UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering blog: River of Doubt

Showing posts with label River of Doubt. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Engineering professor retraces Roosevelt's steps 100 years later

Marc Meyers, a professor of mechanical engineering here at the Jacobs School, shown at the start of his trip up the River of Doubt. Courtesy Jeffrey Lehmann.

Marc Meyers, a professor of materials science here at the Jacobs School of Engineering, has been retracing Theodore Roosevelt's steps up the River of Doubt, 100 years after Roosevelt's expedition in the heart of the Amazon basin.

Meyers is traveling with UC San Diego alum and documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Lehmann. They have sent two dispatches from their trip to UT San Diego.

In his most recent dispatch, Meyers recounts their encounter with the local Cinta Larga Indians:

We were descending the river after the Naivete falls when we were met by a power boat carrying six (Cinta Larga) Indians. They did not respond to our friendly greetings and one of them photographed us. Upon arrival at the Cinta Larga Village, Sargent Douglas, our contact in Vilhena, told us that there was trouble. Soon an Indian wearing a feather headband and followed by a group of children crossed the bridge. Joao Brabo ( Mean John) faced us and, with a stern posture, stated a long discourse in his native language, staring at us with anger and contempt. |We did not understand the words but the tone was clear. We did not have the right to invade his lands.

The meeting resulted in a 100-mile detour for Meyers and Lehman, who continue their journey.

Their first dispatch, written by Lehman, describes some of the other difficulties they encountered, including torrential rain and rapids.

The afternoon brought mosquitoes and bees to annoy us and we set camp in the clearing, after assembling our Pak Canoe. We got up at daybreak and initiated a descent in a narrow and dangerous stream. The river, less than ten yards in most places, was littered with fallen trees and branches. This required constant navigation and more than one brush with a perilous branch that could easily have punctured our canoe or toppled any of our watercraft. Every now and then a buritizinho (palm tree) lay across the stream, exhaling a sweet essence. Macaws flew over us periodically, and the birds were the same ones that Roosevelt had reported.

We can't wait for the next installment of their adventures.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Dispatches from the Amazon-Second in a Four-part Series

This is an update we received July 13 from Professor Marc Meyers, who is currently in Brazil, scouting locations for an expedition up the River of Doubt, which he plans to start this fall. Meyers plans to retrace the steps of Theodore Roosevelt, who explored the river 100 years ago, in 1914.

More on Meyers' planned expedition here.

An earlier dispatch from Meyers was published online by UT San Diego here.

Meyers in front of Rondon's house.

I had the good chance to meet Eliar Negri, Secretary of Tourism, Commerce, and Industry of Vilhena. He personally took me to visit Rondon’s house. It is a whitewashed construction with a front porch and has obviously received a new roof. We had to enter into an area reserved for exclusive use of the Brazilian Air Force but were able to get in through a gate in the fence. This is most probably a place where Roosevelt stayed before embarking down the River. In front of the house there is a strange steel contraption with a crank and a set of gears. I could not establish for sure the purpose of the heavy machine but suspect that it was intended to stretch the copper wires of the telegraph line. Eliar informed me that inside the house one can still find some of Rondon’s personal effects but it was locked. There is also a cemetery in front of the house but no markers. These must be Rondon’s camaradas, soldiers, and Indians that died in this area. There was a rumor (as there is often) that he had buried gold in the yard and this was followed by furious digging.

Afterwards, he took me to the fairgrounds and introduced me to its president, an Italian named Agostinho Pastore. He informed us that there are very few horses in Vilhena, except for expensive purebreds kept by rich ranchers. We are in the middle of soy country, which is the local gold. It is transported by truck to Porto Velho, 500 miles north, and then by barge down the Amazon to satiate the ever-growing needs of an ever-growing Asia. Soy is the most important component of the local economy. Mr. Pastore also told me: “Forget about horses! What you need are mules. Much more endurance.”

And much less pleasant to ride, I thought to myself.

He told me that farther south, close to the beginning of our planned land journey, there are plenty of horses and mules. He offered to keep them in his corrals, once we make it to Vilhena, and informed us that it would be a simple matter to repatriate them to their point of origin, since there are large numbers of cattle trucks in the area.

I could not contact the person that knows about the steel boat that the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition and resigned myself, in the afternoon, to watch one of the most boring matches of my life, Holland vs. Argentina. The historian never called back and probably changed his mind about offering to help. However, I was fortunate to contact someone who owns a car rental and will take me this afternoon to my destination: the headwaters of the Roosevelt River. More to follow!

All the dispatches in the series can be found here:

First
http://jacobsschoolofengineering.blogspot.com/2014/07/dispatches-from-amazon-first-of-four.html

Second
http://jacobsschoolofengineering.blogspot.com/2014/07/dispatches-from-amazon-second-in-four.html

Third

http://jacobsschoolofengineering.blogspot.com/2014/07/return-to-river-of-doubt.html

Last

http://jacobsschoolofengineering.blogspot.com/2014/07/dispatches-from-amazon-four.html

Dispatches from the Amazon - First of a Four-Part series

This This is an update we received July 10 from Professor Marc Meyers, who is currently in Brazil, scouting locations for an expedition up the River of Doubt, which he plans to start this fall. Meyers plans to retrace the steps of Theodore Roosevelt, who explored the river 100 years ago, in 1914.

More on Meyers' planned expedition here.

An earlier dispatch from Meyers was published online by UT San Diego here.

I decided to visit the key areas where the original Rooosevelt-Rondon expedition passed this summer. I flew to Cuiaba, close to the town where Rondon is born. From there, I took the bus to Caceres, on the Paraguay River. It was supposed to be an uneventful trip of three hours, but a tragic accident in which six persons died and about 20were injured delayed the bus for several hours. My initial decision to rent a car and drive to Caceres myself would have put me in the middle of the turmoil. I returned the car after trying to get out of Cuiaba for 40 minutes, getting lost several times.

Caceres is a city of approximately 60,000 on the river. I inquired about regular boat transportation from Corumba and was informed that a boat has to be hired for that purpose. The trip takes approximately three days and stops at points in the Pantanal can be arranged. There is a large tourist fishing fleet in Caceres and these boats can be leased for a small group.

Bus station in Caceres.

Aware of the dangers of driving in Brazilian highways, where semis, buses, and cars fight for the right to pass each other on two-lane highways with zero shoulders, I decided to take the bus, a very comfortable and economical option. The ticket was $35 for a 500 km trip. I was able to assess the terrain that the horseback portion of the expedition will cover.

Caceres is surrounded by marshy land; I could not identify the post of Tapiropoan on the river. The names must have changed in these 100 years. The highway, BR 362, follows supposedly the telegraph line laid by Rondon prior to the 1914 expedition and followed by Roosevelt. However, the Utitiarity Falls are not along the highway, but directly North of Caceres. The road gently rises to a plateau, called Chapada dos Parecis. The cerrado and low forests have been for the most part replaced by pastures. On our West side, we followed a mountain range. The horseback portion should not encounter any major problems.

I was pleasantly surprised by Vilhena, the last portion of the RR expedition, where the River of Doubt starts. It is, interestingly, still called Rio da Duvida on maps and MapQuest. It is only farther North that the name changes to Roosevelt River. The city has a population of about 70,000 and is the result of a major immigration wave in the 1970s. It is now an important center of the entire region and the symmetric arrangement of streets, order, and a certain harmony are clearly the result of the immigrants from the South of the country. It is at an altitude of 600 meters which provides a pleasant climate all year long, something that definitively has helped its development. In Vilhena, I have three primary goals:

1. Visit the headwaters of the River of Doubt.

2. Inquire about the availability of horses for the travel from Tapirapoan to Vilhena.

3. Visit Rondon's house.