Belterra
Roughly a hundred years ago, Belterra would have been a busy river port. It was the staging ground for Henry Ford’s great Amazon experiment. In the 1930s, ships docked here heavy with machinery, supplies, and workers on their way upriver to build Fordlândia. Back then, the town was also becoming “Americanized,” with houses, offices, and parks for workers and families.
Today it is just another small Brazilian town. The streets, town square, water tower, and houses remain, some of the houses are beautifully kept and maintained. Its role as gateway long since faded, a handful of old buildings still stand as reminders of its past, while life now is simpler—and a whole lot slower.
To get there I hadn’t even looked at the distance and was a little surprised to discover it was just over 350km, google maps estimating a 5 hour slog from Belterra inland. The first 200 km gave us pavement, but the last 150 were rough and dusty, cutting straight through the jungle.
Our speed dropped to 25 km/h. Every so often the trees broke to reveal a tiny settlement—clusters of wooden houses with hammocks swinging on porches, kids shouting and waving, motioning for us to toot the horn as we rolled past. Only Bruce sounds more like a car than the burly beast it is. Mostly though, it was endless forest, with the occasional patch of cattle pasture carved out of the green.
Henry Ford’s Vision
In 1928, the forest was cleared to make way for Fordlândia—Henry Ford’s ambitious plan to secure his own supply of rubber for the booming auto industry while recreating a slice of small-town America in the Amazon. He built tidy wooden houses, a hospital, a school, even a golf course—his vision of a model Midwestern community transplanted into the rainforest.
But the jungle had other ideas. The rubber trees, planted too close together, quickly fell prey to pests and leaf blight. Workers grew restless under the strict diets, rigid routines, and cultural rules imposed by Ford’s managers, sparking strikes and even riots. Costs spiraled, production collapsed, and by 1945 the dream was abandoned—leaving behind one of the most costly misadventures in Ford’s history.
Fordlândia
1 September. We arrived just before sunset, found a quiet spot to park down by the river, grabbed a cold beer, and slipped into the water for a sunset dip. Too hot to cook in the truck, we settled for cold cuts and salad as the sky turned pink behind the jungle.
I hadn’t looked at the distance and was a little surprised to discover it was just over 350 km from Belterra. Which was a five-hour slog inland. The first 200 km gave us pavement, but the last 150 were rough and dusty, cutting straight through the jungle. The truck rattled over washboard stretches, red dust working its way into every crevice.
In the morning, with the heat already rising, we set out on foot to explore what was left of the old Ford buildings. Of the three big factory halls still standing, the one by the river had been turned into a parking garage, another into a workshop. The largest, though, was open for us to wander.
Inside it was a mess—cluttered with old junk, rusting vehicles, even some of the original beds salvaged from the long-gone hospital. Among the junk, still anchored in place, sat the original machinery. Abandoned and forgotten. Sad that nobody has stepped in to preserve these pieces of history, or turn them into a museum. Am sure that over the decades bit by bit everything has disappeared, all that stands now weighs too much to be taken.
The Zebu hotel & swimming pool
Sidewalks are crumbling with erosion, streets and curbs are broken, and the old houses sag with time. The Zebu hotel, names after a breed of cows being raised in the area at the time. The hotel is still standing but in rapid state of degradation, the jungle is slowly reclaiming this once popular hotel where visiting management staff would reside. The old swimming pool still remains. The big beautiful trees Ford had planted lining the streets a century ago are perhaps the only living witnesses to the experiment. The locals pass it all by without much thought, going about their day in the shadow of a dream that never belonged here.
With Ford’s faded dream behind us, we turned back to the road ahead.
Chance Meeting
Not long after, at a gas station stop, we crossed paths with a lively Brazilian couple who immediately stood out with their warm smiles and slight German accents. To our surprise, they also spoke perfect English and explained that their family roots trace back to German settlers in southern Brazil. With the same restless wanderlust that drives us, they’ve been exploring the world for the past eight years in their trusty little South Korean car—a vehicle that looked as if it had as many stories to tell as they did.
Though they were headed in the opposite direction, we lingered for nearly forty minutes, swapping road tales, travel tips, and plenty of laughs. Before parting ways, we exchanged contact information and snapped a few photos to capture the moment. Encounters like this—completely unexpected yet full of connection—are the kind of travel memories that stick.
Ever watchful for potholes and those spots where the road simply falls away!
Brazil’s Trans-Amazon Highway
From there, the road carried us onto the legendary Trans-Amazonian Highway. Like the 319, the 230 was built in the early 1970s under Brazil’s military government, it was meant to open the heart of the Amazon for settlement, farming, and—inevitably—logging. The vision was grand: a modern road cutting east to west across thousands of kilometers of jungle.
The reality, like so many mega-projects in the Amazon, was a mix of ambition and hardship. The forest was cleared, communities were uprooted, and the road itself was never fully paved. What remains today is a vast, scarred artery of rough clay and dust.
The stretch of several hundred km’s we drove was a a further bone-rattling test of endurance. The road rose and fell over endless hills, each turn covering us in plumes of iron-coloured dust. How on earth do people manage to live out here, with the roads in such unforgiving conditions and everything always coated in fine red powder.
The thought often crosses our minds about how much strain the truck can handle—she’s hardy, but not indestructible
Traffic was steady but slow, and every bump reminded us that the BR-230 was tougher than the infamous BR-319. For four or five days we crept along, shaking and rattling our way through the wilderness. By the time we emerged, both we and the truck were dust-stained and weary—but the old machine held up beautifully, the fuel line intact, still humming faithfully down the road.
Up next: another gem among Brazil’s most remarkable landscapes…but first we need a couple of days to relax.
1 Comment
Wonderful, Sarah…wonderful. You are getting a taste of what it’s like in much of Africa..:)
Hope the repairs are holding up. 🙏