POSTCARD N.177 - SRI LANKA

Postcard sent on the 19th March, received on the 1st April 2025.

Postcard image: Nine Arch Bridge, Ella - Lanka. 

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Ravi sends me another great card from Sri Lanka. This time with another aerial view of what I hear is a quite famous bridge in the country, and which had also been previously covered in Postcard #145. Bohomȧ  sthoothi, Ravindra!

What I find amazing in this image is the general idea it lets one have of the scenery engulfing the viaduct. In fact as opposed to the also great image on postcard 145, the orographic accidents of the scenery and its overwhelming green nature, really lends the viewer an idea of the surroundings and of what an immensely difficult task it must have been to build such an imposing infrastructure in the early days of the 20th century.

Again, as I mentioned a propos the shot on postcard #145,  I cannot even imagine the impact on the image of a cloud of white smoke coming out of the locomotive on the photo, against all that deep green....ah, things were much harder and I am sure "those were not the days", but there is a beauty in steam locomotives that has yet to be matched...  😀

Ravindra had already sent me most of  the ten 15 Rupee stamps issued in minisheet form on 03FEB2020, celebrating World Wetlands Day, which is annually commemorated on that particular date.

On this particular postcard he was careful to use the 4 stamps on the set which he had not used before, a gesture I truly appreciate. As such, from left to right top to bottom, we have:

- Nipa Palm (Nipa fruticans), a species which can be found in the costline and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, being uncommon in that the trunk actually grows beneath the ground, while the leaves grow upwards, above the surface.

- Bruguiera cylindrica, another mangrove dweller of tropical Asia, which can grow up to 20 metres high

- Large-leafed orange mangrove (Bruguiera gymnorhiza), a relative of the previous species, of the same Rhizophoraceae family,  with which it shares the Genus. It can be found in mangroves from the Western Pacific across Indian Ocean coasts to Cape Province, South Africa.

- Stemonoporus moonii, a member of the Dipterocarpaceae family, endemic to Sri lanla and Critically Threathned due to loss of habitat.

The fifth stamp on the postcard is illustrated with an image of a Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea, another mangrove dweller that occurs from India to tropical Asia and the western Pacific. It is the sole species of its genus, in the Rubiaceae family.

Postmark, as usual, from the central Post Office at Columbus, Sri Lanka's economic capital.

COVER N. 568 - BRASIL

Postmark: AC Central de São Paulo SE/SPM 17.03.2025 

Posted on the 17th March; Received on the 1st April 2025

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Lately Mr. Postman hasn't dropped by as frequently as he uses to, and I also was out for a longish weekend. 

 Because of that, my humble blog has not seen much change, but yesterday again, in spite of it being "April fool's" day, I heard the familiar metallic "clonck" of  my letterbox flap and the unmistakable noise of a bike idling by the door, and so I knew that Mr. Postman had finally made up with me.

Inside the box a letter from Brazil and a postcard from Sri Lanka, so let's begin with the former and later deal with the latter. The more so since out side is raining hard again, something which this year has been quite frequent around here, and I had to interrupt my lawn mowing.. ( as if I needed a better excuse....)

Muito obrigado, Luis. É sempre um prazer receber as suas cartas. Resposta em breve!

Stamps left to right:

- The rolling sand dunes that occupy the 70 kms of coast of the Lençois Maranheses National Park, in the State of Maranhão, Northeast Brazil, were declares a UNESCO World heritage Site in July 2024.

For this classification, UNESCO highlighted the "important role in biodiversity conservation, [and the fact that] the park boasts globally significant aesthetic and geological/geomorphological values."

The beauty of the scenery created by the many permanent or temporay lagoons, of diverse colours, interspersed by the rolling dunes make this a one of a kind landscape, best viewd after the rainy season, when the lagoons are at their best.

To celebrate the award of the WHS status to the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Correios do Brasil, issued on 30OCT2024 the stamp on the cover, illustrated with a typical view of the park lagoons and sand dunes and the legend Lençois Maranheses - Património Natural da Humanidade (Natural World Heritage Site).

- Guiseppe Garibaldi, the most famous hero of the Italian unification at one point in his adventurous career fled to Brazil  to escape a death sentence for revolutionary action in Genova in 1834.

There he would again succumb, first to the call of the Republic and then to the enchantments of  a young lady of humble origins called Anita Maria Ribeiro da Silva, a natural of  the State of Santa Catarina, born in 1821,  whom he met in 1939.

Anita Garibaldi, as she was to become known to history, fully committed to the revolutionary cause after her encounter with the Italian patriot and together they would take an active part in the Guerra dos Farrapos do Rio Grande do Sul (the Ragamuffin War in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, which aimed  at the establishment of a republic in that State, which would eventually secede from the Brazilian Empire) and later in the Uruguayan Civil War (1839-1851), during the course of which they  married, in 1842, in the Parish of San Bernardino, Montevideo, Uruguay's capital.

The couple then went to Italy to pursue their  actions in support of the Italian Unification but in 1849 they were again obliged to flee the combined armies of France, Spain and Naples.

Anita, carrying her 5th child, fell ill with typhus and would pass away in Madriole, in the vicinity of  the city of Ravena,  on the 4th of August, where she was hastily laid to the ground.

In 1932 her remains were transferred to Rome from Genoa, at the order of Mussolini who directed that a  a monument to her should be built near the monument to her husband.

Celebrating the life and the bicentenary of the birth of this relevant figure, not only of Brazilian but also of  South American and European history, Correios do Brazil issued on 30AUG2021 the very nice 3.55 reais stamp on the cover, illustrated with the effigy of Anita and smaller images of her in fighting poses, with a rifle and on horseback with a sword.