the sandy North coast of Brazil

I arrived in Belem in not a great state of health. I treat myself to the pricier HI hostel (strange when a HI hostel becomes a luxury !), it's a good one, and I stay there for 4 days without much recollection as I did not do much but attempt to recover from 5 days of illness. After the 3rd day I still had bad diarrhea so I really had to visit a doctor for antibiotics (Brazil is strict this way, you need a doctors prescription for lots of things (that you don't in most other parts of South America)). A 10 minute consultation costs R150 ($90), with no warning it was going to cost anything at all !! but at least I do now have a prescription (as it was, for the most expensive drug of the doctors "favorite" drug company, I was advised by the pharmacist to go back and ask for a "generic" prescription, which I did, and that was only $5).

Belem is a big noisy town. My observations were that it had a lot of expensive cars & some of the people seemed rather wealthy (from exporting products from the whole Amazon region, apparently). The center was poorer but a great place for shopping and food markets (hammocks just R15 here and cheap tropical fruits, I've become addicted to fresh Mango, just R1 each). Down at the old grubby fishing port (pic left) vultures were hanging around in large numbers, squabbling, waiting for scraps from the fish market, they seemed almost tame.

some of the Colonial streets of Sao Luis

Next day I'm feeling better, wasting no more time I head for Sao Luis (12 hours East) on the overnight bus. I found Sao Luis to be somewhat over-rated. I made the mistake of staying at the first place I went to "Pousada International", it's grotty and there were much better places just around the corner for less money, it's unlike me to give up so soon, I'm getting tried. I arrived on a Saturday and most places are closed, the next day, Sunday, everything is closed. I actually went hungry on the Sunday and was saved by just one open restaurant in the evening, a funny way to encourage tourists. The colonial architecture is fine, there's no doubt, but it's in quite a small area and rest of the town is ordinary. And the appeal of colonial architecture goes down a lot when you can't buy anything to eat !!

On the Monday morning I leave for Barrinhas, this is the start of an excellent over-land trip across the sandy dunes of the North coast, towards Jericoacoara (Jeri). On the 4 hour bus trip we pass through lots of very rural towns, the first proper rural Brazil I've seen. I arrive just in time to go on an evening tour of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, which was a bonus, no hanging around ! I know that I'm here at the "wrong" season (start of Feb), but I want to see it anyway, 1000 square kilometers of sand dunes and nothing else !!

The park is famous for it's translucent Aquamarine blue pools of water set in a sand dune backdrop, but this only occurs at certain times of year. There is a gentle warm wind blowing, it is supremely quiet and tranquil (no motorised traffic allowed within the park), a sublime and beautiful place.

To get here it's a 2-3 hour trip in a jeep, bumping along sandy tracks and crossing a river on a barge. It would be a superb place to camp out for a couple of nights (& you can do this) but you'd need everything + water. There is a small lake for swimming in & we all do, but it's brown not blue.

Next morning I'm up for the start of the self-organised jeep trip to Jeri. It's a near disaster at the start. I was told to wait outside the Banco do Brazil at 9am. Nothing turns up at 9am but at 10 minutes past I see a heavily laden jeep pulling out 200 meters down the street. I sprint after it and it is the sole daily jeep to Rio Novo. I get onboard and there are a few other backpackers and few locals onboard, it's a squeeze ! And off we bump, for 4 hours, down deep sand tracks East along the coast.

More of the beautiful Lençóis Maranhenses park and some pretty clouds, ahh...