CC On Tour

We left Lencois on May 26th with a plan to be in Rio de Janeiro by June 1st, hoping to visit three place before arriving there. This meant we would be travelling about 2750km in a very short time, so we weren't optimistic that we'd left enough time to actually see anything! We took a 6 hour bus ride back to Salvador, waited there for 5 hours and caught a 12 hour ride south to Porto Seguro. When we arrived we took a bus to the seafront, walked to the port, took a boat across the river and finally another bus 5km to our destination, Arrial d'Juda. What a mission! Although Porto Seguro is the main town of the region, we were more interested in the smaller places stretching south along the coast; we had been ... read more

Our night bus from Recife was comfortable, but 14 hours on a bus is not quite the same as 14 hours in a bed, so we arrived in Salvador on May 20th feeling quite tired. Tourist information were very helpful though, so we managed to find a bus to the historical centre easily enough. Once we had reached the old centre (Pelourinho) we compared a few pousadas before settling for the most friendly. We dumped our bags and set off to explore Pelourinho and the hidden squares (largos) that can be found in amongst the colourful buildings, soaking up the atmosphere that strikes you as soon as you arrive. We took some great pictures of the Sao Franacisco church and convent, the Cathedral and the Palacio Rio Branco, all of which were very grand and added ... read more

Morro Branco is a tiny beach town 80km east along the coast from Fortaleza; however, our journey there was beginning 250 km WEST of Fortaleza, and the road for the first hour was hardly worthy of the title. We bounced along from Jericoacoara on a huge 4x4 truck, passing through small villages on our way to meet a proper bus to take us as far as Fortaleza. Bizarrely, this bus took us to the city's airport so we had to take a taxi to the bus station, before getting on another bus to Beberibe, a small town near Morro Branco. Another taxi helped us complete the journey, arriving at 4pm on May 10th. We quickly arranged a place to stay (which wasn't hard - this being low season we were swamped with pousada owners offering their ... read more

At 4am on April 29th we landed in Belem and immediately rested by a water feature inside the airport, waiting for light to ease our passage to town. Eventually we summoned some kind of energy to find a bus going anywhere near our hostel, though once we were onboard the driver took pity on us and delivered us right to the front door. This, we learned, was typical Belem kindness and hospitality. Belem is a large port city lying on the south bank of the River Amazon's mouth, which is so wide it makes the city look irrelevent. Exhausted from our flight, we arrived with the intention of going straight to bed; however, the hostel workers had the royal wedding on the television, so we sat for a while and watched pictures from home, not at ... read more

Manaus heralded our arrival by scorching us alive, the heat being so oppressive we were incredibly relieved to discover that our room had air-conditioning. Still, no time to sit around: we had to find a tour company to take us in to the jungle the next day AND book a flight out of Manaus for when we returned. With so many tours sounding incredible it was hard to choose, but we managed to get one booked. We got our flight sorted and walked around the city a little bit. We hadn't heard great things about Manaus, but so far we had found it quite pleasant. As we walked past some shops, men advertising their wares welcomed us to the city over their microphones. We would be returning to Manaus after our jungle tour, so we didn't ... read more