Imaging Brazil 359: Fish in ZOO Aquarium, BELO HORIZONTE (MG)

A personal selection of photographs with their stories.

359: ZOO aquarium

The Zoo in Belo Horizonte, located at Lake Pampulha, attracts many visitors. They admire the gorillas, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, lions, and many more. Since 2010, they also can visit another part that is focused on freshwater  marine life, which represent part of the São Francisco River, Brazil’s third largest river. The river, nicknamed  ‘Velho Chico (‘Old Frank’)’, originates from a spring in the state of Minas Gerais and ends in the Atlantic Ocean at the border between the states of Alagoas and Sergipe. The river is heavily polluted, and big efforts are made to clean that mess. Gradually, the river becomes indeed cleaner. One of the Zoo aquariums is filled with 450 thousand liters of water, and hosts a number of fish. The fish in the picture is swimming in that giant fish tank, called ‘São Francisco tank’.

© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2012, 2017

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Imaging Brazil 185: Bridge on the São Francisco River, PE (2008)

A personal selection of photographs with their stories.

185. Bridge 

JANUARY 2008: Bridge

It was a long and adventurous bus trip from Belo Horizonte to Fortaleza, capital of the state Ceará. On the way to Fortaleza, which lasted no less than four days, we visited the beach resorts of Porto de Galinhas, Praia de Pipa, and Canoa Quebrada. The return trip was much shorter, only two days. From the capital, the highway across the arid landscape of the state of Ceará was followed. The bus drivers insisted to leave early in the morning, in order to reach the border with the state of Pernambuco before sunset. The highway Ceará was known to have frequent raids happening, especially at night. It was very hot that day, we had put all the windows wide open for some ventilation. The landscape was surprisingly interesting and varied, and I shot hundreds of photos of it. The sun was about to set, when we finally reached the São Francisco River that formed the border with Pernambuco. There was a bridge under construction, but the bus was – like the cars and even trucks – transported by ferry across the wide river. We had to wait patiently for the arrival of the ferry, before we could continue our way home.

 

© Adriano Antoine Robbesom 2008, 2016