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.
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