Serra do Tepequém, Amajari, State of Roraima, Brazil
Not everything that nature shows we realize. Not everything she hides we do not realize. It all depends on having attention and eyes on what surrounds us. A fishery can yield much more than fish. It is enough for the fisherman to integrate with the nature that surrounds him. In Roraima, for example, there is no way to see one of the most beautiful tourist spots in the State, the Serra do Tepequém, or “Big Hat” for the Indians, at a short distance and along a very accessible road.
On the way to the mountains, the landscape changes with every kilometer rolled. The cerrado and the creeks that resemble the Pantanal gradually give way to the closed forest. Halfway between the capital Boa Vista and Tepequém is the Amajari, better known as Vila Brasil. A good portrait of most of the municipalities of Roraima: of the seven thousand residents of the municipality, only two thousand are in the village.
In the midst of so much green, an image of destruction in the name of a dream: washed earth and erosion are the results of almost eighty years of exploration of the mining. The diamonds were rare, the machines were taken away, but the last miners stand in Tepequem. Between one service and another on the farms, they insist on the quest for the big stone, addicted to the pursuit of wealth. If nature hides the big stone, it offers gifts to the locals and visitors. Fruits give as weeds. A natural pharmacy offers barks, roots and leaves. From the murici, for example, a refreshing juice is extracted; Of the sucrase, a “milk” that is antibiotic.
After the break, more climb. Always on foot, by narrow paths where, in the 30s and 40s, in the golden times of the garimpo, trains of oxen passed carrying goods to about ten thousand people. Getting to the top of Tepequém tires, but it makes up for it. From the top of the “big hat” you can see, in the distance, other smaller hills. And at the foot of Tepequem the great valley that once was a volcano crater. Millions of years later, nature has recovered from the lavas and transformed the region into an immense green area.
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