fionaistravelling

Happy New Government Day 5th July 2024.  .  I'm back in Sao Luis now - I was here for a month in April and HAD to come back for their amazing Sao Joao festival. Here's a video showing a tiny bit of a Bumba Meu Boi play .... 100 different community groups in the state of Maranhao put on their own versions of this play, all telling the same story, all totally different. (A trip to Sao Luis in June is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, tell me if you want to come here and I'll join you!) As regular readers will know,  I am doing a particular sort of 'participative tourism' as far as I can and was actually IN a Bumba Meu Boi play last week...(!) As well as - visiting museums and art galleries, - going to carnival in Salvador, - climbing mountains way out of my comfort zone in Chapada Diamantina, - being part of a sunset candlelit boat procession at the Festejo de Divino Espirito Santo in Alvaraes near Tefe, and - watching the Corpus Cristi procession in Cusco, I've - bee

It's two years today 6th June, as I'm putting the finishing touches to this blog post, since Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered in the  Brazilian Amazon, by people involved in illegal fishing.   And a lot of things changed on that date.  MANY environmental defenders and journalists have been murdered before and since, but their deaths were widely reported and have had - and continue to have - wide repercussions throughout Brazil and through the world.   The issues continue.... here's an  article about the ongoing danger for environmental journalists , and here's an article about the Dom Phillips Foundation  being set up by Dom's widow Ale who I was lucky enough to meet when I was in Salvador in March this year.  For those who don't know, Dom's sister Sian was my choir leader for ten years and I play music with her; and her speech at her brother's funeral  committing to keep Dom's message alive inspired me to organise a festival about the Am

  For a person who doesn’t make any plans day to day, my days are absolutely full, and up to today the only time I've had properly as Rest  Times are the 2 day or 4 day boat trips or the overnight buses....  Today I am in Yurimaguas in Peru, somewhere between Iquitos and Lima.  I arrived on a boat this morning at 10 am and the bus to Lima goes at 4 am tomorrow morning, so I am having an enforced rest day - and it's wonderful!  Finally having time to add the pix to this blog that I wrote about a week ago, sat around scrolling through my phone, went on a tiny walk round the town which, by the way, had more icrecream shops in the course of a ten minute walk than I'd ever seen before... it wasn't my icrecream day but I felt it would be rude not to try one.  And I also bought some very sweet necklaces (the blue beads will go perfectly with my blue beach dress when I'm dressing it up, and the others are just very lovely...)  In most of the towns I’ve been in, there’s