And then there were two...

Monday started the same as Anyday. I awoke to unfamiliar surroundings and two other people in my room: Travis and Monica. However, today things would be different. Instead of the usual chirping of birds and natural light, the sound of a desperate someone pumping up his kite woke me up. It was 6:30am and a mere mouse fart of wind was blowing through the window. I suppose it was a forgivable offense assuming that he may have been leaving Brazil that day. 

The usual Brazilian breakfast (complete with cake) was a prelude to packing up for what promised to be another hellish drive into Fortaleza to drop Travis off at the airport. It was sad to see Travis go, and not just because he was really good at sharing the blame for my stupidity. If you compare the below to his initial arrival, you will note that he is now a slight shade of pink.

Which superhero am I?

We only got lost once getting out of Fortaleza this time, excluding the fact that we at one point found ourselves on the highway heading south towards Rio, instead of north to Taiba.

For the most part of the week, we were in Taiba. Reading, sleeping in hammocks, kiting on the lagoon and a noted lack of trips to the pharmacy since Travis departure. A real treat was doing a downwind kite trip from Taiba to Paracuru to discover some beautiful sections of deserted beach for riding and two "secret spots".

Secret spot number 1

Although sad to see it go, we left Taiba for Ilha do Guajiru to get in some more flat water riding and visit our friends at the Windy Addiction Pousada.


Monica has been progressing every day, and has been keeping her calm as I wildly gesticulate unhelpful kiting tips from the beach. We have generally just been chilling out and enjoying the slower pace of life over here. That and another amusing mishap when Monica found out that the peanut butter and jam toast she had this morning was in fact Brazilian meat jam!? Tasted delicious!

Fisherman never seem to use their boats, and most can't swim either. Instead, they put on a life jacket and bob around in the water dragging a fish net behind them, and then hope that the tide brings them back to shore.

Buy me so that I can finally be used to go fishing

Today we also got the chance to visit a Brazilian farm, where Monica got to sample a fresh Caju fruit, and we got to see a small  sample of what the non-touristy Brazil really looks like.

Mmmm

The farm house - I didn't get a chance to photograph the inside, but thought the dish was a great touch.

Monica  is fascinated by paw paw trees

It also happens to be a special someone's birthday tomorrow, and if you really want to help make it a special day for her, then you can post your wishes here, and maybe say something about how amazing she is to you, so she can find it here in the morning.

The Birthday Girl!

Taiba Video

On one of our visits to Taiba, we met a couple of Frenchmen (Remi and Sebastien), who made a holiday video that we were lucky enough to star in. It gives a good idea of what the Pousada we are staying in looks like, and some shots from around Taiba.

Keep and eye out for Team Canada at 1:12 on the video.

Upon our return to Taiba, we met another Frenchman who met Remi and Sebastien up the coast, and have been hanging out. We are now looking to head up to Icarai de Amontada to scope out the scene.

Prea and Jericoacoara

After a great time in Guajiru, we set off for Prea which is a town just 13km south of the Jericoacoara National Park. Prea seems to be a place that almost no one stops at, except to pick up a guide to show them through the sand dunes on the way to Jericoacoara.

We drove around for while and found a blinged out place that was way beyond what we were willing to spend, but after some discussion with the kind lady at the front desk, we managed to get the price to something much more reasonable. The added bonus was that included in the price, were free transfers to and from Jericoacoara.

This kind donkey offered to take our bags to the room

Out of Africa

There should be a small sign by the flower pot that says "2 frogs live here and will jump out  at you when you are brushing your teeth and scare you out of your pj's"

While a short stay, we were treated just like the regular hoytie-toyties at the resort: crepes for breakfast, offers to pump up your kite for you and lay out your lines, free coffee all day. I think you could even pay someone to go kitesurfing for you.

On the second evening, we decided to head into Jericoacoara to sample some of the legendary nightlife that is supposed to go on there. Monica and Travis took the buggy into town, while I decided to kite the beautiful stretch of coastline highlighted by fresh water lagoons, giant sand dunes, and an interesting rock formation called Pedra Furada.

Jericoacoara is touted as one of the must see towns in Brazil for anyone visiting there. The streets are made of sand and there are no vehicles on the majority of the streets (aside from the frequent out-of-control motorcycles making deliveries). There is a strange mix of high end jewelry, art and clothing stores mixed with low end cheapy stores. The mix of people is just as varied: from families of Rastafari  lining the streets to a wider array of tourists (other than the wind seeking kind). Bars, clubs, soft serve ice cream, little drink carts where you can get any drink imaginable. A very intersting place, and seems like a different planet compared to every other place we have been on the North East coast.

Yes, there is a cow lurking in the shadows who later took all my money

"If I wait here for another six hours, I can finally get my boat out"

This one isn't going far either

We had planned on doing some research for a pousada that night, but Travis declared it "The best place on earth" due to the discovery of a drink cart lady who made particularly strong caipirinhas, and no research was done.

Upon our return to Jericoacoara the following day, we set out to find ourselves a place to stay for a few days. There were two things working against us: the windiest place on earth had no wind this day, which made for sweltering heat; and there was a festival of music and sport on that weekend so a very busy weekend to be there.

We settled on the first and very cheap pousada we found that would have us, which was situated in a cashew grove. Delirious from the heat, we were just glad of the pool and the air conditioned room.

If you have ever seen a cashew tree, you will fully appreciate why they cost so much when you buy them at the store. They grow on a tree, sort of like apples, and each nut also has a fruit attached to it. The fruit can either be very sweet and juicy, or so tart that it sucks all the moisture out of your mouth. Brazilians will often squeeze them into a juice, mix with cachaca and make a very tasty drink. The juice apparently stains clothing, so care is needed when eating, and for some reason the nut is actually poisonous in this state, and bursts out a spray of liquid when thrown on a bbq as we found out. We still haven't look up how they get the nut out safely, but there can really only be one small bag of cashews in one tree.

Cashew Nut unripe

Cashew fruit with nut

Later that night, we discovered the downside of staying in a cashew grove. As one of the beds didn't have a mozzie net, we made sure to get some bug spray. I sprayed the bathroom and the main room, making sure to close the bathroom door as it had windows that were permanently open to the elements. We left the room for 15 minutes to let the bug spray do its job, but neglected to turn out the lights.

Upon our return to the room, we discovered a few bugs writhing on the floor. Success! However, when entering the bathroom, there were quite a significant number more bugs of various kinds on the floor in the last throes of death. I didn't really think much more of it until Monica, then Travis, insisted that I come and look again in the bathroom. There was a literal genocide of bugs on the floor, which were now trying to escape into the room, and out of the bathroom of death.

The bugs seemed to be attracted to the light, but even more so to the carefully selected flower scented bug spray. Monica and Travis spent a few minutes jumping up and down on the floor crushing bugs, and using descriptive language in their defense of the room, while I lay on the bed re-assuring them that it really wasn't a big deal and it was just a few bugs. We then shut out the lights in the room, and waited out the storm amongst many promises that this was the last night we would stay here, and that this was an absolute nightmare.

Sadly no pics of the carnage as Travis washed the evidence down the drain, but be warned  flower scented bug spray may not be a good idea

We stayed two more nights in the end (although, I think Monica and Travis's version of the story may have more colour). We:

Climbed the giant sand dune in town to watch the sun set into the sea

Duna do Pôr-do-Sol - literally Dune of Setting of Sun - with the crowds starting to make their way up

Looking back on the town from part way up the dune

Reservoir Dogs: Mrs Pink Portrait. Per Bjorn's request

I really like all the footprints in the sand

Riding in style up the dune

This entrepreneur wheeled up cold beer for you to have a sundowner

From the top of the Dune

The best way to get down from the dune

Still not quite there with the sunset shots

Celebrated Travis' s Birthday with lobster tail and snapper roasted on the churasscaria (bbq)

Attended an open air concert starring Bebel Gilberto who does a very cool remix of Bob Marley's "Sun is Shining" to a sort of James Bond Intro music style which I highly recommend you look up.

Image via Wikipedia

We hiked over dunes to see the famed rock with a hole in it and took silly pictures in front of it

Yes, entrepreneurs also hike beer and water over this terrain to said rock below

We are really happy to be here at Pedra Furada

Peter got a kind barber to shave his girlfriend deterrent for only 7 dollars:

Before

After: I am smiling on the inside

There was also very little wind for this period, so spent a lot of time in the ocean and swimming pools trying to cool off. I also was glad of the rest, and my muscles were still aching from all the kiting from the past month.

Jeri was a great place to visit for a few days, but Travis's time in Brazil was winding down, so we decided to make our way back down the coast.

Monica gets on her packing face

Note
If you want to see where we are, or where we have been, the spot tracker is updating location on the "where are we" page above. I had posted a previous spotadventures link which does not update automatically yet!

Also, due to flight availability and air miles mishaps, we had to make some major changes to our schedule. We are now going to be heading to New Zealand at the beginning of December. 

From flat breads to flat water

As our rooms in Paracuru were up a set of stairs and Pete was having some difficulty climbing them, he finally decided to take a much needed rest day from kiting. We thought that exploring the sand dunes surrounding the city would be a nice relaxing activity that wouldn't require too much physical exertion. I'm not sure what we were thinking as hiking up sand dunes and fighting against the wind as you walk up the beach for a few kilometres is really hard work! The wind, which did keep us cool was also very annoying as it just picked up sand and blasted it into our faces. It was quite tricky to keep your eyes open, to talk and even to walk. At one point in time, Pete put his hat over his face to get some relief and he wandered around blind for a bit. It was pretty funny for Trav and I when he would wander a bit close to the ocean and then yelp when he was hit by a wave.

Photo bomb!

Travis hiked up higher than both Pete and I just to show how large the sand dunes were. Pete decided to take a running leap into one of the sand dune holes which was pretty deep. At the very bottom he realized that he would have to hike back out of it thoroughly testing his cardio level in the process.

Running start...

Hike out

A family in an SUV must have thought that walking up the sand dunes was a crazy idea and instead decided to attack the sand dunes in their car. They approached the dunes at a very quick pace and were able to get part way up them. This was super entertaining for all of us as we for sure thought that either the car would get stuck or that it would tip over onto its side and roll down the hill. Luckily it didn't do either and they were able to successfully get back down. I should mention that no one walks for pleasure here. You only walk if you can't afford a bicycle or a car or if you haven't been successful in hitching a ride on either. I'm sure that just as we thought the SUV family was crazy, they also thought the same for the crazy foreigners who were walking around instead of driving.

Who needs to walk when you have a car?!

One night we thought that we would have a drink and a snack at this one place before heading off for dinner at another. They have these things called pastels, which as Pete described in the last post are deep fried stuffed flatbreads, kind of like samosas but only bigger. Each of us ordered one and the waiter mentioned something in Portuguese that Pete translated to be two-for-one, what a great deal! As we had just ordered three, we rounded out the order to get another one as we would then have four pastels for the meagre price of two. Imagine our surprise when the food came to our table and we had eight pastels instead of four. It turns out something was lost in the translation and really what the waiter had said was that you get two pastels with each order. We ended up eating the cheapest dinner ever, but our stomachs paid the price for all of that deep friend goodness. None of us can look at pastels without cringing anymore. I should also mention that the typical cost of a pastel is 1Real, which is the equivalent of 60 cents Canadian. I'm not sure why we were so excited by the two-for-one offer when really these things are dirt cheap.

We left Paracuru and made our way 120km up the coast to Ilha do Guajiru. There is a very large sandbank that creates a flat water inlet making it a pretty nice place to go kiting. 

View from our Pousada

We stayed at a great Pousada owned by David, a super friendly Canadian.

David and his wife Paz

He had smuggled in some kraft peanut butter during his last trip to Canada and very kindly shared some of it with us...its never tasted better!

Yum!

A few funny stories occurred at the Pousada and they all involved Trav. The first was that the bed in Trav's room was covered in plastic. We think that this was because the Pousada just opened this season and not because of a perceived bed wetting problem. The second was one in which Trav was taking a shower and a millipede fell out from either his hair or from on top of the shower hose. Trav said he didn't scream, but I'm sure an involuntary shout made it out. Trav sprayed the millipede down the drain, but was later told that millipedes love water and that he should have just killed it by squashing it as it's probably still living in the drain. Needless to say, Trav wore his flip-flops in the shower from then on and was more than a little wary of the showers. For those that don't know, the black millipedes you find over here are poisonous. Not enough to kill you, but enough to make you sick for a few days.

The Sunday that we were in Idha do Guajiru there was a 20km downwind kitesurfing race. I've never seen so many kiters all in one tiny area, trying very hard to not cross their lines with other kiters. It was slightly chaotic, dangerous and crazy but truly just amazing to watch. Within the half an hour wait until the start of the race, there were three incidents of kites crossing their lines. It's pretty scary to watch it happen as kites fall out of the sky out of control and people get yanked around. Luckily all of these kiters were able to get out of the situation fairly quickly and they all still participated in the race.

Count the kites...

Pete took a video of the race, which we will upload once we are in a bit of a better area for access. We are now off to Prea and Jericocara, which are both further NW up the coast.

Pousada in Paracuru
See our little red car

Very deep sand

Under the dock

Interesting shape for a lighthouse!

Pete chillin

Trav having a squeeze

See the Canadian flags?

Morning coffees

The Tale of Two Rooms

We took a much needed day off yesterday to heal up and get some rest. We ended up trekking through some sand dunes - Monica is going to write about that later.

After hours of trying to upload some short videos, the Brazil internet gods have finally relented.

Below we have the short clip showing the difference that a few extra dollars make.



This next clip is one that we shot  early in the trip at the Cumbuco city square.

There are many funny stories behind  learning a new language. The one that goes with this clip is that when asking around in Portuguese where we could watch some Capoeira demonstrations, we were told that on Saturday mornings at 8am, there was a demonstration in the city square.

For the first and only time while in Brazil, we set our alarm to get up bright and early to make our way into town to catch this much anticipated demonstration. We arrived to a completely deserted city square, and wandered around hoping that, at any minute some keen martial artists would show up just for us. Alas, nothing. Upon return to our pousada, further clarification revealed that in fact it was 8 at night! At least I got the right day!

Here is a quick clip of the footage we took later that night.