“Glass Night”, Dom Bosco church, Brasilia, Brazil

On our big trip round South America a few years ago we did this fairly crazy stop over in Brasilia. We arrived on an overnight bus in the morning and we left on an overnight bus in the evening. It is one of those modern concept cities where everyone has a metal box with four wheels and no legs. Not our sort of thing at all as we tried to walk to all of its sites. One place we did come across was the different and beautiful Dom Bosco church. It is a non conventional but still beautiful church, a cube of concrete and stained glass windows but luckily more of the latter. The four sides are occupied by tall long stained glass window. Nearly all of them are blue with white bits meant to represent the stars in the night sky. In each corner however there is a glass panel where the blue is replaced by the shades of pink/mauve and these represent the early morning. In the day you can admire these glass windows from inside the church but in the evening if there is a service you can enjoy it from outside as the enormous “lamp” provides enough light. You can buy this image from our website http://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk.

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The Pantanal Brazil – Still Pink, The setting sun over the Pantanal

My partner and I have been very lucky to have traveled a bit and one of the places we went to was the Pantanal in Brazil. This area is the world’s largest tropical wetland area. As such it is a very diverse place for fauna and flora. We took this beautiful photo on one of the days we were there. You can buy a copy of it from our website http://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk. Unfortunately, 99% of the Pantanal is privately owned for ranching and agriculture with perhaps 8 million or more cattle now eating it. Such heavy farming is bound to degrade this very special area and we hear so many verbal alarm bells from conservationists and scientists that most humans become immune, feel powerless or simply don’t care. There are some very simple numbers regarding us, humanity, and we can’t face them. So at the risk of repeating myself one more time. When we entered this inter-glacial (and exited what was probably NOT the last ice age) period some 15,000 years ago there were supposedly 5,000,000 of us. In terms of our “clean” water all of them would have been without it. Now there are more than 7,000,000,000 of us and still increasing and 780,000,000 of that very large number do not have access to “clean” water. As our politicians and nations kick the ball of climate change around while corporations and big business stop them aiming for a goal of living within the planet’s means there seems little hope of survival for beautiful places like the Pantanal. Think about the numbers, those 780,000,000 have every right to a decent life so how much concrete are we going to have to pour and steel are we going to have to make to give these people water, housing, roads, schools, hospitals and everything else that goes with our modern life. And it is not as if we have levelled off in our numbers for our global population is still increasing. I personally think it is time for a one child policy for the entire planet until we can get ourselves down to a reasonable number where we aren’t fouling our own nest. If we don’t then in a couple of generations those children will have as much chance of seeing some of the species of the Pantanal as they will of seeing a dinosaur.

Close to the edge – following the water as it tumbles over Iguazu Falls

If you have never been to Iguazu Falls then it is well worth a visit especially if there is a lot of water as this can vary. And if you love butterflies but don’t mind them drinking the sweat from your skin then it also the place for you. The colour and variety of them is simply amazing. You will need two days to visit Iguazu, one day on the Brazilian side and one on the Argentine side. It is truly an awe inspiring site to see the power of nature as the water slowly erodes the rocks.  This photo was taken from one of the walkways and it shows the edge where the water suddenly descends and crashes below. We do sell this photograph and many others on our website www.junagarhmedia.co.uk.