The ultimate Brazilian family vacation – Part II
In Jericoacoara, we found a cute little house for ourselves – another killer deal. It had 2 bedrooms, a little kitchen (only with a fridge), a living room area (which I usurped as my bedroom, slinging up my hammock), and a bathroom, which we soon came to learn that the ceiling dripped on you while sitting on the toilet. But all for less than $5 each per person, and we loved it. The town itself, eh. It had its charms, but I found myself more excited about our little house. There was an amazing breeze – really a pretty fierce wind – at almost all times of the day, making this a huge windsurfing and kitesurfing spot. The beach wasn’t all that spectacular for laying on during the day due to a huge tide movement – maybe about 1/3 of a mile between high and low tide. This movement was really spectacular; not being all that in tune with tidal movements (as Lake Michigan really isn’t affected), it was pretty cool to walk at night all the way out to the shore. A few hours later, it would be right back up at the edge of town again. During the day, though, the tide was out just a bit, but the sand was wet, hard, and gray, not the nice fluffly stuff you like to lay in.
Jericoacoara was set in an interesting locale, though, and I went for several walks through the dunes. At times, the wind was strong enough to give me a small taste of what it’s like to be caught in a sandstorm. It really stings, kind of like little prickles; it’s close to what I would imagine accupunture being like if they were to insert all the needles at once. But, I carried on, glad for my sunglasses to protect my eyes. I was covered in sand for pretty much the whole time I was there, starting from the buggie ride. The wind just carried it through the air everywhere…the streets were made of sand.
We stayed there for 3 days, lazing around and made arrangements to continue on – next destination, Parnaíba, where there was a huge river delta that was supposedly “teeming with wildlife”. We made arrangements for a truck to pick us up at 5am – quite early, but a good start on the travel day ahead of us. The alarm went off at 4am and I pretty much jumped and feel out of my hammock at the same time trying to get to it. I heard music coming from somewhere outside…it was a party. There was a party still going on and I was just waking up to continue with my next day. They were still all on yesterday. It really sounded like a good party and I was very disappointed to have missed it; they must not have even started until after I went to sleep. When does that happen?
Well, I danced along with the music as I packed up and got ready to leave. The truck showed up about 20 minutes early and was pretty full already. It was a pickup truck with three benches around the sides; we scrambled to pack the rest of our stuff, threw our luggage on the roof and found the last 2 spots on the benches; some guys sat on the back gate part, for a total of 15 people. We stopped and picked up another couple who sat on the floor in the middle. Now we were really packed. We picked up another woman and her daughter, and they put the back gate down so they could sit there. No more room. Well, we make several more stops and squeezed these people in – on the roof, the back gate, everywhere. I counted a total of 31 people at one point on this thing – unbelieveable, and all at 5 in the morning!
I somehow managed to fall asleep on this thing, which was pretty incredible, all cramped in riding over rough, bumpy sandy terrain, although my head just fell onto the guy next to me’s shoulder at one point as my neck muscles stopped paying attention. We stopped for maybe 20 minutes for a coffee and a stretch and piled back in for the rest of the ride back to Camocim (where we had started a few days earlier). From there, we caught a comfortable van to Parnaíba.
We found our way into town and walked around a bit, looking for a pousada, finding nothing. We had been recommended a hotel – Hotel Delta, so we checked that out. Well, this was a proper hotel, pretty out of our budget, but we elected to take it as a treat, particularly when we found out it had a pool. We were hot, sweaty, and tired and this was here, now. We pretty much ran straight to the pool, Vanessa reading in a loungechair, me splashing around like a 6-year-old, doing summersaults and cartwheels in the water.
We had read that the tours on the delta don’t go unless there’s sufficient interest, so we called ahead to make sure it was still on and reserved our spots. We got there are instantly realized how entirely unnecessary that was – the boats were huge and were filled with people by the time we left. We dubbed it The Love Boat. We were expecting a smaller, more intimate experience in this area “teeming with wildlife”. Instead we were on a party boat filled with Brazilian families, cruising the river delta blaring music. The only wildlife we saw were the bundle of dying crabs sitting in the corner of the boat waiting to be served at the end of the trip. I couldn’t bring myself to eat them after I had stood, watching the ones still alive trying to unwrap themselves from the tangled mess they found themselves in.
Nevertheless, the day was good…for less than $20 we had a full day cruise with fruit served in the morning, a stop at a very secluded beach where I had lots of fun jumping huge waves, a nice, really large lunch with rice, beans, chicken, fish, and salad, another stop at these huge sand dunes that just appeared in the middle of the jungle, and, of course, the crabs as the grand finale. The dunes were really cool – I climbed them despite the severe temperatures burning my feet, and the views were incredible – they just kept going, way back, but were cut off by forest/jungle on either side. There was a local boy doing backflips down a pretty steep section, and he won the hearts of everyone on the boat. This is where we saw the little makeshift sailboats coming in from a day’s fishing at sea. Most of the sails were just sewn together with whatever suitable material was available, attached to a pole, and with a string to steer, or direct the sail. I loved these little boats and, while the Love Boat was cool and all, I really wanted to be on one of those…
Tags: Brazil, Tag Index
Tania