Travel broadens the mind so we are told, but after 30 hours and five legs by plane, mine was feeling not so much broadened as flattened. Aracaju is a city of about half a million people in the north east of Brazil about 2000 kilometres north of Sao Paulo. Getting there from Sydney is a marathon via Aukland, Santiago, Sao Paulo and Salvador.

On the last leg from Salvador, the plane, reminiscent of a former Ansett carrier, was full to bursting, the numbers of people swollen by delegates to the combined meetings of the XIX Congresso Brasileiro de Paleontologia and VI Congresso Latino-Americano de Paleontologia to be held in the Resort and Convention Centre, Parque dos Coqueiros, Aracaju. At one o’clock in the morning Aracaju airport was a hive of boisterous activity as old friends caught up with each other and new friends were made.

Even though the trip was daunting, even getting on the plane in the first place presented some unexpected obstacles. My travel agent at home had cheerfully advised that a visa was not required for Australians travelling to Brazil for a short interval. A nagging doubt led me to the Brazilian Embassy homepage to discover that, yes indeed, visas are most certainly required even for a short stay. They are not required for those travelling on a UK or New Zealand passport. Fortunately, with the support of the conference organisers and the understanding of the Brazilian Consul General in Sydney, my visa was processed in record time and just before I stepped on the first of many planes. Geerat Vermaij, the famous US blind palaeontologist who bases all his descriptive work on mollusc shells with his fingers was due to attend, but was foiled by a last minute visa complication.

Apart from the fact that both Brazil and Australia were once part of Gondwana, there are some other remarkable similarities between the two nations. Both cover a large geographical area with their majority of their populations clustered on the eastern seaboard and a relatively underpopulated interior. As a result we both share a strong beach and surf culture. Both are vibrant multicultural nations. Both have a history of European migration (500 years for Brazil and 200 for Australia) that has had an impact on indigenous cultures. Both have a planned inland capital (Brasilia and Canberra).

My hosts at the congress Fernanda Torello de Mello, and her husband, Luiz, were part of the noisy throng at the airport. The travel distance between South America and Australia is so great, despite our shared heritage in Earth history, that we could only conclude that plate tectonics has been shifting the continents around the planet far to swiftly and some effort was required to reunite the former supercontinent. While this might be beyond the scope of the conference, the general feeling is that not much else will be.

After some much needed sleep, the sun rose on Aracaju to reveal the Convention Centre a buzz with palaeontologists. The Centre is right next to Atalia beach, a long stretch of tropical Atlantic coastline dotted with oil platforms in the distance. The national oil company, Petrobas is a major sponsor of the conference.

So as long as I can stay awake there is time to explore the local region today, before the conference opens this evening and before we explore palaeontology and education tomorrow.

Saqui monkey

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