1. (1) Esperantists in Tres Rios

2. (2) Esperantist in Brasilia

3. (3) Esperantists in the northeast coast of Brazil

4. (4) The Amazon under the star-studded sky

5. (5) The BMW broke again

(1) Esperantists in Tres Rios

After receiving an invitation e-mail from Luiz Alberto, the Esperantist in Tres Rios, I also chatted with him on the Internet. On the previous night of my leaving Rio de Janeiro, Ademar called him and told him that I would leave Rio de Janeiro at nine in the morning and arrive in Tres Rios at around eleven. Ademar asked the address and the telephone number of the office where Luiz works and let me know about it.

At nine in the morning on the 24th of June, I left Rio de Janeiro. I followed the car driven by Ademar's son Denis. Ademar and Denis showed me the way of 70 km from the west end to the northeast end of Rio de Janeiro. At the entrance of Brazil 40 for the capital Brasilia, we hugged and exchanged goodbyes.

The winding road goes up to the mountains from Rio de Janeiro. I expected to arrive at the office of Luiz before 11:30 even if I would be late, but arrived there at 12:30. His office is something like a Japanese education board. Luiz didn't live in Tres Rios, but in Paraiba do Sur, a neighboring small city 10km away from Tres Rios. So he told me to go to the house of Ivo Pinto Magalhaes, who lives in the center of Tres Rios and is the president of the Esperanto society of the city, and drew a map to show the way. Ivo's house was only five blocks away from Luiz's office. I couldn't get the bike into the house as it also happened at Ademar's place in Rio de Janeiro. Ivo's wife Edi asked the neighbor across the street so that I could park the bike in the parking of the house.

After being assigned an upstairs room, I carried my luggage into the room. Then I remembered a very important thing. I had already told Ivo that I am a chain smoker. He allowed me to smoke in the room even though he suffered from asthma. What a kind man he is! When I finished changing clothes, Luiz came and I went to have lunch with him. Soon after we sat at the table, Esperantists came one after another. When we finished lunch, Luiz went back to the office and some of the Esperantists staying there took me to their Esperanto office of Tres Rios. Five or six of other Esperantists soon joined us. To tell the truth, Luiz had informed them about my visit in Tres Rios. Ivo also came. Ivo talked with one of the Esperantists and told me that I should move my motorcycle to the person's house because he had a doubt about the security of my bike that I parked in the house across the street. So we walked to the house of that Esperantist. The large house had a good parking and I believed that my bike would be absolutely safe there. However, as the house was far from Ivo's house, I moved the bike to a public parking in the neighborhood. I paid US$8 for two nights. Luiz came and three of us, Luiz, Ivo and I, went to drink beer. We drank till around nine. Luiz suggested moving to his town for more drinks. Needless to say I agreed. Then he called someone by his cellular phone. Soon later two women came by car. They told me to go immediately. One of the women gave us a ride to Ivo's house. I put on a sweater and went back to the car. It was cold in the night there. The city of Paraiba do Sur, where we arrived in about twenty minutes, looked cozy and safe. All the streets of this city were asphalted or cobblestoned, while the streets in a country city of this size are not usually paved except its main street. The woman who drove the car was Angela. She is Luiz's boss in the office. She dropped the woman of the passenger seat at her house and took us to a bar. As Angela didn't understand Esperanto, Luiz interpreted. Another male Esperantist soon came to join us. We drank until one in the midnight. Because it was too late to go back to Tres Rios, I stayed in the house of Luiz.

Next morning I got up at half past nine. The phone rang a lot of times, but Luiz was still in bed. It kept ringing for about an hour. Luiz finally got up and said, "My God! I should have visited a radio station in order to give an interview with you!" He has never been married. He lets a Chinese married couple live in one of his rooms. When I got up, they had already gone somewhere. They were planning to open a restaurant in the town and the restaurant was almost ready. There were piles of books in the bookcases in Luiz's place. There were English and French books, however, most of his books were Esperanto books. Among those Esperanto books, I found even an ancient Japanese poetry "Manyo-shu", a love story in medieval Japan by Saikaku Ihara and a book of Japanese short poems "haiku". I was deeply impressed that he had read such a great number of Esperanto books.

I took a bus with Jorge to attend a lecture on environment and ecology that would be held in the office of Esperanto from eight at night. The lecture had the audience of about 15 and most of them were Esperantists. The lecturer spoke in Portuguese. Looking at me who didn't understand, Luiz interpreted simultaneously into Esperanto. His Esperanto was beautiful. He interpreted much faster than I would speak in Japanese. I was stunned by his ability. I closed my eyes to concentrate myself and listened to his Esperanto. But I couldn't, I am sorry for him, understand him well because of my poor listening ability. Nevertheless, because the topics were about environment and ecology in which I engaged myself for a long time from the time when I was a university student till I retired, I was able to guess the outline of the lecture, picking up some words. Anyway, there are some incredible people in the world. I am sure I will definitely not be able to speak Esperanto as fluently as he through my life. The population of Paraiba do Sur where Luiz lives is 35,000 and that of Tres Rios is 100,000. I heard that Kazuhiko Ouchi, a second generation Japanese, made a great contribution toward disseminating Esperanto in this area. As a result, it is said that there are 100 Esperantists in Paraiba do Sur and 25 in Tres Rios. This is an amazingly large number in comparison with Osaka, where we have only around 70 members in our Osaka Esperanto Society among 3 million residents. In these two cities I felt I had seen an "Esperanto World" for the first time.

(2) Esperantists in Brasilia

Josias is 56 years old He is only ten months older than I. We are nearly the same age. He was a teacher of English and Portuguese. He retired six years ago and he now supports his life by the pension of $600 a month. He works for "Planet Union" as a volunteer five days a week. "Planet Union" is a NGO for the welfare of humankind and makes TV programs in order to disseminate the activities to realize such a world. As "Planet Union" thinks that Esperanto is also useful to construct the better world, Josias works there, translating into Esperanto, having interviews in Esperanto or teaching Esperanto. "Planet Union" was on the lakefront with high-class residences. The owner is a lawyer Ulisses Riedel. He puts his palace-like house to use as a TV studio. Ulisses has used up his fortune for his NGO. I was supposed to give an interview in this studio, but somehow the interview was not done. About 15 staffs work in the TV studio. One of the staffs grew up in the orphanage called Bona Espero. Bona Espero was founded by a Brazilian Esperantist in a place 250km north of Brasilia about 30 years ago. In the orphanage Esperantists from the world educate the orphans and at the same time teach Esperanto to them. Before I left Japan, I had the idea of staying long there to learn Esperanto. But I didn't do so because I am now in haste to go back to Colombia, and besides there are also Esperantists in Bogota with whom I can learn Esperanto.

On July 2, two days after I arrived in Brasilia, Josias took me to the office of Brazil Esperanto-League (BEL). There are three offices of Esperanto in Brasilia and the office of the BEL is one of them. The office is in a huge building in the center of the city and has six spacious rooms. As each room is sufficiently large, two of them are not used. I heard someone donated the office. I felt jealous of it. About 15 Esperantists came to the office and were working hard. They were busy preparing for the Brazilian Congress of Esperanto that would be held in Maceio this month. The next president of the league will be selected in the congress. A candidate for president flew from Sao Paulo to make a speech of his belief or idea to the Esperantists in the office. I was surprised by his Esperanto as fluent as his native language. Josias was the president of the BEL before. In his presidency the World Congress of Esperanto was held in Cuba in 1990 and he also took part in. During the congress Fidel Castro hosted a reception for the Esperantists from the world and about 70 delegates of each country were invited. Josias was a delegate of Brazil. And he shook hands with Castro. The World Congress will be held in Yokohama, Japan in 2007. Will the Japanese prime minister of that year welcome the Esperantists from the world in the same way as Castro did? Josias will not attend the national congress in Maceio, but attend the world congress that will be held in Beijing from the 24th to the 31st of this month. The congress will be soon and he is busy in preparation for the trip, such as getting a visa. He will buy a PC and take it with him to China. So we went to a market that sells various kinds of PC's and imported goods. The laptop computers with a large screen made by Sony or Toshiba were sold for about $1,400 each. I heard the same computer could be bought for less than a half price in the tax-free city of Ciudad de Este in Paraguay. I passed the city without knowing about it.

Josias finished writing an Esperanto textbook of 200 pages written in Esperanto after three-year work. I had a look of the book and I thought it is a good book. I felt I myself wanted to get the book. The BEL wanted to publish the book, but Josias wanted to make it a really universal book that can be used in any country of the world. To realize his idea, he went to Changchun in China to teach English and Esperanto at a university in 2002. He had the idea of improving the contents of his textbook through his experience of teaching Esperanto to foreign students. But the university in Changchun wanted only his English and didn't organize Esperanto classes for him. This didn't give any meaning to his visit to China. So he came back to Brazil after staying in China for ten months. As a result, unfortunately his textbook is not published yet. When it is published, I will buy one.

Josias speaks really good Esperanto because he taught languages. When I didn't understand what he said and asked him to repeat, he slowed down his Esperanto and spoke, using other synonyms. When I didn't understand again, he explained by the definition of the words like a dictionary. Even so sometimes I didn't understand. Then he used English words as a final means. So, speaking with him, I didn't leave his words half-understood. To make me understood, he had to speak quite slowly, but he endured the boring job like that during eight days for me. Thanks to him, my Esperanto showed a little improvement. Concerning Esperanto, I took off in Rio de Janeiro and now I think I can enjoy speaking in the language.

The capital of Brazil was Rio de Janeiro before. But in 1961, Brasilia was constructed as the new capital in an inland place with an altitude of 1,100m in the Brazilian Highlands, 1,000km away from the main cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Completely newly planned cities are not so many even in the world. So I wanted to visit this city. The city of Brasilia faces a man-made lake that was formed by blocking the rivers. The building of the Congress and two rows of the buildings of the Ministries, each of which has the same design and has about ten stories, stand orderly in the city center. Among them two semi-globular buildings, probably designed by Oscar Niemeyer, also can be seen. There is also a modern, or rather, outlandish church with a design beyond the conventional concept. The buildings of embassies, hotels and schools are classified into three groups and each group is constructed in the same area. Most buildings have piloties and this design produces an impression that the space of this city is open. As the streets connecting these buildings have ramps at their intersections, there aren't traffic lights. As enough green is preserved around the buildings and the streets, the city doesn't have an impression of crowdedness often seen in the capitals of other Latin-American countries. In return, the center of this city, which has now grown into a large city with a population of two million, doesn't give the feeling of human existence although it is refined. The core of Brasilia is slightly a dry-as-dust area. It didn't rain in Rio de Janeiro, neither in Brasilia. I hear it never rains in this district from May to October. The sky has been clear during the last three weeks. I also hear it seldom rains on the coastal area in the northeast of Brazil where I will visit next. I worried about raining from around Buenos Aires to the southern Brazil, however, I won't have to read the weathercast anymore. In Maceio on the northeast coast, Brazilian Congress of Esperanto will be held for five days from the 18th. It is a little hard to ride to the city in ten days, but I hope I will be there during the congress even if I will have to hurry up.

(3) Esperantists in the northeast coast of Brazil

The northeast part of Brazil is close to the equator and extrudes into the Atlantic like a bump. It is the easternmost region in the continent of South America. There is the city of Salvador in the lower part of that semicircular bump. In the past it prospered in trading sugar and was the most important city in Brazil. As black people were taken to this city as slaves in those days, their population is still relatively large. I was thinking about staying for several days in the city that still preserves old buildings and streets unusually in Brazil. But it was difficult to find a hotel with a parking lot in the city center full of old buildings. I finally found one, however, it was a "love hotel". It was past six when I arrived there, and it was already dark. I had never checked into a hotel so late during this journey. If you stay 24 hours in a "love hotel", you have to pay lots of money. I stayed in the hotel only for a night and headed for a beach in the north.

Beautiful beaches continue to the north from Salvador. Turtles come to lay eggs on this 1,000km-long coast. The Brazilian government began to protect the turtles and recently the number of the turtles has increased. Along the coastline there are several cities that have a cluster of high-rise buildings. The cities had the bases of the USA during the Second World War, however, they are now enjoying prosperity by receiving lots of tourists who visit the beaches. Besides, there are oil wells off the coast. Accordingly, this region is important for Brazilian economy. I rode to visit these cities from the south in order to attend the Brazilian Congress of Esperanto in Maceio and to meet the Esperantists who sent me e-mails. It was even cold in the south of Brazil, but people are swimming around here. First, I went to Maceio where the national congress was being held. I imagined the hotels would be busy because the city had received the Esperantists from all over Brazil. So I directly rode to the meeting place to get some information from Esperantists. I could find the place without much effort as the congress was being held in a well-known university in the city center. On going into the entrance, a cameraman from the TV studio in Brasilia walked toward me to have an interview with me, aiming his camera at me. I had met him in the studio where he works in Brasilia and knew him. Soon after I began talking to the camera, I heard someone say by my side, "Toru!" It was Ademar who let me stay in his house in Rio de Janeiro! I remembered that he had told me he wouldn't come because Maceio is too far. Nevertheless, he had arrived at Maceio two days before, traveling 2,200km for 36 hours by bus. I asked him where he stayed and he answered he was staying in the dormitory of the university next to the meeting place, where there were three beds in the room and he shared the room with Givanildo who is the president of the Culture Cooperative of Esperanto in Rio de Janeiro and had interviewed me for his radio program. One of the three beds was available. I was really lucky. I decided to stay with them.

During my four-day participation in the congress, I met again the Esperantists whom I had met in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia. In addition, I met Hilbernon Filho who is a medical student and gave me e-mails from Frotaleza further in the north. Rogerio Vascongelos also came from Fortaleza. I had a simple conversation in Japanese with him because he had been learning the language. He told me that I would be able to stay in one of the apartments of his condominium in Fortaleza. Gizele Comini, a woman from a city near Sao Paulo, also talked to me in Japanese at one of the parties that were held every night. Seven or eight years before she was sent to Toyama City in Japan by the Brazilian government and studied there for ten months. She was participating with her husband Venicio and invited me to their table to treat me with a small dish of crab. Moreover, she and her husband invited me to a lunch of Arabian food. Although I had never attended even a national congress of Esperanto in Japan, I abruptly participated in the Brazilian national congress. 399 Esperantists participated, including three foreigners, from Portugal, France and Cuba. There were various programs prepared, however, it was also interesting to see such unknown Esperantists. On the previous day of the end of the congress, the election of the president and the delegates for the BEL was held all day long. They had two candidates for presidency from Sao Paulo, which was, I heard, unusual. Both of them looked young, probably in their thirties. I knew one of them as I had met him in Brasilia. After his candidacy speech, the other candidate went up the stage. First of all, he called the names of the delegates of his group and invited them to the stage. What a surprise! Ademar was walking to the stage! After the speeches of the candidates, a vote was taken by 176 members attending the congress out of 700 of BEL. The group of Ademar unfortunately lost at the vote, however, I though I had seen a part of the democratic management of BEL.

On the last day of the congress, I didn't stay there and headed for Natal, 500km north. I didn't have enough time as the Brazilian visa would expire in a month. In Natal I couldn't find a hotel with a parking soon, as it happened in Salvador, and finally found one in front of a beach after riding around the city for two hours. The sun had already set and it was getting dark. I was about to switch on the PC and found that the socket outlet was on the upper part of the wall. It was so high that even a 2m-tall person couldn't reach. I had never experienced it before. I ordered shrimps for supper in the restaurant next to the hotel, but the waitress gave me fish. Fortunately I found an Internet cafe near the hotel, but the owner kept insisting that a computer without Windows-XP couldn't be connected in his place. I thought Natal was a strange place.

I immediately called Hilbernon and Rogerio. About two hours later, two Esperantists, Valmar and Sandra, who were informed about my arrival by Hilbernon, came to my hotel. Soon later Rogero joined us. After the two people left, Rogerio and I walked around the busy streets in the night. There were some dance bars adjacent to Rogerio's condominium and even the streets were flooded with young men and women. I understand people go out on a weekend night, but it looked as if they were having a carnival. I don't know well about the night life in Central and South America because I refrained from going out at night in big cities, however, I didn't see many people on the streets even in the daytime. Or, did the streets have more people in the night? I heard that this city has also recently grown rapidly by tourism and so has more population of young people. Except Ademar in Rio de Janeiro, Esperantists generally neither drink nor smoke. Rogerio didn't smoke, but drank beer and whiskey. We drank together almost every night and he kept asking me, "How do you say in Japanese?" He always took a Japanese textbook and a thick Japanese dictionary with him. He repeated my Japanese answers many times. He had the records of old Japanese songs sung by Hibari Misora, Haruo Minami and Aki Yashiro in his house. What drives him to be mad about Japan and Japanese language? He also speaks English, French and German. If I had more students like him, I would be happy to teach Japanese.

Wandemberg teaches Esperanto after work at a national university in the city center. Most of his students are university students who major in linguistics. He has four classes and the number of the students is 130 in total. Knowing such a large number of students, I understood why he declared he would live for Esperanto. I visited one of his classes with Hilbernon. There were 30 to 40 students in the class. Although he had taught the class only three times till then, he was teaching all in Esperanto, not speaking in Portuguese. As soon as I went into the classroom, he introduced me and asked me to talk about something. After introducing myself, I talked about my journey. The students asked question after question to me. I was surprised to know that they already understood Esperanto after only three lessons, even though they were specializing linguistics. Wandemberg hopes that some of them will be good Esperantists and succeed him. I believe more than some will do it. Brazil is one of the top nations of Esperanto.

(4) The Amazon under the star-studded sky

Belem is nearly on the equator and it is hot. On the way to the hotel that I had found in the guidebook, I saw a three-star hotel with a parking. I parked the bike and saw a price list of the rooms at the reception. The charge for a single room was US$40. I asked how much they would charge if I stayed for four to five days. They answered the charge would be $20. The hotels in Brazil are a little more expensive than those in other countries of South America. However, I had stayed for $9 in average. So the charge over $18 simultaneously causes my mental resistance. So I went to the hotel of the guidebook as I had planned. It worried me that the hotel wouldn't have a parking, and it didn't in fact. It was surely hot in Belem. I didn't feel like visiting another hotel of the book. The heat made me compromise with the limit of $18 and I went back to the three-star hotel. The charge went down to $17. It was a good room with a desk an air conditioner. I though it was still a little expensive, but stayed there. There was a supermarket YAMADA in the vicinity of the hotel. It was a five-story building with large floors. It was like a department store of Japan rather than a supermarket. It was not the sole supermarket of YAMADA. I saw another four or five when walking some part of the downtown. Mr. Yamada is one of the Japanese immigrants who made a great success. There was Hotel Hilton four blocks away from my hotel. There was a good building of a Japanese restaurant "Miyako" behind the hotel. The food was not as delicious as the restaurants in Sao Paulo, but I could enjoy Japanese dishes after a long interval. Is the owner of Miyako also one of those successful immigrants?

According to the map of Brazil, there is the road of Transamazonica connecting Belem and Manaus. I read about it in a book years ago. However, it is said that the road is now impassable on account of poor maintenance. So I was obliged to take a boat for Manaus. Strangely the ticket of the boat was not sold at the travel agencies near the hotel. One of them named another agency and I went there. The agency had a small room with only one desk and two workers and seemed a little unreliable. I asked them to give me a single cabin in the largest boat. If a large boat, it is easy to load the motorcycle and in a single cabin I can smoke and the luggage is safe. However, a larger boat of 800 passengers was to sail a week later. If I waited so long, my Brazilian visa would expire before I would enter Venezuela. A little smaller boat of 400 passengers would leave four days later, however, there wasn't a single cabin, but a cabin for two people. There was no other choice. I paid $100 for my ticket and another $100 for the transportation of my bike.

The Amazon flows along the equator between Belem and Manaus. This is the largest river in the world. I couldn't see the width of the river in Belem because a long island blocked the sight. But according to the map, the width is as long as 40 to 50km. The boat sails upstream from Belem to Manaus in the Amazon that repeatedly narrows and widens its width, because long islands frequently appear in the river. This river is indeed huge. It is an endless large lake rather than a river. Although the river is so wide, the boat sails close to either right or left bank of the river, probably because the boat eats more fuel in the rapid stream of the middle of the river. Both sides of the Amazon are jungles. However, houses sparsely stand. The children of 4 or 5 years enjoy rowing small boats in the Amazon. I wonder if they don't have to go to school. Strangely most of those who are on the boats are children. In Japan parents are afraid of accidents and, unfortunately, would never allow them to do so. Some of the children row their boats to our big boat to tie the boats with a piece of rope and dare hitchhiking of a boat. I realized that they don't need roads because of the existence of the Amazon and their boats. I also saw some piles of logs on the riverbanks. It was a small quantity. The world is giving emphasis to impending global warming by deforestation. However, roads are scarce in the area of the vast Amazon. Although the Amazon can be compared to a trunk road, there are few cities and houses on both sides of the river. I have seen the satellite photograph to show the predicament by deforestation in books and on television. Nevertheless, seeing the Amazon from the boat, I didn't believe that such a large-scale development had been done.

On an afternoon, the boat suddenly stopped, and resultantly the screen of my PC turned black. I went out of the cabin and saw some sailors landing on an island. They seemed to go to buy fruits or something. Two European young men out of the small number of foreign tourists also landed to have a short jungle tour. As I didn't feel like going with them, I went to the other side of the boat and watched the surface of the Amazon. I saw something big moving on the surface of the river. I thought someone was swimming. But, looking closely I found it was fish. Seven to eight big fish jumped over the water like a dolphin. "Opa!" I asked the size of the fish to one of the sailors. He answered it was my size. I remembered that Takeshi Kaiko visited Brazil to catch a big fish and later wrote a book titled "Opa!". I wanted to say, "It's here, Takeshi".

Meanwhile, the sun set under the Amazon. I expected it would also be hot on the Amazon, as it was hot in Belem. But it was cool on the boat. It was even a little cold at night on the contrary. After sunset, a pitch-black night dominates the Amazon. Long, black lines of jungle extend on both sides of the Amazon. The surface of the river is too dark to identify. The boat makes certain of its advancing course, focusing a searchlight on the river surface and banks at about 30-second intervals. My guidebook writes Belem is one of the rainiest cities in the world. So I expected rain for this boat trip. But in fact it rained only one day, and only for an hour in the morning while I stayed six nights on the boat. The moon was not in the clear night sky. It didn't come out for six nights. This made the sky over the Amazon much darker. In return, the stars were brighter.

The sky was adorned with innumerous stars. I saw shooting stars after a long time. In the meantime, I saw a strange shooting star casting a blinking light. The shooting star cut straight through the sky in a few seconds. An airplane can never fly so fast. I though it might be a UFO. It mustn't be miraculous to see it if in Amazonian area with few houses. However, it is believed that a UFO doesn't fly straight, but quickly turns to a different direction. I saw another blinking shooting star. This shooting star turned its flying course at an angle of 90 degrees. I believed it was a UFO this time. The boat stopped at a port. I saw it once again. By chance there was a man beside me. I said to him, "Look at that! What is it?" He answered uninterestedly, "It is an insect". I had a close look of the flying object in the dim light of the town. It was a sort of firefly.

The Amazon flows slowly through the vast flatland. There aren't mountains on both sides. There isn't anything to block the sight of the night sky. Some stars are twinkling even in the sky near the horizon. There is a bright star ahead of the sailing boat. Under the star there is another star with the same brightness. However, judging from the position of the black jungles the position of the star must be under the Amazon. I sway my head. The lower star moves together with the upper star. The lower star is the reflection of the upper star in the water. I have seen the reflection of the moon, but never of a star.

The boat sails to the west on the Amazon in the night. A long white cloud extends from the jungle on the left bank to the north. It is never ridiculous even if something beyond my common sense happens in the Amazon. Even so, this cloud has a strange shape. It looks as if it were a rainbow in the night sky. Or it appears to be a white river. Countless stars are glittering on both sides of the rainbow of cloud. The number of the stars is tremendous. With the numerous stars like this, constellations cannot be recognized even if I see the star chart of my computer. The Southern Cross is now under the horizon and is not visible anymore. But anyway, this busy night sky is just like the one in romantic movies that seems to be a lie with its too many stars. The scene in those movies is not a lie. By the way, the cloud like a rainbow is a nuisance. I watch the cloud well. There are many stars shining in the cloud. Then, it is not a cloud. It is the Milky Way! Most observatories of the world are constructed on a high mountain. The reason is that they want to minimize the influence from the thick layer of air. This boat is like a spaceship out of the aerosphere. I have also seen the breathtakingly beautiful sky in the Rockies and the Andes. But I have never seen the Milky Way as clear as this.

I watched this long, strange cloud for six nights in a row. So I am definitely sure that it was the Milky Way. To tell the truth, the Milky Way is not one way. It branches into two ways at around 40 degrees in the south sky and runs north. The western way is cur at three or four places. Our planet is located in the edge of the Galaxy. I am seeing the whole shape of the Galaxy from the boat on the Amazon. Needless to say, the universe is three-dimensional. If the Milky Way looks like two parallel rivers, then our galaxy has, for example, the shape of the two bread of a hamburger. Is the middle layer of the disk-like Galaxy a vacant space? My common sense tells me that the center part of the disk must be denser like the earth. The universe is really mysterious.

The boat approached Manaus. The light of Manaus slightly brightened the dark sky ahead of us. The light gradually grew and illuminated the surface of the Amazon that was invisible in the darkness till then. Although Manaus was still 40km away, even the tiny waves over the Amazon became visible. I turned my eyes from the river surface to the night sky. The stars had already lost its brightness because of the light from the town. Nature is delicate. Even the dim light of Manaus can veil the stars in the night sky. There is a city Boa Vista 800km north of Manaus. The distance from here to Venezuela is about 200km. There is only one road from Manaus to Venezuela, which runs through Boa Vista. Rio Blanco flows along Boa Vista and merges into the Amazon in the south. So you can also go to Boa Vista from Manaus by boat. However, I went on my motorcycle, of course. The road runs through high trees of the jungle after leaving Manaus. The trees are cut and disappear in the range of several hundred meters on both sides of the road at the point of about 150km away from Manaus, and the jungle turns into grassland where cows graze. The scene like this basically continues till Boa Vista and from Boa Vista the jungle disappears beyond the horizon. However, there is a large reservation of indigenous people between. The reservation continues for 130km from the point of 200km from Manaus to the point of several ten km south of the equator and only this part is again an untouched jungle. In this reservation you cannot stop the car or motorcycle and must get out as soon as possible. The jungle seems to be protected by the indigenous people who reject civilization. I thought the deforestation in the Amazonian area is not so severe as is reported, but I began to doubt if it was right after the trip on this road. As even the small light from Manaus could erase the stars, our civilization may be damaging nature more seriously than we think.

(5) The BMW broke again

I heard that the condition of the road from Manaus to Venezuela would be good. In fact it was good at first. However, potholes appeared soon later and I couldn’t shift my gaze from the surface of the road. As I came closer to Boa Vista, the only city on this 1,000km-long road, the pavement became better and potholes decreased. Thanks to this, I speeded up to 110km/h in a happy frame of mind. I didn’t see the pothole, which was on the top of the uphill road. The bike jumped up, making a large racket. It happened 100km before Boa Vista.

I kept riding for a while and parked the bike under the shade of a tree to drink something cold. Whenever I park the BMW, people come to watch the unfamiliar motorcycle carefully, showing an appreciation of it. They did so that time as well. One of the men looked toward me and pointed at the slightly lower part of the center of the bike. I asked him away from the bike, “Something wrong?” He answered, “Yes”. I walked to the bike and had a look. The upper part of the driveshaft, which fixes the frame of the bike with a thick bolt, was ripped of and the bolt was exposed. I asked him where I would be able to get it welded by aluminum. He answered me there was a workshop at the entrance of Boa Vista. I slowed the bike down and rode carefully, not to give a shock to the bike. The welders told me that they would be able to fix it. I felt relieved. However, the young man who had been working with my bike suddenly disappeared. I asked about him to another welder and knew that he had gone to buy aluminum welding rods. I felt a little nervous. But anyway, the welding was finished although the welded part was very ugly. I paid about US$10 and left there for the center of the city, thanking them many times. I found a hotel with a large parking. As soon as I parked the bike in front of the hotel, a motorcycle rider came. I talked to him for a while and went into the parking. When I tried to unload the luggage from the bike, I found that the red plastic case of the taillight was missing. I thought I would have to spend time on finding a motorcycle shop. Then the owner of the hotel walked to me to tell that the rider at the hotel entrance was waiting for me to talk. The rider invited me to the meeting of the riders in Boa Vista that would be held that night. Needless to say, I accepted his invitation. I asked him the location of a motorcycle shop, by the way. He led me to a motorcycle gear shop. Thanks to him I could easily find an acceptable plastic case.

Next morning, I asked the hotel attendant where was a motorcycle shop. A man on a bicycle, who was listening my story next to him, took me to a shop. He rode his bicycle ahead of me, sweating a lot. Brazilians are really kind. The name of the shop was Suzuki. I showed the broken part to two of the mechanics. The two told me that it was easily broken again because it had been welded by a usual method and that it should be welded by using argon gas. There were only two or three places to do it in Boa Vista. One of the mechanics immediately called the places and went out with the broken part. He came back and told me there was only one place that would be able to fix and would do it the next day even on Sunday. Luckily the motorcycle shop would also be open as there would be a motocross race. I left the motorcycle shop for my hotel, telling them I would be back at eight in the morning the next day. Ybson Costa Fernandes, one of the mechanics, arrived at the shop by his car. As soon as he saw me, he told me it mattered if the welder would be at the workshop or not. I answered him, “But, the man told us yesterday that he would do it today!” He seemed to doubt it. Ybson called the welder several times to his cellular phone, but there was no answer. So he took me to the workshop by his car. As I worried, we were told that the welder had gone somewhere on the previous night and didn’t come back yet. “Indeed, this is Latin America!”

I went to the Suzuki at eight in the morning on Monday as well. Ybson called the welder and the man came to the shop soon later. He told us we would have to take away every part near the place to be welded from the motorcycle. It is never easy to do so for the BMW. The other three to four mechanics helped us. Moreover, they gave me cold juice and drinking water and coffee many times. They were truly warm-hearted.

Before noon, taking apart of the bike was finished at last. A pickup truck was ready. I wondered how they would load the heavy BMW onto the truck. Then, four to five mechanics came together and lift the bike on the truck. They showed their sturdy arms to me, saying that with those muscles they didn’t need any tools. The mechanics told me that they would thicken the broken part because the original part of the BMW was too thin and accordingly fragile. So I thought a thicker part with the same shape would be made out of a block of aluminum. However, the welder began to fill the empty hole of the bolt left beneath the ripped-off upper part. He mounded that part by welding. I came to know that this method is easier and can make it stronger. Two hours later the broken part was recovered as neat as the original state. I paid $35 for this work. I imagined a large sum of money I would have had to pay in Japan or in the USA. Four or five of us loaded the bike on the truck again and took it back to the Suzuki. Ybson cut an internal screw into the mound formed by welding. Just before the closing time of five, a customer visited the shop and complained to Ybson, “Why isn’t my bike ready?!” Ybson answered matter-of-factly, “I have been working with this BMW”. He gave priority to a traveler who would leave for somewhere and never return rather than a steady customer. I appreciated what he had done for me. Besides this repair, I had the engine oil, the driveshaft liquid and the pads for the rear brake changed, and the air filter cleaned. Ybson also adjusted something hidden under the chassis to untighten the clutch lever. The low revolution of 500 rpm at idle was somehow increased to a proper 1000 rpm during the repair. The break of the chassis must have been an appeal from the BMW that needed maintenance.

The man who seemed to be the owner of the Suzuki said, “The stupid thing like this never happens to Japanese motorcycles. Send this ripped-off part to the BMW, Toru”. I heard another BMW that left Boa Vista for the south on the same road not long before had the same accident. The break of gear of the clutch disk in Santiago and another break of the injector in Patagonia were serious. However, I got the gear of the clutch replaced with a Japanese one. I hope the part welded by aluminum of this time will endure the roughest road. Both the weld of the supporting parts of the windshield and the reinforced support of one of the pannier cases are not broken yet. My BMW has gradually acquired the specifications for South America.

Without this accident, I had the idea of heading straight toward Venezuela after staying in Boa Vista for two nights. But, as the accident gave me a time to wait, I read the guidebook. It writes that a tourist card allows you to enter Venezuela, but that it’s not sure if the card is given at the border. I talked about this to Ybson. He told me I should get it in Boa Vista. So I postponed my departure by a day and went to the Venezuelan consulate near the Suzuki. The Venezuelan tourist card was not a usual one that you fill the form. It required the signature of the consul and was like a proper visa. The injection against yellow fever was necessary as well for getting the tourist card.