Brazilian beach holiday

We arrived in Fortaleza after a "short" 28-hours-busride (luckily the longest that we had to do during this trip and luckily because it's already over) and at first I had to work a bit, my first real translation job, please applaud everybody! After that was done we met my friends mum Thereza who lives close to Fortaleza and we spent some very relaxing days in her beautiful house close to the beach. We went to the beach and had some very chilled beers (my brazilian friends in Germany used to complain about the beer not being cold enough, now I know why) while sitting in plastic chairs on the beach.

After Fortaleza we took the most terrible night bus ever to Natal, which is a famous holiday destination also among brazilians and the school holidays take place in July so it was full of brazilian families which was interesting because the average brazilian tourist seems to like it crowded. At some places the beach was almost deserted and then at others the people would sit so close to each other you had problems walking through the lines of chairs and tables.

In Natal we also did a snorkeling trip to a nearby reef which I liked and Flo didn't because again there were heaps of people, but for me it was interesting to watch because again people would stay really close together in the water and most of them also had their head out of the water and were chatting instead of looking at the fish.

We stayed 4 days in Natal, then went to the next beach town called Praia da Pipa which apparently was a hippie-town in the 70s, but like all of the little towns along the coast was discovered by mass tourism, so that, nowadays the only hippie-like-thing about it are the colorful dresses that you can buy there. Still we liked it much more than Natal, because it was much smaller and quieter, had surprisingly good restaurants, and had more wildlife.

There is a beach that you can walk to at low tide where dolphins get very close to the shore and if you go swimming you almost have the feeling of being really close to them. Then there was also a sanctuary with a lookout where you could observe sea turtles during high tide and they had a little enclosure where you could watch tortoises having sex and making funny noises at any time.

Again we went to the beach a lot, had some sunburn, had quite a few beers (it's Caipifruta on the picture, but we also had beer, and caipirinhas, and more caipifrutas)and just generally relaxed a lot. Surprisingly despite this lifestyle which felt very decadent because we didn't watch our money too much, we spent less than in the cities where you have to pay public transport and entrance fees to museums etc.

Next on our List is Recife where we're NOT gonna go to the beach as a few days ago a girl has just been killed there in a shark attack. It's one of the ten most dangerous beaches in the world (according to 5-seconds-google-research), because of the harbour they built very close to the city. The construction changed some of the currents along the cost, plus tiger shark are very attracted to large trailer ships and follow them for several hundred kilometers living of the rubbish that is thrown overboard. These tigersharks and bullsharks are responsible for most of the attacks along the bay of Recife, so no swimming for us there, thank you.

Buffalo island

From Belem we went straight to Marajo with our new travel companions with Austria and Berlin that we met on the boat. I wanted to go there because I had seen a documentary about a special police unit riding on water buffalos which in the end I didn't even see but it were nontheless specials days we spent there.

To go to Source, the biggest and most touristic town at Marajo is quite complicated. First you take a boat fir three hours, then you weather take a tourist bus (12 R) which drops you off at your hotel or the local bus (5R). Guess which one we chose. The local bus leaves you at the free car ferry that runs once an hour between Salvaterra and Soure. You then pass the river and walk to your accomodation. By the time we arrived in Soure it was already dark and we found out quickly after checking prices in the first hotel that the island is also very expensive (100R for a double). Luckily we found a hotel that had recently reopened and offered us to stay in one of their "chales" (little round huts) with four people for the same price as two. ok, one person had to sleep in a hammock and one on the floor with an extra matress, but it wasn't me, so it was good. ;)

On the first evening we met Bernd, a german who owns a hostel on the island as well. He gave me the bad news that the buffalo police that I so wanted to see, didn't really exist anymore, they only sometimes have a two officers riding around or standing at the main square for tourist to take pictures of them. But luckily Bernd had a much better idea for a day trip: to ride a bufalo ourselves. So the next day we rented some bikes and rode 5km out of town to a farm where we did a little excursion. First we took a boat down the river to a deserted postcard-like beach , then took a little walk on the beach and through a mangrove forst and finally met the buffalos that would bring us back to the farm again. None of us really managed to control their buffalo but it was good fun.

On our last day at Marajo we took our biked and went to the beach closest to town, about 5ks as well. It was not particularly the most beautiful beach in the world but the bar with chairs and tables in the water and cold delicious beer made up for it.

Leaving the island became a little bit chaotic as we missed our ferry across the river, therefor could take the bus and the boat. We took the next ferry, ran to a taxi and shouted at the driver to bring us to the boat as fast as possible. He immediatly told us that it would be impossible for him to drive 40ks in 10 minutes (understandable), but there would be another boat one hour later that we didn't know about. So we got on the boat, happy that it was even cheaper than the boat we took to the island. When we arrived in Belem, we found out why. The boat wouldn't go to the city port but to another one further outside, so we had to take another taxi to get to the bus terminal only to find out that there wouldn't be any buses be going to fortleza anymore. So the four of us managed to get another double room for four people which made the price almost aceptable. The breakfast the next morning made it very aceptable though, it was probably the best breakfast we had since the jungle in Bolivia: fresh fruits, cereals, cake, eggs, tapioca, sandwichmaker, yummy. We ate until we could eat anymore and took the 28 hours bus to Fortaleza.

Manaus

We arrived at Manaus early in the morning and went straight to Fernandos and Tatianas (our hosts) place. They have a nice family house about 20 minutes by bus from the center. It was nice to be couchsurfing again, we've tried a few times in Bolivia and Peru, but somehow it never worked (to be honest we also didn't try too hard as the prices where not as high as here, especially in Bolivia).

Although Manaus lies in the middle of the jungle, it's in fact quite a big city with more than 2 million inhabitant who luckily decided to live in newly build apartment blocks outside of the city center. That way the old town has been conserved although it is a little bit run down like many city centers in Brazil. The new middleclass prefers to go shopping in the newly build shoppingcenters close to their apartment blocks where you get american fastfood and air-con, therefor only the lower classes go shopping in the city centers.

But we had a good time there. For the first time since forever we went out for some beers to a bar with life music, together with the frendch guy and an argentinian girl we met on the boat and it was good fun.

We also visited the cutural center of indigenous people of the amazon which was quite interesting, much better than expected, as it doesn't show up in any of the tourist guides and for free. we even had an english speaking personal guide.

Afterwards we went to Bosque a Ciencia, a garden-park-zoo-nature reserve-thing in Manaus. There we saw more gorgeous manatees, but also turtles, caimans and electric eels.

We really liked Manaus despite the freaking hot weather which forced you to shower at least three times a day, but the people were  very friendly, it was quite safe for a brazilian city and a lot of nature in and around the city.

We then took our last boat from Manaus to Belem, another four and a half days on a boat, one of these days spent on a spot in Santarem where the boat drove back and forth between the two ports. I didn't really understand why that was necesary, but at least we had the chance to take a short walk though town and find out that it is not really worth staying, at least not in Santarem directly.

This last boat was unfortunately not as good as the one before. Although we had even more space, it was very fast and therefor very windy, forcing me to use my thick winter sleeping bag at night. And while the food on the other boats might not have been great quality, at least it was for free. On this boat quality was about the same but you had to pay (12 R for lunch or dinner, not a lot but also not cheap). Anyways, I was happy when we arrived, it was a very nice trip, but after a while you do get sick of doing nothing the whole day and sleeping in a hammock.