ODO: 354992
Ahhh, another lovely day on the Amazonia IV. We’re in a smaller channel of the Amazon river as we cut across to Belem. Originally we were concerned the boat might head out into the ocean to reach our destination, so this is a welcome discovery. Our trip has been entirely unplugged, which we loved. We also spent the entire time in our pj’s. Overall, the weather on our journey has been nice, just a couple of jungle thunder storms. Mid afternoon, a small boat pulls alongside us and a family departs on it. We have so many questions! When we reach Belem, the Head of the Crew asks us where we are staying for the night. We tell him “somewhere in town, we don’t really know yet”. He says no, and walks off to secure us a spot to sleep in the boat’s warehouse (they’re so helpful!). Sounds like this may be a sketchy town. The warehouse is a large building, open to the water. We park behind a group of motorcycles and deploy the tent.
Merry Christmas from the least Christmas looking place there is, the inside of a shipping warehouse. We’re up and out very early, trying not to be in the way as the warehouse comes online for the day. Driving through Belem on Christmas morning, the city is still very much asleep. And, confirming our guess, the city has a run down, sketchy vibe to it. Graffiti everywhere, general rundown appearance, and when we do see people, they appear to still be up drinking from last night. We are now on the Atlantic coast of Brazil, but still on the long straights. Our first adventure of the day is ten miles of monsoon, so heavy we can barely see the road, complete with thunder and lightning. An insane amount of water falls from the sky over the course of a couple of hours, we’re really surprised to not see major flooding. Our second adventure is a river ferry with really bad reviews. Long waits, disorganized, that sort of thing. Maybe because it’s Christmas day, we essentially drive right on and the whole process is super easy. On the other side, in Sao Luis, it’s 10:30pm and we are looking for food…We find a Bob’s Burgers and it is delicious. Tonight is a hotel night so we can clean up after our several nights on two boats.
We’re headed towards Lencois Maranhenses National Park. A park of sand dunes that fill with rain water, causing lagoons in the desert. Today is a very short drive, unlike the sixteen hour mission we went on yesterday. To be clear, that was NOT the plan. That’s never the plan, sometimes we just…keep driving. Close to the beach, the landscape changes abruptly from lush green to white sand. To get to our beach spot, we drive through a wind farm, and KoKo is obsessed. We are able to get close enough to the windmills to touch them. The bases, not the blades. This is the best perk of these countries, getting much to close to cool things. The windmills during sunset is incredible. We offroad a little bit, around some gates, and reach our beach spot, just as the final truck full of workers is leaving for the day. And just in time for full darkness to hit. The remaining two staff are very nice. They say we can stay, and sell us several beers before retiring to their hammocks. We make some dinner, enjoy the sand, and guess at what this place might look like during the day.
Our morning view is better than we imagined, full ocean view on one side, windmills on the other. As tourists start trickling onto the beach, we start making some plans for our day. We book a tour to see the lakes in the dunes of the national park this afternoon. As we pack to go, the nice staff let us use their sink to do our dishes, and give us fresh coconuts on our way out!
The dune tour loads us, along with another couple and seven Italian college kids, into seats mounted on top of a truck bed. Adventure. The drive in, down winding sandy roads, is the BEST time the college boys have ever had. We’re wishing we could’ve driven the truck, AC and better suspension. After an hour of driving, we park at the base of an 80ft tall dune, that we need to climb to get into the dunes proper. The climb almost ends Berne. Being the dry season, there are very few lakes, but the views are still really cool. The wind is howling, and covers our sweaty selves in sand while we hike to the first lake. The lake is mid calf deep. We watch people roll down the dune sides into the lake before moving on to the second lake, bordered by much, much taller dunes. This lake is closer to waist deep. We finish swimming and climb a very small dune to watch the sun set. It does not disappoint. The hike out is down a much, much smaller dune, thank goodness. The drive out, in the dark, is the best time the college boys have ever had, they yell and cheer for every bump. The tour agency kindly lets us shower once we return. The cute town has come alive now that the sun isn’t beating down on everyone. We wait a very long time for a pizza before hustling off to bed.
It’s been a while since we were somewhere that did this, but this morning, the church fireworks start at 7:30am. Unimpressed. A couple of cars with loud car stereos follow the fireworks. Unimpressed more. It’s hot, so we get up and go. Our goal is a beach spot just a few hours away. We want a casual day because yesterday was a lot. Our spot is nice, but very windy, which surprises no one…This is a big time kite surfing spot. We park the truck so we have some shelter on the passenger side, and get some chores out of the way before settling in for an evening of relaxing.
Without planning, birthdays on the road are easy to pass over. Especially when that birthday falls between Christmas and New Years, like KoKo’s birthday today. We keep the drive short again because we’re very close to where we think we want to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Google thinks the beach town of Jericoacoara is a good time, so we’re excited to find out. Our options in this town are: 1. Super jam packed, but along the river, or 2. Empty, but dirt lot. We pick the dirt lot, and it turns out to be a nice spot full of cashew fruit trees! And no wind! This is perfect.
We have more blueberries going bad, so we need to make more pancakes. This wont last, we’re running low on syrup. There is sand in everything we took on our dunes tour, so we have some work to do getting it all out. We also have some planning to do for tomorrow night. We learned, once we arrived here, that there are two Jeri-towns, and the one we want does not allow cars on the roads. This will be slightly more planning than we had hoped for, but luckily we’re well rested now.
