WE MADE THE FLIGHT - BUT JUST BARELY
By Bob Van Leer

  (MANAUS, BRAZIL, OCT 11, 1990) - It is 2:30 a.m. and the temperature in our room at the Hotel Amazonas must be about 100 degrees even with the air conditioner on.

  From our ninth floor balcony we can see ocean going ships at the harbor just a block away.

  Manaus is nearly a thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean but the elevation is only 60 feet and the Amazon is the biggest river in the world so this is an ocean port. Manaus, a city of over a million population, is the major city of the Amazon River. A garbage truck rolled by on the street with three boys aged about 10-12 years old working on the back.

SCIENTISTS BURNING SOME JUNGLE
By Bob Van Leer

  (MANAUS, BRAZIL, OCT. 12, 1990) - Last night I slept in a hammock in the Amazon rain forest. Yesterday 16 of our party of 19 on the National Newspaper Association study mission boarded a bus to take advantage of an opportunity to spend a day at a research camp operated by the Smithsonian Institution, in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, in the jungle north of Manaus.

  The camp is on the DiMona Ranch 43 miles, and a two hour drive, north of Manaus. Three of the party, including Betty, who is still taking it easy because of an operation, stayed in Manaus. The rest of us boarded a bus and headed north.

  Paving on the road stopped almost at the city limits. From there the unpaved road runs 1000 kilometers north to Venezuela with almost no services available. (A kilometer is .621 miles).

  Our guide told us that few residents of Manaus go into the jungle. To do so requires a car or boat ad most people here to do not have that kind of money.

  At the ranch we shifted form a bus to four wheel drive vehicles for the balance of the trip, about a half hour drive over jeep tracks to the camp. The camp itself was little more than two tin roofs at the edge of the jungle.

NEW AMAZONAS GOVERNOR SAYS "MAN IS CENTER"
By Bob Van Leer

  (MANAUS, BRAZIL, OCT. 13, 1990) - Today our party attended part of Forest 90, the First International Symposium on Environmental Studies on Tropical Rain Forests.

  The symposium was held at the Tropical Hotel, a five star hotel on the Rio Negros at the edge of Manaus. I sat in on part of the general session but it was conducted in Portuguese so there was not much gained there. This was the last day of the conference and we were fortunate in getting a briefing of the activities from Dr Dorival Correia Bruni, chairman of the conference, and John Maddock professor at the State University of Rio de Janiero, a conference organizer.

  Maddock said the conference was structured to produce a final document with positive recommendations, mainly to the Brazilian government but also to a general audience about the problems. He said there was strong consensus in some areas but not in others.

  The strongest consensus is that fiscal incentives to clearing the jungle without a definite end purpose for the clearing need to be dropped. Maddock said the government has cut some incentives already but all incentives for deforestation should be removed.

NEGROS AND SOLIMOES COME TOGETHER
By Bob Van Leer

  (MANAUS, BRAZIL, OCT. 14, 1990) - Yesterday evening we went to dinner at a seafood restaurant, Timonares, and had more of the tambaqui fish, which is one of the better fish I have ever eaten, and a fish with a red flesh, good, but not as good as tambaqui. We were hungry when we arrived at the restaurant because the power at our hotel went off just before we were leaving.

  We had to hike down from the ninth floor. On the return trip three of the cabs carrying our party stopped side by side at a red light. The cabbies started needling one another, accompanied by obscene hand signals, and when the light changed the race was on.

VENEZUELA WEALTHY, RICH IN OIL

By Bob Van Leer

  (CARACAS, BRAZIL, OCT. 15, 1990) - Betty and I arrived in Caracas in the wee hours of the morning with our NNA Study Mission group after a 2.5 hour flight on Aero Boliviano. Around the world it doesn't matter much what country's airline you fly on. Most of them fly Boeing airplanes. This one was a 727-200.

  We left Manaus at 2:25 a.m. and arrived in Caracas a little before our scheduled 4:55 a.m. arrival time. We were bused to our hotel, the Caracas Hilton, which one of our party said is the largest hotel in South America. The Amazonas Hotel in Manaus tried hard, but it is an old hotel and just doesn't compare to the Caracas Hilton.

  A week ago we would have described the weather in Caracas as hot. But after a few days in the sweltering heat of the humid Amazon rain forest, Caracas is cool. The hotel is really first class and the air conditioning tends to keep the room too cool, a problem we didn't have in Manaus.

  After checking in, the dining room was open and we had breakfast before heading for bed. There was time for only three hours sleep before our first appointment at noon.

SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH PRES. PEREZ

By Bob Van Leer

  (LEAVING CARACAS, BRAZIL, OCT. 17, 1990) - Our party of 19 from the National Newspaper Association boarded an Avianca (Venezuelan) Airline plane for a 7 a.m. flight to Panama City. The flight is just over two hours flying time.

  The Venezuelans really rolled out the red carpet for us. Yesterday we started with an hour-long meeting with President Carlos Andres Perez. This was followed with briefings by two cabinet ministers and their staffs and the day's activities concluded with a meeting with the state-owned oil company, one of the largest businesses in the world. Press coverage has been the same.

AMBASSADOR WORKING TO REPLACE HOUSING

By Bob Van Leer

  (PANAMA CITY, PANAMA, OCT. 17, 1990) - Most of today was spent in meeting with U.S. Ambassador Deane Hinton, our Central American trouble shooter, and Guillermo A. Cochez, Mayor of Panama City.

  But first, after landing at the airport, we were driven on a tour of Panama City, the largest city in Panama.

  The city has a population of about 1.2 million people and the country about 2.3 million. It is a rather small country, about the size of South Carolina. This is a tropical country and the rainfall is high, 70 inches annually in Panama City, compared to over 80 in Gold Beach.

CANAL AN INCREDIBLE ENGINEERING JOB

By Bob Van Leer

  (PANAMA CITY, PANAMA, OCT. 18, 1990) - There are problems in Panama, and they predate the U.S. invasion Dec. 20. Theft appears to be a real problem. Windows on most buildings, including residences, are covered with bars.

  Street floor window air conditioners are encased in cages of bars. Better houses are all surrounded by walls and we saw one topped with broken glass set in concrete. The last place we saw this was South Africa. Prices are not cheap. Gas is $1.98 per gal. A sign on the hotel Coke machine says it is empty, there is a shortage of cans.

PERSONAL SECURITY A PANAMA PROBLEM

By Bob Van Leer

  (PANAMA CITY, PANAMA, OCT. 19, 1990) - "That's a bunch of crap". Col. Jack Prior, deputy commander of the U.S. Military Support Group, Southern Command, U.S. Army, lost his cool when I asked him to comment on reports from Panamanians that Gen. Noriega and his Panama Defense Force (PDF) were nurtured by the U.S. military.

  Prior, and his public relations aide responded that we don't have anyone on the payroll to violate human rights. Prior acknowledged that the Panama Canal treaty required the U.S. military to assist in readying Panama forces to take over protection of the canal.

  He said the U.S. did give the PDF training but in July, 1989, all assistance was suspended. Prior said in recent years Libya was training the PDF. Opinions from our group after the session were that the colonel protested too much.

  Our only meeting today was with Col. Prior at Ft. Amador in a building turned over to Panama in 1979 as part of Pres. Jimmy Carter's Panama Canal treaty. The building is just across the street from the U.S. Southern Command headquarters. Southcom, as the Southern Command is know, is responsible for Central America, south of Mexico, and all of South America.