In any case, there is a lot of ground to cover, so brace yourselves.I'll try to keep it brief.
After São Paulo, we headed to the city of Manaus, capital of the Amazonias province. As with all the cities in Brazil so far, we were surprised by the size of the place. We were expecting a smallish city, but it would probably be at least as big as Brisbane, and most likely with two or three times as many people.
The next morning, we set out into the Amazon jungle for a 5-day tour/4-night tour. Our guide's name was Tarzan. Yes, that was really his name. He lived up to it too - just a little bit crazy, but in a good way.
The river was our main conduit, and we spent a lot of time in little boats going from one place to the next. We spent two nights in a 'jungle lodge' (i.e. an actual bed, a roof over our heads and a shower!) and two out in the jungle, on hammocks under big sheets of black plastic. In between, we saw alligators, sloths, pirrhana, monkeys, jungle cats, poisonous frogs, venomous snakes, pink dolphins, tarantulas and lots and lots of bugs.
On the first two nights we were with a British couple, and for the last two we were on our own - a private tour! We managed to get completely drenched while stuck in the boat on the way to the first night in the jungle, and it took another couple of days to dry out fully. The next night, the British couple headed back, and we went deeper into the jungle. We even caught our own dinner - pirhhana.
After the tour, we jumped on a boat to the coast, to a city named Belém. The 4-day journey was very relaxed - there was pretty much nothing to do other than chill out, read books, and play dominoes with the locals. The busiest we got was when stopping in a town called Santarem. We were going to be in port for about 6 hours, so we caught a bus out of town to a beach on the Amazon river. After a 45 minute bus ride, we finally made it. It turned out to be a small island made of sand, about 50 metres out into the river, complete with thatched-roof huts, umbrellas and kayaks. We got there by a short boat ride, and we just chilled out for an hour or so. We left ourselves about 2 and a half hours to get back. This turned out to be only just suffient. The bus we were catching was about an hour late, and we got back into town with about 5 minutes to spare. After catching a taxi that then got lost, we finally made it back with about 1 minute to spare, and discovered that the boat would not be leaving until two hours later.
After arriving in Belém, we caught a plane to São Luis, then a bus to the town of Barreirinhas, near the national park of Lençóis Maranhenses. This park contains some unique sand dunes, which have lagoons of fresh water. You can even swim in them, and get nibbled by small fish. Fun!
From there we headed to a beach called Jericoacoara.The journey took a day and a half, and included two jeep rides, two busses and another jeep ride along the beach. Despite the fact that the last jeep had a leak in the fuel line and the new fuel tank was a big container in the front passenger seat, we made it safely to Jeri and are now chilling out as much as possible.
This afternoon we should be meeting my brother Andrew, who will be with us for the next couple of weeks. It will be good for both of us to have some news from home and someone else to tell all our old jokes to.
Anyway, for now, hasta luego amigos!
Los Davides
From there we headed to a beach called Jericoacoara.The journey took a day and a half, and included two jeep rides, two busses and another jeep ride along the beach. Despite the fact that the last jeep had a leak in the fuel line and the new fuel tank was a big container in the front passenger seat, we made it safely to Jeri and are now chilling out as much as possible.
This afternoon we should be meeting my brother Andrew, who will be with us for the next couple of weeks. It will be good for both of us to have some news from home and someone else to tell all our old jokes to.
Anyway, for now, hasta luego amigos!
Los Davides
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