Zerca, Suevinho, Marciel and the others

A week later...

The last 7 days have been mainly occupied by different persons we met and spent time with until today in São Luis.
English speakers, don´t hesitate to give your comments! For the moment mainly french have reacted.

End of Jerri(coacoara), Ceara:

The first night was crazy (cf. previous article) as you remember. The followings were very interesting as well. It all started in a restaurant where there were 2 Brazilian musicians performing: Zerca and Suevinho. After the show, they started talking to us. As the restaurant was closing, it ended up on its terrace at the back having a beer talking about Brazilian music and waves... Yeah, they were a bit drunk... but so were we so it was fine. We had a lot of fun indeed and they took us to a bar where people were playing different instruments. It was quite funny the fact that everybody is welcome to play even if you are not experienced (so you can imagine the cacophonia from time to time). For the curious ones, we did not play as we are as good at Brazilian music as we are at capoeira.
Very good atmosphere of a village where everybody knows each other. Not that difficult when there are only 3 streets.
The next day, we made a big mistake: we came back to the same restaurant for asking directions. We left this place 3 hours later. A real trap! A guy we met in the bar recommended Puça to us, a buggy driver.

So we went for a buggy tour in the dunes around Jeri with Puça another person we have enjoyed. The best dunes driver ever, but also the best symbol of the ´´tranquilo´´ style.

Parque de Lençois Maranhese, Maranhão:

We left Jeri in 4*4 along the beach. The only way to get out of town. It took us a day and half and three different vehicles but the landscape was beautiful. During the last bus we met Kylian (Irish guy aka Whiteman cf. picture). We then spent 4 days with him. A really nice guy but a bit slow in the dunes. We booked a treck in the park for two days with a guide called Marciel (we renamed him Bobby Beck...). This trip was an unbelievable experience. The first day, we walked during 6 hours throughout the dunes and blue lagoons (cf. pictures). The peak was when we swam in a lagoon under billions of stars. We finished up in a small camp where the seafood was amazing. Marciel taught us the fact that in Brazil you can also say words such as ´´hi´´, ´´thanks´´,´´goodbye´´, ´´fine´´etc... by only raising your thumb (=pouce en francais). A good way to save energy in such a hot region. At the camp we met Johanna and Autumn, 2 Paulistas. The first one is Brazilian and the second one is american but living in Sao Paolo for 3 years: we had good fun with them!
The second day was more ¨Tranquilo¨, we walked few hours mostly along the beach and then took a local boat to get back to Barreirinhas. We did not go out this night and stayed on the terrasse of the pousada with the people we met during the trip. Relax and chill out.

São Luis, Maranhão:

São Luis was our last stop in the Northeast before getting to Amazonia (Belém, Santarem and Manaus). São Luis has a very nice historical center which has been renovated and classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This city is well known in Brazil as the Capital of Reggae. Our pousada was not the most confortable but well represents the ¨Tranquilo¨ lifestyle. Anyway the heat is unbearable during the day so you can not do much (Very hot, 30-35 degrees). This hostel has also what we called a ¨moving bar¨. The tables are on the street and always set in order to avoid the sun so the bar tender is moving around the tables all day long. It´s good place for ¨people watching¨ and... ''people meeting'' in the now famous Rua Estrella. You just seat down and wait till someone will come and talk to you few minutes after. In just two days we probably met around ten people without doing anything. As we were 2 of the 10 tourists in town, we met only locals. Joanna and Autumn found and joined us the second day. They had hired a car so we were able to get out from the center and see the seaside. Afterwards we had few drinks in reggae bar in front of the beach.

Belém, Pará:
We arrived in Belem this morning. The sun heat + humidity are unbearable. No boat to Manaus before next Wednesday. So we are going to rest... before 5 days on a boat with 250 people, sleeping in a hammock and doing nothing but watching the Amazon banks.

Next news will be about our experience in the Amazonia jungle not before 7-10 days...

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