Jungle beach
Three days on the boat passed rather quickly; comfort and boredom were not issues, though we were excited to get off and be somewhere. We got into the waters of the city of Santarém, and, well, just when you think you’re there, you have to wait a while longer. Such is the nature of traveling. We had two men in uniform climbing up onto the boat (which was quite humorous to watch, them with their shiny black shoes on, in comparison to the barefoot, raggedy-clothed kids we had crawling up over the days previous); someone said they were looking for drugs, but I suppose they found nothing, as I’m sure the hour or so we waited would have been extended greatly if they had.
We had planned to explore Santarém for a night and then head to Alter do Chão, a beach resort-type place about an hour away by bus, but when we saw the pictures of the beach, we decided to leave right then, and hopped on the next bus. What a great bus ride…we stood in the back with people’s groceries, supplies, and a container of gasoline (that, incidentally was spilling slightly on my backpack, which suffered merely a slight odor for a short while), and took the bumps and turns with the road, glad for the bar overhead to hang onto. It was here where I saw the first signs of a fashion trend in the Amazon – woollen hats. Here I am sweating non-stop, in a locale hovering just beneath the equator, and this girl is wearing a woollen hat – fashion before comfort, even in the Amazon.
We walked around the small town a bit and ran into a British guy named Darrell, who recommended a pousada to us (one we were already considering), and so we headed over. It was a cute little place with only four rooms, hugging the edge of the jungle, about 15 minutes outside of town – a gorgeous spot. Not wasting a moment, we changed into our bathing suits and headed down to the lake – Lago Verde – and jumped in, the sweat from the day dissolving off our bodies.
We went back to the pousada as the night set in, and the silence of this place was incredible…there was no city noise, no loud hum of the Amazonian Love Boat, just the sounds of whatever animals were just in the distance. After our showers, we headed into town for dinner, walking amongst the craziest sounds of frogs you’ve ever heard (croak – wheeeeee – I could never replicate these sounds for you). Anyway, after dinner we went to a restaurant opening for the owner of our pousada, where I sat and talked with Tennis, a local guy who’s been living in Alter do Chao for 11 years, fishes, take tourists out to the forest, and thinks this is paradise…it was beautiful.
After the restaurant, Darrell and I went to the local club/dance hall…just an open space, kind of like a gymnasium with a stage, yet open to the outside – that’s the thing about a lot of these places; even when you’re indoors, you’re not completely indoors. It was very loud and Darrell was talking to me about who knows what – I couldn’t hear a thing and really wasn’t that interested in what he had to say anyway; as the Aussies say, he was doing my head in. The music was great – live forró, and then samba/carnival music. Let me tell you something about the Brazilians – they can dance. Everyone can dance; they all have rhythm. Women, men, they dance together, like partner dancing, not just your jumping around sort of dancing that we all like to do. In that gym-type place, in a little town in the jungle, I saw some of the best amateur dancing I’ve seen, by both the women and the men. This is one thing I love about Brazilian men – they can dance, and they put me to shame.
Meanwhile, Darrell is still doing my head in talking about whatever, and this local guy comes up to talk to us. You could tell he was more native (Indian, or indio, as they say in Portuguese, which I think is slightly offensive). He had a protruding lower jaw, a very long torso, long arms, set back shoulders, and a little bit of a belly, which might have been due to the rest of his body structure…ooh, also, high cheek bones, really short fingers, and even shorter, stubby toes. I couldn’t stop looking at him, which was alright because he was trying to talk to us. Of course, you must imagine, if I couldn’t understand Darrell, no way would I understand this guy.
He started putting his hand to his mouth, as if he wanted something to eat (there was nothing to eat where we were). Then he started pointing at our beer. Oh! He wants some beer…of course, so we started to pour him a cup of beer (normal size beers here are really big, and they all come served with glasses or plastic cups for however many people will be imbibing). No, he didn’t want that – he wanted a whole one for himself! Can you imagine? He wanted beer, turning down the cup we were going to pour for him because he wanted his own big beer for himself. Well, fine then. You get none.
The next day we geared up for the beach and took a little rowboat over to the island where the beach is, and started to walk around it. Well, I guess it wasn’t an island this time of year, because we just kept going and never came around…maybe it would be an island during higher water. We found ourselves to a little path, to a little lake behind some woods, and started to walk around. There were conspicuously large piles of manure around, from what animal we couldn’t be too sure. We walked with care, every step we took evoking the movement of several iguanas in the brush, but we couldn’t be too sure that every noise we heard was from an iguana. We were whispering, tippy-toeing through here; we both nearly jumped when we heard something large jump into the water. Where there crocs around here? Who knows…
In the end, we really found nothing, just a few birds and lots of iguanas. We headed back toward the beach, where we came across a trail to a hill that Tennis had told me about…I wanted to climb it; Vanessa headed to the beach.
I took a quick dip in the water to cool off before heading up. I found some crazy three-toned lizard thing and stalked it for a while to get a good picture…check it out in the photos. As I got to the top of the hill, a small group of climbers sat there, looking at me. “Not bad”, I said in Portuguese…haha, they laughed. “That’s what everyone says”. Check me out with my Portuguese prowess. The views from up there were spectacular – you could see the layout of the area, a little lake inlet coming off this huge river (Tapajós, I think); you could hardly see across this river, it was so wide.
I stayed up there for a while, taking it all in, this huge jungle area, in the midst of which I heard the same Carnaval music from the night before coming from town…4pm, sure enough, just as someone had told me. I eventually made my way down and headed to the town square. What a party they were having – everyone dancing to the music, eating food, drinking beer, and throwing…what was it? Flour – all over each other. It was hilarious; everyone was covered in flour, white faces, hair, clothes, glasses, everything. I eventually found myself covered in it as well – someone was nice enough to dump a bit on my head. I found a few favorites and snapped some photos. The prize winner goes to one drunk man running around with a large conga drum, flour smeared all over his face. I was told that they throw tomatoes in Spain, and they prefer to throw flour here…much more festive and less messy.
Tags: Brazil, Tag Index
Tania