33. Discovering the Amazon

My first impression, discovering the Amazon, with respect, I must say: how can the sea swallow, without ever overflowing, this immense mass of liquid that, incessantly, brutally, eternally, violates it?

Along Belém´s harbor, carpeted with clear sand, the stalls line up very close to the water, spaced out at first, but closer and closer together as they approach the market and the small bay where sailboats touch land. Fruit and vegetable vendors nap under a sky devoured by light. The tacacazeira¹ , from dawn to dusk, prepares her peculiar dish. Hardly ever is there a district, or even a street that doesn’t have its tacacazeira.

In the squares surrounded by old aristocratic mansions, we see, at tea time, the elegant ladies of the vicinity line up waiting to get their tacacá bowls, which they enjoy steaming hot, as expected, sitting on a bench, indispensable accessory of the stall.
1. A woman that prepares and sells tacacá, a typical dish from the Brazilian Amazon region.