Boots on the Ground

Jon: We're finally in Brazil. After 23+ hours of travel, the brief nap this afternoon in Manaus wasn't enough to catch up on sleep. We had a great dinner down town, near the historic Teatro Amazona, which is slightly out of place in one sense, but brilliant and beautiful on the other. More on the Teatro and the Portuguese in this part of the country later.

Mostly, I just want to send a single impression: flying north from Sao Paulo, I just couldn't help but dozing off, in something resembling sleep - I wasn't completely out, but I sure wasn't awake.

As the announcement came over the speaker system to 'fasten seat belts, get ready to land' I raised the shade and looked out the window for the first time in an hour or two.

It took my breath away.


The Amazon basin is so vast and so critical that it is sort of inevitable. We will be telling political stories and videotaping interviews in the next couple of days, all reflecting on the social, political and above all, environmental importance of the enormous plain. You can't help but feel, though, that the Amazon deals with the world on its own terms. It's not just a reference in studies, and the subject of vast quantities of science, journalism, art and culture.


I had been hearing all of this since childhood: how immense the rain forest is, how dazzling the play of water, trees, earth, and people.

But nothing prepares you for the inevitability of it all, the reality that these are the lungs of the planet, and the health of this sprawling giant is in fact, the health of the rest of the world.

Seeing the interplay of green foliage, muddy river, and towering cumulus tropical storm clouds, azure sky and the ocean in the distance - it is one of those deeply moving and memorable sites.

You will always remember your first view of the Amazon.