000, fax 223-5222). Slightly less expensive and with a more cosy ambience than the international-flavoured Hilton, this hotel has a small rooftop pool and a good restaurant, just over 500m east of Praça da República. $70–90.
  • Novotel, Av. Bernardo Sayão 4804 (tel 091/249-7111). A bus (Guamá or UFA) or taxi ride from the centre in the bairro of Guamá. Part of the international chain, with great views out across the river. $50–70.

Around Belém

Although Belém is over a hundred kilometres from the ocean, there are some good river beaches nearby, all of them popular with city crowds at weekends and holidays. At the village of ICOARAÇI, only 18km or about half an hour by bus from the bus stop next to the Hotel Central on Avenida Presidente Vargas, there’s a reasonable beach, and this is also the best place to visit local ceramic workshops and the cheapest place to buy the very fine pottery. Still very much based on the ancient designs of the local Indians, the skill involved in shaping, engraving, painting and firing these pots is remarkable. Some of the ceramics are very large and, except to the expert eye, barely distinguishable from the relics in the Goeldi museum.

Apart from Icoaraçi, the closest and most popular of the beaches are Outeiro and Mosqueiro, both easy day-trips. OUTEIRO, a picturesque and often busy little town, can be reached in under an hour by bus and ferry. MOSQUEIRO, some 70km north of Belém, is actually an island, though it’s well connected by road and bridge. The beaches are beautiful and relatively unspoilt, but they can get very crowded at holiday times; there are all the usual beach facilities – stalls selling chilled coconut milk, bars, good restaurants and a few hotels. Praia Murubira, with safe swimming and sailing, is probably the best of those close to Mosqueiro town. Of the other beaches here, Praia Farol is popular and preferable to Praia Areão, which is closer to the main praça and bus terminal. Buses run frequently from Belém’s Rodoviária, a journey of around two hours. At Carnaval and during the July Festival de Verão, Mosqueiro is particularly lively, with blocos on the beach.

Just 18km east from Belém is the island haven of Cotijuba, replete with beautiful beaches, rainforest and access to igarapé creeks. It’s the perfect place for birdwatching and nature walks. Trips are arranged by Amazon Star Turismo, with accommodation in native-style bungalows.

Ilha do Marajó
The Ilha do Marajó is a vast island of some 40,000 square kilometres of largely uninhabited mangrove swamps and beaches in the Amazon river delta opposite Belém. Created by the accretion of silt and sand over millions of years, it’s a wet and marshy area, the western half covered in thick jungle, the east flat savanna, swampy in the wet season (Jan–June), brown and firm in the dry season (June–Dec). Originally inhabited by the Marajoara Indians, famed for their ceramics, these days the savanna is dominated by fazendas where huge water buffalo are ranched; some 60,000 of them roam the island, and supplying meat and hides to the markets in Belém is Marajó’s main trade. The island is also famous for its giant pirarucu fish which, at over 180kg, is the biggest freshwater breed in the world. Other animal life abounds, including numerous snakes, alligators and venomous insects, so be careful where you walk. There are also some beautiful sandy beaches, and the island has become a popular resort for sunseekers and eco-tourists alike.

Although it was settled by Jesuits at an early stage, the island has something of a reputation for lawlessness stemming from its violent treatment of foreign visitors during the nineteenth-century Cabanagem Rebellion. Its earliest inhabitants have left behind burial mounds, 1000 years old and more, in which many examples of the distinctive Marajó pottery were found. Large pieces, decorated with geometric engravings and painted designs, these are virtually the only reminder of a vanished people – the best examples are in the Museu Goeldi in Belém. When the Jesuits arrived and established the first cattle ranches, the island was inhabited by Nhemgaiba Indians; later its vast expanses offered haven to runaway slaves and to free Indians who wanted to trade with Belém without too much direct interference from the white man’s culture. Water buffalo, ideally suited to the marshy local conditions, were imported from India around the turn of the century – or, if you believe local legend, were part of a French cargo bound for Guyana and escaped when the ship sank. River navigation around Marajó is still a tricky business, the course of the channels constantly altered by the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.