Rio Pregiucas to Jericoacoara

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It has been a different time for me, I keep thinking of mum at WDHB while I am having fun. Mum is never far from my thoughts, I know Sharon will look after things as she does, but it must be very hard back there.

Down the Rio pregiucas. Well we had a day down the river, which is lined with palms trees to start with and then cuts over to mangroves. After a while we reached the end of the river, and I am talking at least an hour we reached the end where there was a lighthouse on one side and Caburi on the other. At Caburi there is a hotel, on one side of the hotel is the river and then you can walk thorugh to the sea on the other side - we sat in the shade and had a beer which is always served really cold and tastes wonderful! While we sat on the beach our lunch was being cooked, so after a strenous walk of 5 minutes or so we were back to the restaraunt go for lunch and another beer - it is just so easy to have beer here as it is so cool. Once lunch was over the other three headed for hamochs to wait for the return trip but I went for a walk, the walk did not last long as it was blooooody hot so I joined them in the shade.

That night is was paw paw, mango, crackers, tomato and cashew nuts for dinner - nice to just relax and have something simple. The food is lovely but really the same price as at home so it is easy to get through cash - and we were told there is no where to change money up here and that certainly looks correct

The next day it is down another river to the Delta americanos. Fast boat and quiet. It is a huge delta with 5 major exits and they are huge. Some enterprising fisherman had even dug a canal to cut off several kilometers from their trip. The banks are lined with mud and full of crabs, the people here fish them and we had them for dinner. What they do is go onto the mud, find a crab hole and stick you hand down it - right to the armpit - feel the crab grab it and bring it out, we were shown the technique but also we saw the size of the claws. Further up the river we saw a boat passing their catch to another boat. They were passing over bundles of crabs, take 4 crabs and tie them together, then take 10 bundles of 4 and tie them together - 40 crabs in a big bundle. The local fisherman got a rial per crab so 40 rial per bundle, this was sold to the shops for 160 rial and then sold to us for some exorbitent amount. We did have them for dinner in a souflet which was very nice -Clare of course had fish due to her allergy.

Further on up the river delta we waited for the red Ibis to settle for the night - every night they come back from where ever they have been and settle all together and often in the tree on the small island. They come in as ones and twos and also in big flocks often in V formation. They are a brilliant red- hopefully you can see the colous in the photos.

We cruised back up the river after seeing the sunset, foot to the floor in the dusk and then dark, most boats did not have navigation lights and no obvious differentiation of this channel to another - but we made it back so he must have known. It was a bit like a James Bond movie as we cut from this side to the other, curved round the corners, dodged obstacles in the water - I guess the difference was that I am not built like James and was not driving the boat - Clare of course could be a bond girl!

On our way from Parnaiba to here we went in a 4 wheel drive, 38 kilometers were expected to take 90 minutes - that did not take into account the flat tyre. I think it simply just came away from the rim due to low tyre pressures - fixing a tyre is easy when you are just watching - Liandro ((the driver) certainly worked up a sweat but it was still over 30 degrees in the shade!

There were lots of cattle, horses, sheep, donkeys and goats - all of them extremely thin - no big steaks.

OSH would have fits here, the use of ladders is quite interesting. The first one was replacing a traffic light - resting on the ground and then tied to the truck bed - about a metre off the ground the other end waving about near the traffic light. Next one was resting on the power lines with one guy holding it up from unerneath and the other one up the ladder - I assume the power must have been off!

Well it is time for a rest - it is off to Fortalisa tomorrow.

Get well soon Mum.

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