Brazil - My bit of sun in the middle of winter

Well I am coming down off of my vacation high and getting back into the real world…sigh. But what a vacation it was! I would like to suggest that everyone take a vacation sometime without knowing where exactly you are going…and stop by an absolutely deserted beach sometime, there’s a strange sensation of solitude with your thoughts that no other place I have been offers.

Anyway, some of you have already heard parts of this story, but here it is. The pictures are in a separate email.

Pololo and I left our apartment at 4am on Friday (July 3rd) and a mere 30 hours later we arrived to our destination: Jericoacoara, Brasil.

Time-out
Background information for those who need it: My crazy friend RA (just kidding, Laur!) somehow ended up in a lost little town on the northern coast of Brasil a few years ago. There she met Brazilian, and stayed with him and his family. Last September RA and Brazilian got married in FL but none of Brazilian’s family was able to come. Sooooo, this year they had another ceremony in Brazilian’s town. Smiles, Pololo and I were all lucky enough to go to both weddings.

Time-in
So anyway, Pololo and I flew from Santiago to Sao Paulo where we had a 5 hour layover, Sao Paulo to Recife where we didn’t even get off the plane, and then Recife to Fortaleza where a friend of Brazilian’s family, Rosy, was going to pick us up at the airport. I have to recognize that when we landed in Fortaleza until we got to Jeri was the most out-of-my-element I have felt in a long time. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I wasn’t uneasy really, but I did notice that I didn’t know what Rosy looked like, and though I had her phone number, we don’t speak the same language, nor did we speak the same language as the car rental people, nor did we know how to get to Jeri without Rosy. J But we DID find Rosy and went with her and her husband and stayed in their home Friday night.

In the airport Rosy’s husband asked about our trip and was sympathetic to hear that we had woken up at 3:30am that morning. He said with a wink and a smile that we would be getting up at 5am the next morning, to which I of course laughed. Turns out he wasn’t kidding! We did have to get up by 5 to be on the road by 6 so that we could get to Jijoca (the last town before Jericoacoara) before the tide came in and we wouldn’t be able to cross.

Days seem to start much earlier in Brasil. Because they are close to the equator there, they do not change time for daylight savings. The sun rises around 5am and sets a little before 6pm everyday, and they plan their days accordingly. So, at 6am Pololo and I got into our little rented Chevy and braved the crazy Brazilian traffic, in pursuit of Rosy and her husband.

Brasil has to be the most difficult place to drive for a foreigner! Not only are the drivers aggressive, something that I’m used to from Mexico City, but there are crazy motorcyclists, bicyclists and walkers all going whichever way they want to on the roads in towns. Poor Pololo had to drive the whole time because I can’t drive a standard (how embarrassing) and on top of all that, the car didn’t even have power steering!

Once we got on the two-lane highway though, it was a bit easier, you just have to avoid the surprise, and surprisingly large, pot holes, that appear out of nowhere. Rosy’s husband (or as we called him, el tio loco) is definitely a morning person, in sharp contrast to his wife. From our car we could see el tio loco dancing enthusiastically and serenading a grumpy and half-asleep Rosy.

Anyway, in Jijoca we hired a guide who got into our little Chevy with us and drove it the rest of the way to Jericoacoara. We got stuck once in the dry, soft sand, but by letting almost all of the air out of the tires, driving on the floor mats from the car and with 5 people (including 2 guys who stopped on their way by to help) pushing we were able to get out fairly easily. We drove ON the beach, hence the part about getting there before the tide comes in, and in about an hour we were in Jericoacoara.

Getting to Jeri might not be easy, but once you are there you cannot not relax! It is immediate upon getting out of the car. There are no roads, partly because the town is in a national park, partly because it is all sand dunes which move and make paving next to impossible, and partly because it’s just a small town! You walk around in your bathing suit (cover-up optional) and flip flops if you want (otherwise go barefoot, the streets are all sand so who cares?).

In Jeri we stayed in Brazilian’s family’s pousada (small hotel) with the rest of the gang. The hotel was great because all room doors opened to an open-air patio with hammocks, where we spent a lot of time shooting the breeze. It was so funny with the mix of languages! There were some English-only speakers, some Portuguese-only speakers, some Spanish/English speakers, some Portuguese/English speakers, and a handful who spoke all three! At any given point you could hear some strange Spanlishese being spoken. Even Brazilian is starting to have trouble remembering to switch languages. When his mom dropped a dish with a loud crash one evening, Brazilian responded with “are you alright, mama?” But the best example by far was that DURING THE CEREMONY, Brazilian responded to the preacher speaking the vows by saying, “yes” hahahaha!

The wedding
RA, the true wedding person that she is, went to the beach with us girls after I arrived while Brazilian’s family frantically prepared for the wedding. The family cooked all the food, which was excellent! RA’s only commitment was that she had to be back to the house by 3 so Brazilian’s sisters could start getting her all primped and proper. She did show up on time this time though (for the Sarasota wedding the bride didn’t show up to the church until 5 minutes before the ceremony!).

The wedding was beautiful, on a small cliff over the beach with the sun setting over the ocean in the background. It was timed perfectly too. As soon as they said their vows the sun disappeared over the horizon. It was a destination wedding that many would have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for, it just so happens that Brazilian’s family LIVES in this “destination.”

After the wedding we all walked down the beach to the reception, where the Brazilian men tried desperately to teach us non-brazilian women how to dance Forro, a dance typical to northern brazil. We laughed a lot and twirled around like crazy girls trying to follow these guys’ moves, and basically provided a lot of entertainment for the locals ;-)

In Jericoacoara
After the wedding we still all had a few days in Jeri to enjoy. We road buggies over the dunes, rafts and beaches, all the while watching the strange skies which would pour rain, but only in a very small section of the beach. Driving toward it you can literally see where it is raining and where it is not.

Another great thing about Jeri is that you can sit on the dunes to watch the sunset over the ocean. It seems like about half the town treks up the dune every night to watch this spectacle.

Oh, and we also rode horses. Now, I am by NO MEANS an expert at horseback riding. I think I have ridden 2 times in my entire life. But I have learned that tourism horses are very calm, even bored. Smiles and RA’s friend Rebecca were a bit nervous about riding and so they asked for “very calm” horses. Well, the ‘very calm’ of the very calm horses means that they are slooooooooooow! We had planned to ride the horses to see a sand dune that is taking over the palm trees and then to a rock we had visited earlier that day, but we didn’t have time to do both. It worked out well though, because from where we were at sunset we could see that it was POURING at the other place where we had originally planned to watch the sunset.

Anyway, with Brazilian and RA as our cowboy guides, we rode the horses to a sand dune that is taking over the palms. It is pretty neat because these tall palm trees’ heads are barely sticking out of the sand!

Off on our own
Wednesday morning Smiles and Rebecca headed back to Fortaleza and then on to the US. :-( Pololo and I left around 11am to go…uh…east. We knew we had to be in Fortaleza on Sunday for our flight, but other than that our only plan was to travel the beaches between Jeri and Fortaleza, stopping and going when we wanted.

My goal, as many of you know, was to sit on the beach with a book in one hand and a caipirnha in the other. I’m pleased to report that I achieved it…many times over.

Our first stop was Ilha do Guajirú, an up and coming destination that is great for windsurfing. (No we didn’t go wind surfing). A very nice travel agency in Jeri had told us about the place and showed us a few pictures. They told us that it was up-and-coming, we just didn’t realize how far up it still has to come! Actually, it was a very nice beach. It’s neat because you stay right on the beach about where it says “Praia de Barra” on the map attached, so that as you look to the ocean you see the island across from you. We paid a fisherman to take us over tot hat island, then walked across it to the other side that overlooks the ocean. There is nothing as solitary (not necessarily in a bad way) as sitting on an empty beach like that!

They are selling the land off now for development, but currently there are only 5 buildings…one of which was closed because of a bees’ nest. In the entire little development there was only one other guest! Sitting around playing cribbage (which I lost, again…I’m starting to regret teaching him that game) we said it was kind of like being stranded on a desert island…but with caipirinhas!

Anyway, after one night in Ilha do Guajirú we moved on to Fleixeras. Out of all of the towns we visited on our own, this was probably my favorite. It had a cute little church in the center whose walls were more like decorative fences made of bricks. Driving in along the beach we saw a hotel with a bar on the beach, the hotel was full but we spent the entire next day in their lounge chairs on the beach. Our hotel was also nice. We of course didn’t have a reservation so we settled for a room with no AC, just a fan, the first night. But what a view!

But Pololo got very bit up by the mosquitos because we slept with our windows open. The next night we switched to a room with AC that didn’t cool the room at all, no fan and no view, but still with lots of mosquitos. Live and learn!

Then we moved on to Cumbuco, our final stop before the airport. We were actually having trouble finding a hotel there that didn’t look pricey and right on the beach. Finally we just stopped at one to find out what the prices were so we would have a reference. Walking in we noticed a pool by the beach and lounge chairs and umbrellas on the beach…”This is not going to be cheap,” we thought. As it turned out, there was a promotion for half off!

We had been staying in good hotels (clean etc.) but the closer we got to Fortaleza, the more ‘international’ they became. In Fleixeras we finally had a shower curtain, and in Cumbuco they had key card locks! I almost laughed out loud when I saw them, but refrained myself as I didn’t think the bellboy would understand.

And so we spent our last day at a nice hotel in the lounge chairs between the pool and the beach, or in the pool at the bar…And Sunday morning we packed up and headed back to Fortaleza (where the GPS was useful for the first time) and then onto Santiago, ending another wonderful trip!

A New Computer

My new computer allows me to use window live writer from the dock to update my blog.  Perhaps when I am done writing chapter 1-3 of my dissertation I will have some time to write in it!

I am also playing around with FaceBook which allowed me to find some friends I had lost in cyberworld.  One of them is a teacher in another state with whom I corresponded while I taught second grade. Our classes exchanged pen pal letters.  I got so that I looked forward to her long and rich letters and waited to hear about her family, summer jobs, and teaching.  I am so glad to be back in touch with her.

Which reminds me that I have been OUT of touch with Maz.  She sent me two beautiful framed photos of birds from her back yard and I intended to call her up to thank her.  But that just hasn’t happened…I keep forgetting to get her number…so I am going to have to sheepishly email her and confess. 

I absolutely love the photos.  One of them is a “Rosy” as my mom calls them and the other is of an oriole sipping from an orange.  That one goes in my office since our school mascot is an oriole.  Wait until you see it hanging there, Bright Eyes!

Waiting to hear all about my daughter’s trip to Brazil.  Perhaps she will update here as well.  But for now I am going back to work.

Chapter One….