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Well I´m now in the North East of Brazil. I flew upto Salvador 2 weeks ago. The internal flights in Brazil are pretty cheap so I´ve been doing quite a bit of flying between places rather than doing 20+hour bus journeys.
Salvador was fun. I flew up and met Jens & Johannes there. On my first day there we went for a walk round Pelourihno in the morning, which is the old historic centre of the city. Lots of old colonial buildings painted in various pastel colours. After a couple of hours we headed out to a restaurant by the beach in Barra near where we were staying. After a couple of caipirinhas and some sushi we hit the beach .. for more caipirinhas! It was Jens birthday, so we went out for a nice meal followed by a bit of a tour of various bars & clubs .. I think we managed to cover most of Salvador .. it was a very amusing night.
The following day jens & Johannes flew back to London and I was left on my own again. It was funny .. I felt really sad .. i think it was strange being on
my own again after I had had company for a month. That day and the next day just pissed it down in Salvador so I decided to head North again, so I flew from Salvador upto Fortaleza. I spent one night in Fortaleza and then got the bus the following morning to Jericoacoara.
I´ve just spent a week in Jericoacoara .. which was fantastic. Lovely little place. The journey to get there was about 7 hours on the bus to a place called Jicoca and then you transfer into a 4WD truck for an hour to jericoacoara. The last 30 minutes runs along the beaches .. so its pretty remote from anywhere else. The town itself is really small with no proper roads .. just streets made from sand. To the side of the town there is a massive sand dune which everyone goes up to watch the sunset.
I met some people on the bus, and we all went and got somewhere to stay for the first night .. then we could look round the following morning for somewhere else. I ended up staying at these little bunglows overlooking the sand dune .. basic but great position
Dunes & Lagunas
near Jericoacoara .. from my hammock I looked out to the sand dune and the sea. Bit of a crazy owner who had me in hysterics everyday about something .. I think the best quote of his was "I´m taking cocaine and fucking my wife" .. oh OK then!!
I was planning on learning to kitesurf while I was up there .. but when after about 4 days of being extremely lazy ..I got off my arse to learn .. there wasn´t enough wind the next few days .. its not their windy season at the moment. So still not got round to it. Next time.....
It was pretty quiet in jeri but the whole place had such a nice vibe. At sunset everyone is at the beach or up the dune. Lots of people playing football on the beach, and doing capoiera, and some great sunsets too. Oh and caipirinhas for 50p .. er what else do you need .. oh and some hot men .. I could quite easily have stayed there for a month or two! It was a lazy week with a lot of time swinging in my hammock, and lots of caipirinhas.
One night
me & a welsh friend, paul, went up the dune to watch the sunset, then moved to the otherside of the dune to watch the moon rise which was one day passed being full. Wicked .. sat up there for hours with a bottle of Bacardi Gold .. and have a new twist on the cuba libre/costa libre cocktails .. I suppose this one will have to be a brazilibre .. bacardi gold, guarana and lime .. not bad.
I am now in a place called Canoa Quebrada .. which is still in the same state as jericoacoara .. ceara .. but this is further south and east. I got here a couple of night ago and met up with 2 of the guys I met in Jeri. This place is pretty chilled out too but a slightly different vibe to jeri. Again I have managed to find myself a crazy pousada owner .. this one is Italian and I´ve never met anyone who talks so much in my life!! The place I´m staying at is lovely though. I have a seaview from my bed .. a great hammock in the room, views out of the windows to the
Buggy Trip
Day out in a buggy with Paul, Alex, Imbra & Paulo sand dunes, and a nice terrace for sunbathing. It´s low season here too so again the town is pretty empty.
I might leave here tomorrow or the next day .. I´m not sure yet. I want to go to beach called Praia de Pipa next and I´m running out of time. I fly out of Rio a week today, but have to get back to Salvador before that as I left some stuff there. I am loving Brazil though .. I wish I had another month here as there are loads more beach towns that I would like to have a look at. I might come back later after I´ve done some snowboarding in Argentina. Anyway anyone reading this who hasn´t been to Brazil should get over here .. especially to the Northeast .. its perfect!!
27th May
I wrote up my last few days in Northern Brazil the other day only for the damn computer to go down on me .. so hopefully I´ll manage to get this up today.
I left Canoa Quebrada and took a bus to Natal. I needed to sort out flights back down to Salvador & Rio. I got
to Natal in the evening, stayed the night at a little pousada called Meu Canto .. run by a lovely lady called Tia Helena .. who makes everyone so welcome .. and then got my flights sorted out in the morning and left for Praia da Pipa .. so not really got anything to say about Natal as I didn´t see it .. I just wanted to get to Pipa for a few days. I swear everytime I have booked a flight in Brazil they have got cheaper .. this time I managed to book a flight from Recife to Salvador, Salvador to Rio for R$188 (about US$90) .. cheap, cheap!
I had 3 days in Pipa and again would have liked to have stayed a lot longer. Pipa has a really nice vibe to it. It´s another beautiful beach resort .. a bit more upmarket and developed than Jeri but still lovely. I stayed in a nice pousada run by an american guy .. called Pousada Cavalho merinho .. Seahorse .. and for once I didn´t have a crazy pousada owner!!!
I met some really nice people in Pipa and had another few very chilled out days.
I swear along this coastline if I was any more relaxed I´d be in a coma!
Too soon it was time to go as I had to get back to Salvador to pick up a bag I had left there, and then to Rio to get my ticket changed and then onto Santiago and then Bolvia .. it´s been a week of travelling.
I left Pipa thinking I had plenty of time to make my 5pm flight to Salvador from Recife .. I left at 9am and my bus from the next town left for recife at 10am. It should have taken max 3 1/2 hours from there to Recife .. except there was some sort of protest blocking the road .. and the bus moved about 100 metres in 2 hours. I got into Recife at 4pm with less than an hour till my flight. I asked the taxi to take me to the airport "mas rapido" .. I swear the taxi drivers here love it when you say that .. I mean they drive pretty crazily at the best of times but when you say that they think they are rally drivers. It did the trickthough
Capoeira
Capoeira on the beach at sunset at Jericoacoara .. he covered a 25 minute journey in 15 .. and I made my flight .. just.
I then had a night in Salvador, and onto Rio the next morning. I got back to a cold, grey and wet Rio .. so there was to be no more perving at fit men on the beach .. damn .. but I had a day of things to sort out .. like getting my ticket reissued .. which the guy decided would take 2 days .. but then sorted it in 2 hours seeing as I was flying out the next day.
Well I´ve had the best month in Brazil. It´s an amazing place .. and a month isn´t nearly enough here. I am going to try and come back for a couple more weeks before I head back to Asia in August.
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