After the trees

"When construction of the Transamazon Highway was proposed in 1970, the Brazilian media depicted a road stretching out through a flat expanse of mature forests, its surface paved with glittering stones and precious metals - purported riches of the Amazon yet to be discovered." But, as Douglas Stewart found while traveling the highway in 1989, "the forest deceives." The 1,000-kilometer trip from Belem to Altamira took "three days, six buses, three boats, and a ten-hour hitch with a truck driver named Eduardo."