Belem - Barreirinhas

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After a lot of thinking in Belem we changed our plan slightly and headed for Sao Luis on a night bus after visiting another zoo type place in the middle of the city and milling about the markets. We arrived in Sao Luis at about 6.30 a.m. and hunted for a cheap hostel only to return to the first one we had been to after an hour and a half! It was a fairly attractive place (in comparison to the bigger cities) and had some pretty impressive beaches just a bus ride away that we visited. We didn´t hang around for long as we didn´t fancy staying in a big city and got a bus out to Barreirinhas first thing the following morning, a small town used as an access point to Lencois National Park. We found a cool little hostel by the river and went and booked a tour of the national park for the next day (Sunday) and swiflty hit the beach where we were ambushed by about 10 curious local kids and their mums! Unfortunately it was pouring with rain when we got up for our tour but luckily they didn´t seem too keen on getting wet either so let us postpone it. Instead we spent the day sipping homemade caipirinhas on the balcony and watching toads the size of footballs hop about in the rain. The following morning the sun was shining and we were picked up by a big 4by4 that drove us across the sand dunes to Lencois (having been transported across the river by a big platform pushed by a man in a tiny boat). The dunes were something else, they were so vast and made up of the most beautiful white sand. All the rain the day before made it even more spectacular as the draining water was visible in the sides. We were taken to a pristine lake for a swim and were able to wander around the dunes alone before heading back to the toyota for a very bumpy ride back to Barreirinhas.

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