ODO: 355,757
New Year’s Eve day, and time to head to the right Jericoacoara. We take the sand road in from the east. It’s a road marked out along the beach, so timing the tides is important. Half way down the road, the driver side shock starts screaming again. With nothing to be done about it here, we press on and hope it doesn’t weld itself shut. Our spot for tonight is in a large sand parking lot. Jericoacoara is a walking only town, so we park alongside all the other visitors. We grab our cameras and head into town. It’s hot. We should’ve taken the shuttle into town. We find a restaurant with AC for lunch. The cool interior is so nice, we don’t care the food is solidly mediocre and wildly overpriced. Feeling better, we get the lay of the land. There is a sizeable beach, with tropical colored water where people are surfing and wind surfing. There are many restaurants along the beach, and many restaurants near the beach, along the three streets that connect to the beach. Tired from the heat, we head back to the truck for some rest before the big night.
We make sure we’re up in plenty of time for sunset. This time we take the shuttle back into town. It feels like everyone and their dog is on the beach for this. And it makes sense, the sunset is amazing. Also! We’re watching the sun set on the Atlantic!! This cant be that common? There are so many people here, and vendors playing music, it has the feeling of imminent party…and then everyone starts to drift away, and we’re sitting in a mostly empty bar very confused. The restaurants even start to close, what is happening?! Unsure of what’s going on, we walk back into town for some dinner. Around 9pm people start trickling, and then flowing back into town and towards the beach in all white outfits. We join the crowd and head back to the beach. At midnight, its fireworks on top of fireworks, and people spraying champagne in the air. After the spectacle, we are exhausted, and hustle back to the truck Unfortunately for us, there is a concert nearby that goes until 5am.
The nice thing about it being hot enough to sweat while you’re sleeping, is that you sweat out all the booze while you sleep. You never wake up hungover! That being said, we need a night indoors. We’ve broken our four day rule, and we are suffering for it. We hurriedly pack and go. There is a famous tree, the Sloth Tree, on our way out, so we stop for a look. KoKo gets some good pictures of the truck with it. The angry shock has calmed down, so we take it very slow to keep it that way. There are also more donkeys in this area than we have seen in all of South America. We make a beeline for Fortaleza, the nearest big city, for our hotel night. The entire city is closed for New Year’s Day. It feels eerie, like something from a zombie movie. Our hotel upgrades us to the twenty first floor, the very top! We have a balcony with a beach view. Oh yea, our hotel is beach front! And the dinner buffet has a build your own pasta sauce station! We like it so much we book a second night before the end of our first night.
We sleep the best sleep of all sleeps ever slept. Its part AC, part having showered off the sticky sweat. The breakfast buffet isn’t quite as fun as dinner, but gets the job done. First order of business: Get in the ocean! We cross the street, and find a spot for our towels near the water. But not too near. The entrance is steep, like the Pacific. The waves are thundering into the beach. The water temperature is perfectly tropical. We float, and bob, and tread for a long time. As we plan our exit, we start to realize how hard the waves are crashing into the beach. At different times, both of us get caught in the washing machine, and end up full of sand. KoKo ends up with a ton of sand in her hair, which is nothing compared to Berne catching his foot on the ground, and hearing a pop in his knee. Is it an ok pop or a bad pop? We don’t know yet. Once we free ourselves from the surf we do a quick stability check. He seems to be able to stand on it, and limp around so we head back to the room to give it some rest. Room service for the win tonight.
Morning knee check-in is not good, so we book another hotel night. This time, at the Holiday Inn so we can use points. Luckily, it’s just down the street, and still on the beach. This is less nice than our other hotel, but who are we to complain about a free hotel on the beach? While KoKo goes for an explore walk, Berne picks out some dinner spots. We settle on a Korean place that only opens for three hours a night, and gets incredible reviews. We arrive right in the middle of their hours to a short lines, which surprises no one. For a small place, in a culture of leisurely eating, the line moves quickly. And it does not disappoint. We have gigantic mandu, perfect bibimbap, and really great bulgogi. Berne wants to test his knee, so we walk back to the hotel instead of Ubering. We take rest breaks to get ice cream, and to buy Berne some Haviana’s, the official flip flop of Brazil.
It’s so nice to have the luxury of sleeping in! The things that become luxuries, on an adventure like this, are interesting and surprising. We ease into the day at a comfortable temperature. Berne is feeling a little stir crazy, having his mobility limited, so we go for a short beach walk to see if that helps. We also decide to do late lunch at one of the other restaurants Berne chose yesterday. In South America, malls have real, and incredible restaurants, not just fast food, and that is where we are headed: The Mall. We do a mall restaurant food tour, starting with some sushi and gyoza, followed by some Italian food, and finish with some baclava for dessert. And also a brownie. All of this in the mall! Then back to the hotel for another great nights sleep.
The day has come, Berne’s knee is feeling good enough to test out clutching. The downside of having a stick shift is you’re screwed no matter what if you get injured. All of your limbs need to work in order to pilot our house safely. We intentionally have a short day, so we don’t make things worse, only heading an hour down the coast. We received an invite of a place to stay from some internet friends, and internet friends haven’t done us wrong yet, so off we go! We arrive to meet Adriana and Fernando at their house (there is SO MUCH trust in the off-road and car community!!), which is amazing! They have a two story, indoor/outdoor space, complete with pool, a few blocks from the beach in Fortim.
They also have the sweetest cat. All she wants is to be pet, and spends a considerable amount of time in KoKo’s lap. Unfortunately she also has fleas, but that’s outdoor cat life. The discovery of fleas does not make KoKo immediately put the cat down, fyi. Our new friends take us for a quick tour of the area, before driving us one town over for delicious burgers. How did we e-meet these folks you ask? Well, our Instagram handle is on the side of the truck, and the truck is super exciting to “truck guys”. They saw it parked in the parking lot in Fortaleza, and reached out. This, or having people come across us on Instagram is how we meet all of our internet friends. And so far, everyone has been great.
We wake up in the middle of the night to what sounds like a racoon climbing on the tent. Turns out the cat was trying to climb on our window awning. We look out the window, and there she is, staring in at us. Cats. When we wake up for real, our gracious hosts take us for a beach tour. Their neighborhood is so beautiful. They live here for the kite surfing access, so are excited about the wind. After we’re back on the road, Berne’s knee starts to fuss, so we cut our driving day short. We end up on the shore of a lake, just outside a small town. On our way in, it looked like everyone in town was out for their 5pm walk. The lake is very quiet, and the air temperature cools off nicely in evening. We enjoy the sunset before making a quick dinner, and heading inside for the night.
