OUT OF THIS WORLD

I am currently in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon river in the North of Brazil. Belém is in the state of Pará, famous for its Brazil nuts (which are actually known as Pará nuts here in Brazil).

I am here with my husband (aka Giridhari Das, aka GD) as he is speaking at the World Forum on Theology and Liberation this weekend, and the World Social Forum later next week. He´ll also be giving various presentations at the local Hare Krishna Centre while we are here. Today we had the day off and did some sight-seeing.

In the morning we visited the Rodrigues Alves Botanical Garden with our tour guide, Sridhar Prabhu.

GD and Sridhar admiring the greenery:

There were many Amazonian plants and animals. Here are some of the animals we saw:

There were some interesting telephones too:

We had a quick lunch at the Hare Krishna Centre before visiting the historic centre of the city.

This region of Brazil is famous for its fruits. Here are some of the more exotic looking ones we found in the city´s famous open market, Ver-O-Peso:

One of the most popular fruits here is Cupuaçu:

It has a strange taste, but I like it.

Here you can also buy your Brazil nuts. They are not easy to open, but the locals seem to have mastered it with a really big knife:

There was a good selection of local Amazonian crafts for sale, and rows upon rows of local herbal medicine for a variety of purposes such as curing diabetes, attracting love, getting rid of bad spirits, and even some natural Viagra:

Later we visited some old churches, including the Igreja da Sé:

Brazil is a very religious country. The Catholic churches we visited today were very beautiful. Once a year, for the day of the “Nossa Senhora” (Virgin Mary) festival, Belém gets about 2 million pilgrims. Belém is also the Portuguese name for Bethlehem.