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Hola a todos y todas ! Yuppy, we are back in a Spanish speaking country, cause we're in Venezuela now.
Ok, ok, let's admit it, we've become a bit lazy when it comes to regularly updating this travelblog. ´Your rigourous rhythm is becoming slightly less rigourous´we were told.. It´s just that we are so busy with our exciting adventures, that is a valid excuse, isn´t it ? From now on we´ll do better (hopefully..). Hereafter a concise, ahum... summary of all the stuff we have been doing for the last 3 weeks !
We wrote our last update in Praia da Pipa, close to Natal, where we enjoyed great relaxed beach time and a sea full of grey dolphins. Then onto Jericoacoara, whose beaches are classified amongst the ´worlds 10 most beautiful beaches'. And they were beautiful indeed. Jericoacoara is a vibrant, yet laid back beach village. All streets consist of sand and you find plenty of nice bars, boutiques and restaurants. It´s also a popular windsurf destination (we saw some pretty amazing windsurf scenes and beach boys !).
At the Cafe de Brazil we learnt to appreciate ´Acai´, a deep-purple nutrituous Brazilian fruit, great as a juice together with banana and cashew nuts, or used in a dessert, crushed with ice.
Other highlights of Jericoacoara include the sunset admired from the top of a big sanddune, followed by a ´sundowner´cocktail; spectacular buggy ride to two crystal-clear lagoons; our table tennis practice at the hotel (yes, we do sports too ! did we already mention that we got up each morning @ 6.45 in order to walk/run along the beach?).
And then there was Barrainha´s ... with its national park of amazing sanddunes and lagoons. To get there was quite an experience in itself, everything piled up in a pick-up truck (backpacks, people..), driving through 1 meter deep puddles. Kind of Camel Trophy feeling !
In the hostel Martina had a little 'encounter' with the Air Conditioning machine (these things always hang too low or am I just too tall?). But all well again and she has a tiny souvenir now !
The great adventure of our stay in Barrainha's was camping overnight in the surreal sanddunes, just next to the 'blue lagoon'. Very fantastic experience, all the beautiful shapes of the dunes, enlightened by the (nearly full) moon, the sunset, a campfire and a BBQ. We enjoyed it big time and it was definitely picture - perfect too !
Our next stop was Sao Luis, a very pittoresque town, famous for its UNESCO world-heritage recognised Portuguese tiles and its French style throughout the old town. As we arrived here in the month of June, which is the major festival time, we had very nice nights out including some Brasilian dance practice (of course, nobody recognised we were tourists :-)
One of the highlights here was the visit of a nearby island, including a very relaxing Catamaran sail. And not to be forgotten - we will always remember our great accommodation here - rooms with high ceilings, wooden floors & superb interior.
And then - finally - we started the Amazonas boat trip - 7 days from Belem to Manaus while leaving 1,500 km on this massive river behind us. Already the boarding onto the boat was spectacular - as it turned out we ended up on a carrier boat which happen to also take along passengers. So here we were with estimated 20 tons of onions (which really started to smell just after a couple of days on the boat...), wine, rice and other deliveries to Manaus and other Amazonas villages. And we also found ourselves with around 150 other (local) passengers who made themselves comfortable on their hammocks - it was indeed superbusy on the decks dedicated for those travellers. We also hang our hammock but additionally enjoyed the luxury of a tiny cabine. In a nutshell we really loved this boat trip - e.g. the continuous view to the rainforest with occassional beautiful lightnings (without thunders), the wooden, on-water-built houses of the locals living at and with the Amazonas, watching the dolphins enjoying the water. Last but not least, we enjoyed the nice boat activities such as playing games with the kids on board, reading, hammocking, sunbathing and a lot of sleeping. We will also not soon forget this boat trip as we never had so many meals consisting of chicken, rice & beans in a row...
This was truely a highlight of the tour and an ideal way to arrive to Manaus, which is a 1-Mio-inhabitants city, located in the jungle. Interestingly, Manaus can only be accessed via boat or via plane - which you honestly would not believe when you are stuck in the traffic jams. Before bordering into Venezuela we had some time to visit the famous and absolutely beautiful Manaus Opera house ... such a pity we could not watch an evening performance though.
In Manaus, we not only said good-bye to Brazil but also to one of the tour members - Mitzi - who headed back home to Australia. So now, we are only the 5 of us left: Faye and Jessica, two lovely girls from the UK and ourselves - and of course our tour guide. Karl, the other guy from the UK left us in Belem to head back to one of his recent female conquests in Sao Paulo....
And today we successfully entered Venezuela - very nice to be able to understand the people and communicate again.
Hope you are all doing well! We have good intentions to update more regularly again :-)
And from Marieke.... big congratulations to Mattie, who celebrates his 'big birthday' this week. Glad that my birthday is the day after, so only one day that I am in my twenties and you are in your forties :-)
MarMar
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Elisa
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Ciao, great to hear about your adventures. As you are in Venezuela, you defenetely have to go to los llanos e and los roches! enjoy your trip!