Interview: Michael Palin on Brazil

Michael Palin BrazilHe’s trekked to the North and South Poles, traversed the Sahara Desert and climbed the Himalayas. But despite visiting all seven continents, there was one glaring omission on Michael Palin’s visited-countries map: Brazil. So why had it slipped through the net for so long?

“I can’t think how I managed to miss the fifth-biggest country in the world,” Michael says, “and I wasn’t really planning to do another series after New Europe. We’d done all seven continents and thought that was a fair place to stop. But then everybody started talking about Brazil, partly because the World Cup is going to be there in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, then there’s the huge economic boom that has put its economy above the UK’s.”

Brazil was fast becoming one of the most talked-about countries in the world, but what provided the spark for the comedian-turned-explorer’s latest trip, one that would inspire a book and a four-part BBC TV series?

“It was partly curiosity, partly a feeling that I’ve got to see Brazil and see it now before everyone else gets there,” Michael explains. “We wanted to do a short series that would go out immediately after the Olympics in the UK, when people would begin asking what the next host country will be like. Before I left I knew very little about Brazil – I had images of beaches and samba, but there’s a lot more to it than that, as I discovered.”

So how to tackle a country approximately twice the size of India, occupying half of South America; a nation of three time zones and five ecosystems?

“We decided to go north-south and divide the four programmes into geographical and cultural entities,” Michael explains. “It seemed to work quite well because the north-east, from the coastal area of São Luís right down to Salvador, has a very distinct culture. There’s a wonderful African influence – music, bright outfits, drumming bands, food – all influenced by the slave culture in that part of the world.

“Then there’s the interior, which is dark and mysterious and nobody lives there. It’s vast – even though it was hard we managed to cover quite a bit of ground. Then Rio had to be done; a city that really needs its own programme, but we managed to also include the mining area to the city’s north – a very important place because it’s where Brazil’s wealth was created several hundred years ago. Even now, it’s still producing an enormous amount of iron ore, gold and bauxite, and that’s helped keep Rio rich.

Michael Palin Brazil“The last programme just fell into place. It covers Sao Paulo, the biggest city in the southern hemisphere, and southern Brazil, which is completely different from other areas with its European and Japanese influence. It’s strikingly different from the African Brazil.”

With a passion for people as well as places, Palin has fostered a reputation as the ideal travel companion; a man whose gentle curiosity enables him to connect with people of all backgrounds, from the forest-dwelling Yanomami tribe to the city’s gay pride-celebrating transvestites. So what did the explorer discover about Brazilians and their position in one of the planet’s fastest-changing countries?

“Brazilians seem very content with their life as it is,” Michael says. “They live very much for the day – you can’t talk to them much about the years ahead or even the past; they live very much for now.

“But interestingly enough, I talked to a young professional family in Rio [a conversation documented in the book but not in the TV series] and they’re quite worried about the economic boom. Property in the city is becoming very expensive – a lot of foreigners are buying up houses to rent out when the World Cup and Olympics happen, and they said it’s making things prohibitively expensive for young couples. They also spoke of the relatively poor education in Brazil – they have to send their children to private school, which is costing them a lot of money.

“So in Brazil’s booming economy, people seem just as strapped for cash as they are in our flat-lining economy. Whether that will affect the nation’s mood when the World Cup and Olympics happen I’m not sure – they’ll certainly be great parties and entertainment from a nation that knows how to enjoy itself.”

Having experienced Brazil’s landscape and population first-hand, is the explorer’s most striking memory influenced by place or people, or perhaps a mixture of both?

“Being on the transvestites and transsexuals bus was quite a weird one,” Michael jokes. “I was slightly jetlagged and I thought I was dreaming – was this really happening? That was unforgettable, but the most memorable moment was going into the rainforest for the first time. We knew the Yanomami were in the north, so we landed at a little airstrip and walked through the forest for an hour where they lived.

Rio de Janeiro“That journey was fantastic, what travelling is all about. You go from your own comfort zone to something quite different – you’re not sure what you’re going to find at the end of the trail, yet it’s so beautiful with the sunshine coming from the trees. You realise how important it is to reserve places like these – what a wonderful place to live.”

With his feet now firmly back on British soil, what now for the man who’s travelled to just about every destination on Earth? Will another far-flung destination tickle his fancy anytime soon?

“I’ve no plans at the moment – ideas tend to come out of the blue,” Michael says. “Brazil wasn’t meant to happen, but suddenly everyone was talking about it, so I had to go there. But I’d love to go to the Middle East – there’s so much history to explore. It’s a difficult area to visit because you have to get all sorts of permissions and of course there are wars on, but I think that’s all the more reason to go – just because there’s a state of crisis it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people there who want to be talked to.”

You can meet Michael Palin at our Long Acre store on Wednesday (5th December), when he’ll be signing copies of Brazil. For further information, see our events page.

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