Pay a toll to the ferryman, cross the Xingu River, and you pass a stretch of the Trans-Amazonian Highway that feels as if it is paved with bad intentions. From Anapu to Belo Monte, the 86-mile road – a small portion of the nearly 2,500-mile highway – has passed by some of the most violent communities, disrupted waterways and degraded land in the Amazon.
For most of the two-and-a-half-hour drive, the hillsides on both sides of the road have almost more cows than trees. The land is so purged of foliage and wildlife that it is hard to believe this is a passage through the world’s biggest rainforest. It looks more like an endless ranch. The other side of the river is even worse, as this is the site of the biggest hydroelectric dam in the Amazon – a Mordor-esque rampart of concrete behind which lies a cemetery of thousands of white trees drowned by the reservoir.
