From Santarem, we caught a thankfully uneventful flight to Sao Luis with a brief halt in Belem, where we had some delicious graviola (a type of custard-apple) ice-cream. We also tried the not so delicious muruci (translation unknown, it tasted salty, sweet, and buttery; altogether too rich) and had quick naps on the cold steel benches at the airport, made somewhat comfortable by the use of our sleeping bag. We had also spent the entire night at Santarem airport, since our flight was too early for the bus from Alter do Chao and we didn't feel like splurging on a taxi. So, we caught the bus the previous night. It was slightly uncomfortable but manageable and MF Tree rewarded herself with a tapioquini with butter at the airport's 24-hour cafe.Baggage and us arrived all together in Sao Luis in the blazing hot afternoon and soon found out that the bus to Barreirinhas - the gateway town to Parque Nacional Lencois Maranhenses (the point of us coming to Barreirinhas)- was leaving very very soon, i.e. in the next 30 minutes from the rodoviaria which was a 15 minute drive away. We dashed to the rodoviaria, bought tickets from some grumpy, slow, and unhelpful bus company employees (try to avoid Cisne Branco buses), one of us used a rather dirty paid bathroom and we boarded the bus. A brief scare occured when a woman was sitting in one of our seats but was quickly resolved when she saw that she had a different seat number. Next stop Barreirinhas and our first encounter with aggressive tour-company employees.
We were accosted by them as soon as we disembarked from the bus since Barreirinhas in recent times has become a popular destination with domestic and some international tourists due to its proximity to the spectacular Lencois Maranhenses. Fortunately we dealt with them fine and were guided by one of them to an inexpensive river-side pousada with a decent bathroom and a working fan. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that it was next to a restaurant-cum-local-party-wedding-venue which blared music late into the night and started early in the morning. It wasn't very good music either - the first night it was locals singing accompanied by a religious sermon for what seemed to be someone's 40th birthday and the following morning it was loud and bad pop-music which no one was really listening to, just that the stereo was on and blowing into the river.Oh well, so it goes. The FFos was determined to not give this restaurant "any of his patronage" and cracked himself up everytime he said it (i.e. everytime we passed by it).We did manage to accomplish two things that night - book our spots on a tour to Parque Nacional Lencois Maranhenses for the very next day and get dinner at a river-side spot called Restaurante Barlavento which had surprisingly good pizza and a mouth-melting maracuja suco com leite (passion-fruit juice with milk - essentially a passion-fruit milkshake.)
The next morning was a lazy one, spent dawdling at breakfast by the riverside and writing journals and blog posts and downloading photographs. We spent a while remembering our last three weeks (it's only been that long! But then again, we're now through 30% of our trip!) and relaxing after a long couple of travel days from Alter do Chao. We had a rushed lunch thanks to the laid-back service at Barlavento again and made our way to the tour.
Our route to Parque Nacional Lencois Maranhenses was by jeep and a short river-crossing by barge. A jeep full of Brasilian tourists and our genuinely friendly guide Jadson, who thankfully spoke English so we understood his instructions and informational tidbits. It's a bumpy ride from Barreirinhas, since it's a dirt-and-sand-through-some-water-bodies road which goes to the park, although it is extremely pretty and a big change from Amazonia since it passes through palm and shrub vegetation due to the dry and sandy soil. The park itself, left us speechless. A jaw-dropping expanse of rolling white sand-dunes and depressions filled with water in the rainy season. Most of the lakes were dry when we went because it was towards the end of the year (rainy season starts around January) but the landscape was no less stunning. Dotted with a few specks of green grasses and tree-stumps, wherever we looked was a desert like multitude of whitish-yellowish-brownish dunes.
Our short hike led us through 3 dry lake-beds and ended at the still water-filled Lago do Peixe (Fish Lake) where everyone enjoyed a refreshing dip in the water. We did hold everyone up a little throughout our trip because we went a little camera-crazy and clicked a ton of pictures while most the others in our little group were more interested in getting to the lake and taking a dip and then heading back. Our group included a Brasilian software professional living in Belgium (who was planning to move back to Brasil by the end of the year), his girlfriend who he had not met in a year, and a rather talkative corpulent old chap from Sao Paulo who did not pause his chatter to all and sundry throughout the tour. He was well meaning though.We ended our Barreirinhas stay with another meal of pizza topped off with yet another maracuja suco com leite and a perfect-for-summer, chilled Brahma pilsener. The second bus to Sao Luis was at 9 am the next day and even with our notoriously lax timing we managed to make it with ease, albeit with a little fretting.
No comments:
Post a Comment