Jeri and Lencois Maranheses

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Well its been another couple of weeks and I´ve been in country for five weeks now and when I last left you I was leaving Fortaleza heading to a funky little beach town called Jericoacoaca. It’s a cross between Airlee Beach mixed with Coral Bay (WA - people will understand Dowdell) with sandy roads everywhere and heaps of accommodation and restaurants for the tourists.
It also must have one of the worlds largest number of beach buggies because everyone has them and run sand dune tours and take you out to some lakes to swim etc. Then in the arvo everyone heads up the sand dunes and watches the sunset over the town.

The first day we got there you get off a bus and into a 4 wheel drive truck for an hour-long ride down the beach to the town. When we got there we were hounded by the many locals trying to stitch us up with the best Pousada (accomm) in town. With a beer in hand we headed up the dune to watch the sunset and when we came down, drink vans lined our way to dinner. I decided to partake in a few Caprihina´s to quench my thirst and by the next day I was crook again and f*$6ing pissed off. My temp got to 38.8 ° C, which I was more than happy with, and here I stayed for the next four nights in the coolest of towns doing nothing............ sick as a dog........
On the last day I managed to move a bit and we went on a dune buggy ride out to a couple of nearby lakes. They were good but I had my wife beater on and got fried.


Getting out of Jeri was much harder than getting in. To go north to get to the Amazon either requires the highway (full of potholes) or a 4 x 4 adventure that takes days...., we opted for that one.

The trip to Lencois Maranheses

Our first 4x4 was to be a Land cruiser (65 series me thinks - you know the old school round one) which would be the first of many in this voyage to get to Lencois Maranheses - lakes in the desert which we first saw on the great outdoors, if you want to see Ernie Dingo’s video copy this link into the browser

http://au.travel.yahoo.com/great-outdoors/brazil/lencois-maranheses-national-park-brazil.html

Where was I, yeah we jumped in the cruiser with I think about 15 people and all the gear (the cruiser would have been full enough with just the gear) and set off northwards for a 3 hr journey along the beach. There were I think 3 creeks to cross on the way and the way they do it is kind of cool. A bloke rows this 2 car barge thing over - that looks like its circa 1940´s and wedges a stick in the sand and then the guy driving gives it a little and jumps it up onto the barge. I’ll put a photo in somewhere.

From there a bus ride to Parnaiba and a further bus to a small fishing village Tutoria to stay the night (got there at 8pm and it was crap) before a 4x4 adventure that would take us to a town called Barreirinhas and lead us into Lencois Maranheses - the place Ernie went.

We got up early with no real clue of how to get to this town, so I walked the streets for a while to try and get a feel for how the locals got there - it’s sometimes easier to find what you want and then ask someone what you already know and get the reply ¨si¨rather than have them fire off a few sentences that make you even more unsure.
Anyway, it looked fruitless until some bloke follows me to where I’m staying and just says ¨Barreirinhas¨and I say ¨si¨and he says $13 reals which is nothing for a 3 hour ride and with that we were off.

Before we headed off let me tell you that the seats were planks strapped to the side of the tray it had a dodgy canopy and it was jam packed with rice, meat, people and luggage. Our trip was going to be an interesting one and the weather was beginning to close in. We headed off and before I go further I must say that I’m a cruiser man at heart (sorry guts) and have owned 4x4´s before and used many cruisers at work but I didn’t have a real appreciation of what the Toyota Landcruiser could do.... or at least until now. In Barreirinhas each year I believe that they hold what they call a ¨Toyo Fest¨ through a mass of creeks & sand (over the bonnet deep - stuff) to see who is king and then they brandish their cars which they use to cart tourists out to Lencois Maranheses and surrounds.

The cruisers follow the power line maintenance track that links Tutoria with Barreirinhas. People out here don’t have much except a smile and a futbol. The landscape is littered with houses without windows, a couple of pigs in the yard and some corn and beans growing in the paddock with a futbol pitch taking priority over food production. The cruiser meanders its way past every casa (house) and the kid’s wave feverously. Slowly the creeks got deeper and on many occasions the exhaust was fully submerged and the water worked its way through the cracks in the tray. It was gold. Sometimes distances of 10-50 sections of water up the wheels deep, and the cruiser never missed a beat.

This guy knew how to drive and he knew this cruiser like the back of his hand. 3 hours later and with a really sore ass from the wooded plank we were sitting on, we arrived at Bara. It’s not a bad spot but my memories are not that fond. It has a nice boardwalk with restaurants that has boats that take you up the river to about 30-40km away. Not a bad spot but nothing really there.

When we got to town we met two blokes keen to show us accommodation and at this point we were tired and Lisa still recovering from being a bit ill on the way there. Anyway they said the magic word ¨cheap and we thought all right. We followed them through town and further and a bit further then when we got there it was crap. Back to town we went and they still persisted. We ended up finding something on the main street in a cosy little joint for $40 reals a night, so we decided to settle in.

The next day Lisa being Lisa took her time to get going in the morning and we were going to attempt to go on a boat ride up the river but when we got there all the boats had gone except one, there was one bloke who asked a ridiculous price so we flagged it off and tried to go to Lencois Maranheses - no go on that one either. This would prove to be a big mistake.
When we left Jeri It was the first day I could travel and since I had had 2 days where I felt ok and was eating. Lisa swears what happened next was from some salad in a burger that I ate but I’m still not convinced. Let me paint a picture of what some of the accom available in Brazil is like. You know those budget chain hotels in Australia that charge $55-75 a night that you only stay in if your too tired to keep driving even after numerous coffees? Well these are nothing like that. They have only a door in, no window, a fan for the +40 degree temps and a bathroom where the toilet floor is the shower and a bouquet of mould and moisture to make you feel right at home. Are you with me? Well try staying in those conditions sweating profusely and spewing and going to the toilet every hour or so and you’re beginning to understand why Bara wasn’t my most favorite place.

Let me say I was a broken man and Lisa must have been bored out of her brain waiting for me but I wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t. And when I could eat a meal in a restaurant I only ran out choking on a mouthful of spew to anywhere that was inconspicuous. That said we had a good trip up the river to Ponta do Mangue and on the 5th day (we planned on 2) we went to Lencois Maranheses. Finally. The day was a bit overcast and cool, not what Lisa had hoped for - but by that stage we both wanted to get moving. Lake Azul (blue) was awesome, the sand dunes are pristine and the water is so clear. For the locals it seems that it’s the Sunday afternoon thing to do. Have a look at the photo´s. The next day we were off to Sao Luis a Colonial settlement of the Portuguese.

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Photos

Arriving in Jeri
Lisa tends to the beers before a wonderful sunset up on the sanddune

Me kickin back
Not feeling the best, i´ll just be here

Don´t eat here
This place made the worst Lasagne ever!

Jeri - lakes
This is one of the lakes we visited on the dune buggy tour

Coco de Agua?
I´m well over these things by now but the owner of the hostel is ademate that I need one more.

Our first 4x4
Lisa with the jam packed cruiser

Lake Azul
Pic of the blue lake at Lencois Maranheses