Fordlandia

Fordlandia is a town of vultures, ghosts and thick red mud. The people that live there are tough and very friendly. I loved it.

To get to Fordlandia, the fast boat take five hours. Five.

Super guide Gil Serique

The fast boat. This is a larger boat - with the option to sit outside in the back and have a smoke or just enjoy the view with the wind in your hair - than the one we caught going back, which was completely enclosed and slightly claustrophobic. By hour five I was ready to jump through a window.

Selfie on the back of the boat

Seeing Fordlandia at last, with its signature water tower

The town, from the water

Our host for our Fordlandia stay, owner of Pousada Americana, Guilherme

The waterfront warehouse

Catholic church, overlooking the square and riverfront

Small sample of a rubber tree forest

These Michigan-made fire hydrants are part of the original town plan and still work today

The square features this statue of "Henry Ford" tapping a rubber tree, although he never set foot here

FMC - Ford Motor Company

One of a million house photos I took

This was the bakery back in the day

The houses are American style houses as per Henry Fords instructions. These are the workers homes.

The factory, which everyone comes to photograph. At least us locos that love this sort of historical stuff. On the day we wanted to go in, we were denied permission.

An inn, in the Vila Americana, where the American bosses had their homes, on a hill and pretty fancy

Here you can make out the remains of a swing set and a swimming pool, next to the former inn.

One of the Vila Americana homes

Every entrance had a metal scraper like this one to scrape off the thick red mud before entering ones house

You can see that this was an impressive street, with enormous trees lining it. Crumbling sidewalks also

I included three photos of this kid since he looked so much like Obama! Do you see the resemblance?

The latex flowing

Rubber tree

"Duca" lives by himself and is surrounded by all sorts of Fordlandia bits and pieces that he has collected throughout the years. Here, he has prepared some brazil nuts

The cemetery at Fordlandia. Only Brazilians were buried here. Any American that died would have his body shipped back to the US.

I found a grave of Gil's relatives

People on the left side are those that died without being baptized or that were not catholics, so a lot of children buried there.

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