Viagens: Fordlandia, Brazil

Henry Ford's Amazon experiment in Fordlandia, Brazil. Photograph: Colin McPherson/Corbis

Wallpaper's Sara Henrichs dreams of visiting Henry Ford's ghost town in the Amazon forest.

Two years ago I went to Brazil with Willi, also known as my father, but Willi suits him better. I told Willi I had seven days, and he started laughing and said:
"Sara, I lived seven years out there and still haven't seen everything I wanted. You will wander out of the ordinary, but you won't make it to Fordlandia."
I have travelled to 37 countries and 207 cities and my job involves spending much of my time in stunning new hotels, but it's this place that has occupied my mind more than any other since then: an abandoned American town, outlandishly sited in the middle of the Brazilian jungle, forgotten by almost everyone.
It was created by Henry Ford, who bought 25,000km of land along the Amazon River with a dream of creating the biggest rubber plantation in the world. He imported the best German machinery, prefabricated buildings, a library, a hospital, church, a school, and hundreds of employees from Detroit, Michigan who he planned would live the perfect American lifestyle in the middle of the jungle, complete with white picket fences, hamburgers and a prohibition on all alcohol and cigarettes.
Henry Ford failed, tried again in a town 50 miles away, Belterra, and failed there, too, before finally giving up in 1945, when he sold the land back to the Brazilian government. Remarkably, they have preserved it for more than 40 years.
In the late 1980s, Willi visited the place. It's miles from anywhere, 100km from the port city of Santarém, which is itself three days by riverboat from Belém, which is three hours by plane from Rio. He found locals still cleaning the streets and putting fresh sheets on unused beds. A true ghost town. Today, squatters live there and the very occasional adventurer wanders through.
Willi's right, of course - I never did make it to Fordlandia. One day, I hope. One day.

• Black Tomato can tailor-make trips to Brazil, including Fordlandia (www.blacktomato.co.uk). Local travel agency Santarém Tur offers a two-day riverboat trip to Fordlandia and can help arrange accommodation as well as transport (www.santaremtur.com.br)


Sara Henrichs
The Observer, Sunday 1 February 2009
Article history