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Published: March 22nd 2007
After carnaval in Salvador, we needed some serious chilling out, so it was time to hit the beaches of northern Brazil. On Friday 23 Feb, we arrived in Maceio, which had some great palm fringed beaches for a town, with some amazing restaurants built between the palms. The highlight was going to the natural pools - when the tide goes out, shallow pools are formed in a reef 2km off shore. First we had to argue with tourist information about their tide table, pointing out that it couldn’t be low tide as the water was 10 metres from their office. We sailed to the pools by Jagaranda, a local fishing boat. At the pools you join many other boats, relax, have a bit of a swim, feel strange being in 50cm deep water 2km from shore and take advantage of the services provided from other Jagarandas - drinking cocktails, eating fish from floating tables and listening to reggae.
The next stop was Japaratinga, a small fishing village, with palm fringed beaches and turquoise water, although with a bit too much dead seaweed. We stayed at the Pousada Doze Cabanas, a secluded spot 5km from town, where our cabin had
great view and wonderful natural air conditioning - it opened directly onto the beach, and the cool sea breeze blew in through the slatted doors. After arriving, we rushed straight into town to go to the natural pools there, also 2km from the shore in the reef. Unfortunately, we missed the tourist boat, but even luckier, we “chartered” our own private local fishing boat with a very cheerful captain, and for cheaper that the tourist boat. The pools here had a very different atmosphere than Maceio, many less people. They were more beautiful, and we spent our time snorkeling. Another day was spent on a long 3 hour walk along the beach away from town, past the next village Porto de Pedras and along a deserted beach. We hitched back with the owner of a restaurant just next to our pousada, and had a wonderful meal of fish, langoustine and octopus there.
We moved onto Olinda, a wonderful old town, but sadly a bit quiet, we think everyone was still burnt out from carnaval, carnaval in Olinda sounded amazing. The HI hostel there was one of our favourites, set around a courtyard with hammocks and a pool. Olinda was
the capital of dutch Brazil, and we whiled away a few hours in the churches and monastery. We also both had haircuts, an interesting experience in a language you don’t have full command of, but we both came out looking pretty good!
On Friday 2 March, we traveled up to Pipa, our favourite beach town of our travels so far. Pipa is famed for its beaches. On the main beach we sipped cocktails watching the sun set. On the dolphin beach, we spent about 1 hour swimming with dolphins around us, they came within 10 metres of us. Amazing, and even worth damaging my camera - some water leaked into the waterproof case, and it seemed to be dead, but after a few days it is slowly coming back to life, at least enough to take pictures, even though the screen doesn’t work, so you have to guess a bit. On the Praia de Amor, we watched the surf competition, which featured some pretty amazing 8 year olds when we were there. Our favourite beach though was Praia de Madeiro, with beautiful water and sand, offset with palm trees and sandy cliffs, where we bodysurfed in perfect waves and
saw many turtles from the ecological sanctuary above the cliffs.
Pipa is also famed for its nightlife. It has some great restaurants and bars, so we were quite excited about the full moon party on the Saturday, which coincided well with Kerry’s birthday on the Sunday, and the surf competition promised to make it a party to remember. We were ready! We went down to the beach, had a few warm up beers, and were very disappointed when the party didn’t even start, and didn’t seem to be happening on any of the other beaches. How crap is that! For Kerry’s birthday we were back at the coconut bar, eating amazing prawns, snoek (a delicious fish), and thai chicken, with desert of brownies at the french café, and followed the next day by the best tuna steak we’ve ever eaten at Tapas. We certainly didn’t starve there!
We hopped on a bus on the morning of 7th March to Natal, a medium size city that we had decided to skip but needed to get to so that we could get a bus to Jacuma, a small beach village a couple of hours further north. After arriving at around
midday and being told there was a bus at 14.30, we sat around the bus station waiting for the ticket office to open after lunch. To cut a veeeeeeeery long and frustrating tale short, at 5 that evening after 5 different people had told us different stories (including that there was no bus there) and going to a different really dodgy bus station we decided to just give up and spend a couple of nights in Natal after all. The hostel we stayed in was in a modern castle, really quite cool but pretty expensive and very noisy.
Natal has loads of huge sand dunes all along the coast and the beach buggy tours just happened to include a visit to the elusive Jacuma. So we headed off early in the morning with 2 brazilians and our crazy buggy driver. The tour included ramping up and down these dunes, with the buggy sliding all over the place. They use the dunes kind of like a snowpark but for buggies. It was great fun, lots of screaming along the way, like an uncontrolled rollercoaster ride. We also visited a few dune lakes and we did aerobundi (you sit in a
harness at the top of the dune and then slide down a rope like a foofy slide and crash into the water. An old VW beetle engine in an old beetle shell then pulls you back up the dune in a little trolley cart) and skibundi (you sit on a waxed board and slide down a dune until you crash into the water). Both were great fun! After a huge lunch we went to a beautiful inland lagoon to chill out in the water and have a few drinks. After our adrenalin filled day we decided to go see a movie in the evening (all movies here are in original language with Portuguese subtitles). We saw Lyrics and Melodies with Hugh Grant and both loved the silly humour, not too many locals laughed the whole way through with us though! We hit the Medieval bar in our hostel after that but after a few beers we headed to bed.
We spent the next day on the beach, which is a lovely beach for an urban beach and we had a delicious fish lunch brought to us in our reclining deck chairs on the beach for just over 2 quid/
EUR 3/ R20 each.
In the evening we caught a night bus to Fortaleza, a large totally uninspiring city further north. Main aims were to draw money (not all ATMs take international cards here so drawing money can take a good few hours) and get our washing done. Only wanted to spend one night but after not being able to get money after trying about 10 banks we couldn’t collect our washing on time and then the shop shut til the next day so we had to spend another night in this forlorn place. All part of the adventure we are told.
The next morning, clean clothes and all, we headed to Jijoca by bus. Our destination was a tiny little beach town called Jericoacoara but widely known as Jeri. It is in the middle of a nature reserve and it has no street lights, no banks and the roads are all made from beach sand. From Jijoca you have to get a 4x4 or beach buggy cos there are no roads that go to Jeri. We got on a 4x4 truck and cruised along the beach, quite a novel way of getting somewhere! We stayed in a
wonderful little pousada (B&B) called Bangalo and our days were insanely chilled out with walks on the beach and swims in the sea. In the evening we would watch the sunset from the large dune on the beach, then head down to watch extremely brilliant caipoera - these guys were just incredible, doing all sorts of crazy jumps and moving so quickly. After that we had a few drinks and then tried to find Carlinhos - a man with a 4x4 and the only way to go north from Jeri. We were there for 4 nights and finally tracked him down on the 3rd night.
We wanted to go north to go to Saõ Luis, an old French colonial city and to get there we had to catch a lift with Carlinhos at 6am along the beach to Camocim (trip included removing a tree from our path - see the photo). From there we caught a combi/ minibus to Parnaiba and from there we caught a night bus to Saõ Luis. 24 hours in total. Trying to find out about all these connections in Portuguese was an interesting process!
Saõ Luis has some beautiful old tiled buildings and
thousands of pesky mosquitoes. We saw another movie (The Good Shepherd), walked around the old town, spent a few hours on the beach with skanky water and ate delicious pizza. And that was Saõ Luis.
From there we flew to Manaus, the capital city of the Amazonas. Our first impressions are that the river is frigging huge and that it’s not called a rain forest for nothing! Tomorrow we get on a boat for a 2 day trip along the river to a research reserve called Mamiraua. And that’s that til the next update!
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MARY
non-member comment
JUST AMAZING
THE JOURNEY IT SEEMS JUST GETS BETTER, SO ENVIOUS.!