So our 4wd trek didn`t go quite as planned. We knew we had to be in Barrierrinhas by 4pm at the latest in order to catch the last transport heading down the coast towards Paulino Neves, and then onward to Tutoia, and finally make it to Parnaiba by the evening after leaving Sao Luis. But, priorities. We have both been feeling a little baked good deprived, and we knew where a French bakery was, so after packing our stuff we headed to the bakery to see what the deal was. Unfortunately it was closed, damn! Almost every time we`ve tried to find food reccommended in our guide book, the restaurant has either been closed or gone. Not a problem for me because I`ll eat anything, but for a vegetarian with limited communication ability and unfamiliar dishes, its hard to figure out what`s meaty and what`s meatless. The chocolate coconut and shrimp cheese crepes we had our night in Sao Luis were stellar though....ok, back to our trek to Jericoacoara. After our morning dissapointment, we climbed back up the 3 stories to our room to finish packing our bags. While checking out, we noticed a large table of bread, juice, butter, and jam. Breakfast? For us? Through a series of gesturing and trying to say the word for breakfast, we determined we were allowed to have some, ie. it was complimentary. Now, to walk to the city bus terminal to catch the bus to the bus station that would take us to Barrierrinhas. The bus terminal is pre-pay, then walk through a gate. Much easier than the rotaries on each bus which is a huge struggle for me and my giant bag full of mountain climbing equipment that I wont be using at all in Brazil (although I`ve been getting better at shoving my bag through seemingly smaller spaces than it should fit through). After waiting about 30 minutes for our bus, we grab the next one that says Rodovario, bus station (or so we think) and hope for the best. Once at the bus station we buy tickets for Barrierrinhas, which has a departure at 2pm, meaning a 6pm arrival. Could we have made it by 4 if we hadn`t been so concerned about breakfast? Probably. So the waiting commences and we play cards and read about the history of Paraguay.

Sunburned me sipping some of the manioca brandy I found in a local market

All the ladies seemed to be taking pictures next to these busts in the restaurant across the plaza from our hotel, so I figured I should join.

The view at night from our hostal. Acacia thought the streets of Sao Luis looked more like her idea of Italy than anywhere else she had seen.

View over the river Sao Luis was on

Once in Barrierrinhas, we are immediately greeted by a bunch of guides who work for the companies offering tours of the national park nearby. As they all try to yell the most enticing words in Portuguese to get us to follow them, one finally realizes that we aren`t understanding anything (must have been my dumbfounded look of non-comprehension and Acacia`s smile that says `I don`t understand a thing you just said`). He finds an english speaking guide who takes us to our hostel and then sells us a half day 4wd trip to the national park of dunes and lagoons.

We had pizza for dinner, but the cheese was super weird. Would not recommend. Also, the youths in Barrierrinhas dress like its easter at the beach.

The dune trip was fun. About an hour or so of riding in the bed of a truck over (randy) sandy roads. After another 30 minutes hiking in the searing heat and blinding sunshine of white dunes with no shade (although it was quite the view to see white rolling hills in all directions) we get to the one lagoon in the park during the dry season. Not blue like the pictures, but a nice algae green color. Fortunately we were the first ones there so we had it to ourselves for about 20-30 seconds before the entire crowd of 50 people or so all crammed into the lagoon. It was an interesting half-day excursion to say the least.

The lake that we got to after an hour of hot sand dune walking 

Acacia in the jeep

Me on the boat that took us and the jeep across the river to the park entrance

Once we got back to our hostel, we got picked up by another 4wd transport that took us along the coast for a couple hours to Paulino Neves. Once there, the driver explains that there is no more 4wd transports going to Tutoia later that day, so we had to take a private truck. Maybe they were taking advantage of dumb toursists who don`t know Portuguese, or maybe not. Either way, we jumped into an air conditioned truck for our 2 hour drive along a paved road to Parnaiba. Not quite the 4wd adventure I had in mind. It was way too expensive, but at least there was cold air and they gave us mangoes. Maybe the felt bad? Once in Parnaiba we discover that there is only 1 bus ticket left to our next stop, Camocim. Guess we`re staying in Parnaiba after all that effort to try to make it to Jeri by tonight. We stayed in a real hotel, with bibles and everything, and went out to dinner at a BBQ skewers place. Dinner was good, plus it was a 3 beer night and there was a soccer game on so we could cheer on whichever team seemed to have more fans at the place we were eating. Although, the friendly brothers who owned the place were rooting against the rest of the crowd.

We finally made it to Jeri yesterday after another 2 bus rides along the road, and a final open bus along the beach for another hour. Getting here, Acacia got super anxious because it seemed like the touristy place we`d been and there was just way too much going on. I assured her it would be ok and that we`d be able to find a cheap place to stay. After an hour of carrying heavy bags through the hot sun and checking several pousadas, I was beginning to doubt my assurance as we had gotten the price down fromn R280 to about R120 and were getting ready to settle for an expensive place to stay. We walked a bit further off the main road and outside of a pet store (yes, very touristy) some guy seemed to be soliciting us for something. Fortunately an english speaking tourist asked us if we needed accomodation and told us to follow the guy trying to get our attention. He took us to a campground hidden behind a fence we never would have found, and found a lovely campsite under a cashew tree for cheap. Yes! I knew it would work out. We`ve been hanging out drinking caparinhas and cold beers and eating delicious fruit on the beach. Dinner was steak covered in sauteed onions for me, and fish posta (not to be confused with pasta which we though Acacia was getting) for Acacia. As fun as it has been, neither of us can wait much for some mountains and perhaps some cooler weather...

Me climbing a lighthouse in Jeri

The first few days...between huge cities and a tiny island

After a long 24+ hours of flying with 3 seperate legs with connections in Lima, Peru and Sao Paulo, Brazil, we finally made it to Belem the "wild west" (or should I say east?) of Brazil. It was immediately overwhelming! The first step was to find a bus from the airport to the approximate location of our hostel, which included finding an atm that would let us get money, finding a place to spend a couple reals so we could get change for the bus fare, communicating very poorly with the nice lady at the tourist info booth, and then playing cribbage at a sign with a bus on it (we just assumed the bus would take us to where we wanted to go). In Belem, we stayed at a hostel in the center of the commercial district. From there we could walk to the bank, the river, and several places to eat. We explored the large ver-o-pas market, checked out an old basilica, and wandered around the streets a bit to get a feel for the city of 1.6 million people.

Here is the view from on top of the basilica taking a picture towards the market in Belem.

Acacia was scared of getting meat in our dinner, so we made dinner the first night, pasta with tomatoe sauce. John spilled the pasta during round 1 of making it, but managed to drain the noodles succesfully the second time. The next day we slept in super late to catch up on sleep and then made our second attempt at the local buses, this time much more succsfully because pretty much every bus passed the park we were going to, to get to a large rainforest park in the middle of the city. After exploring the trailed park/zoo for a bit we bussed back to get some mangoes and walk along th river. Dinner was left over pasta and some fried thing that John got on the street. We then finished the night with a trip to the local craft brewery!

Yay! Brewery!


From Belem, we left early the next day to head to a spot that Acacia found in the guide book, an island called Algodol. We just spent the last couple of days on Algodol, an island with no cars or loud noises really. The 1000 or so people on the island got around on horses or carriages behind the horses. It was pretty relaxing, but a little Tulum-esque (mosquitos and sunburn). The days were filled with swimming, hucking the disk, playing cards, and finding the coldest drinks we could (beer or guarana).

Here´s a couple pictures of us hangin out in front of the pousada we were staying in. Literally right on the beach!

We were also fortunate enough to catch a bit of an island soccer game and meet some pretty friendly people.We ate local fruit and bread made by our hostel for breakfasts, and fish beans and rice for lunch. Our last dinner there was at a place run by a French guy. Delicious fish and fish soup with bread and some kind of chicken pate made up the meal along with a few capirinhas, the local drink of choice.

One of the many beach restaurants on Algodol that we ate at. This one was mostly a shade santcuary where we got food and beer after being sunburned and stung by jellyfish in the waves...

After spending longer on the island than anticipated because we were both feeling kind of sick we spent all day yesterday boating/taxiing/bussing to Sao Luis which is where we are spending tonight. tomorrow we are beginning an adventure to jericoacoara which sounds like a pretty long but exciting 4wd type of trek along the coast.