"O Boto Cor-de-Rosa" (The Pink Dolphin)

The pink dolphins are not cartoon characters nor are they to be compared with pink elephants. Well, they can be cartoon characters. In “The Conjunction of the Realms (Part One)” the pink dolphins play a huge part in helping transport the humans to the world of imagination, but in the case of Paulo Cardoso or in our material world, they are real dolphins.

For those who have not yet read the book, Paulo Cardoso made a few documentaries on preservation projects in his homeland of Brazil. One of his films, titled in Portuguese, “O Boto Cor-de-Rosa,” featured Brazilian ecologists’ efforts to save the pink dolphins of the Amazon river, not only rare at the time but also endangered. For those who have never heard of these fresh water mammals, they are called Pink Amazon River Dolphins because of a light pink tinge in their almost white skin pigmentation. The ecological project, supported by Paulo’s documentary, gave birth to legends and stories that would educate the next generation of Brazilian children on the importance of preserving our earth’s interconnected systems. In fact, Paulo’s documentary was so successful that today he states with a sigh of relief that the pink dolphin has been removed from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Resources’ Red List of Endangered Species.

On one of his recent trips to the Amazon forest, Paulo shot a large amount of footage for his new documentary “The Encounter of the Waters.” The encounter of the waters is an unexplainable phenomena where the dark waters of the Negro river and the lighter muddy waters of the Solimões river first collide, then run parallel to each other without mixing for approximately six kilometers (or three and a half miles) and finally join together to form the great Amazon river. The trip required that Paulo contract a small helicopter to get some aerial shots where the contrasting colors of the rivers could be well depicted on screen. After being in the air for a couple of hours, Paulo joined his two-man crew on the small, motorized boat to travel up the Negro River towards Janauari, an ecological park filled with streams and lakes. Paulo, his cinematographer, and their assistant traveled in the small, motorized boat up the Negro River for almost a full day and finally arrived at the ecological park. To his utmost delight, a large pack of pink dolphins, larger than he had ever seen, was at play on the other side of the riverbed. A sight that would have been so rare in the early 1990’s was now more prominent, thanks to his and many others’ efforts to save the happy, playful creatures. Paulo motioned to his camera guy to document the beautiful aquatic ballet. A sighting such as this is simply extraordinary. Every piece of footage on the fresh water creatures is valuable and irreplaceable; Paulo captured every movement of the dolphins provoking each other to good fun while they splashed, jumped, and dove in the river waters innumerous times.

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The Legend of the Vitoria Regia

Paulo Cardoso is one of the characters in The Conjunction of the Realms series.  Paulo came from the southernmost parts of Brazil and arrived in Northern Ireland as an exchange student during secondary school. Upon graduating, he went to the University of Ulster to get a degree in film. Paulo now has his own film production company. His famous documentaries require constant travel throughout Europe, Africa, Indonesia, and mainly South America. One beautiful documentary by Paulo Cardoso reports on the Vitoria Regia, the most peculiar and largest water-lily in the world, indigenous to the Amazon region. The Vitoria Regias vary from one hundred and forty to one hundred and eighty centimeters or four to six feet in diameter, and can hold up to forty-five kilograms or one hundred pounds. A child can sit in the middle of the plant and neither the plant nor the child will sink. The Brazilian Indian tribe Tupi-Guarani has a legend explaining the origin of this unique water plant (to listen to the legend, instead of read it, you can go to SoundCloud®).

“It was said of the moon goddess, Iaci, that she was known for her majestic presence in the heavens inspiring young native women to fall in love. The legend also tells how the young women who loved and were loved the most, eventually became a shiny star, glamorizing the heavens with their brilliance. Naia, the chief’s daughter and princess of the Tupi tribe, became so enthralled with this legend that every full-moon night, she would climb the hills to be closer to heaven and cry out to Iaci, longing for love. One night, Naia looked down from the top of the hill and saw Iaci’s reflection on the waters of a calm lake, as if spending countless hours contemplating her own beauty. The splendor of that reflection convinced the young Indian that the moon had heard her cry and descended from heaven to bathe in the pristine lake. This was Naia’s chance to be closer than ever to Iaci, when she, too, could be stricken by love and be transformed into a bright, shiny star. In no time, the princess ran down the hill and threw herself into the illuminant waters, in hopes to touch the celestial being. The deeper she swam, the further she became from Iaci; eventually, Naia was overtaken by the waters and drowned to her death. Iaci, moved by the girl’s unfortunate tragedy, was unable to transform Naia into a star in heaven, so she transformed her into a different kind of star: the magnificent ‘Star of the Waters,’ also known as the Vitoria Regia. Thus was born the aquatic plant and its exquisite flower that only blooms during the full-moon, exuding unique, sweet perfume; the flower’s petals are first white to reflect the moonlight; the following morning, the petals turn pink and then red when they finally wither, after only three days.”

The lake from which the legend originates is to this day called “Mirror of the Moon,” and it is located near the Amazonas and Pará states border.