Jim Scarth

Sunday evening. Went back down to river front and met Gil Serique (above with Samuel and Gabriel). Gil is a guide and seems to know everyone who passes through Santarem - incl Prince Charles recently. He helps to organise the Jungle Marathon (see T shirt in Alter do Chao blog below). This year was held a month ago in Otober and one of the runners - Brit SAS - was hospitalised. The marathon is over a 210 km course over 5 days. He was a guide for The Jungle Marathon (a book out this year by Mark Hines) and also for The Thief At the End of the World (Joe Jackson) which is about the Brit who stole 70 seringuera seeds to start rubber planatation in Far East, and also the book Fordlandia (Greg Grandlin). Gil's brother Flavio (died 3 years ago) also went to Leeds Univ in 1990/1 on a Chevening Scholarship. He studied linguistics and on his return set up a language school which is still operating. Gil has produced a useful Guide to Amazon Birds, and gave me a copy.
In the evening at Samuels we watched a couple of music DVDs. Samuel is a great fan of Brit rock in the 70s - esp Yes & King Crimson. Interesting DVd about Choro - said to be the first Brazilian music, a kind of Brazilian jazz as it includes improvisation. Also, Lenine who is a famous Brazilian rock artist - and very good, too.