(This post covers my arrival in Bogota on March 22nd until my departure for the South of Colombia on March 31st.)

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*****

The best moments in traveling alone cannot be captured with a camera.  These are the moments where the feeling of being alive, the gratitude for being alive, for having the opportunity to see what you are seeing, to experience what you are experiencing…all this is racing through you and your eyes shine with the victory of having found it.  Maybe you are standing on the top of a mountain you just climbed, all around you is deathly quiet, there is no one else but you and you can see in every direction.  The sun is cutting through parts of the clouds leaving patches of land bathed in soft golden sunlight.  You feel like shouting at the top of your lungs but hesitate, thinking to yourself…”What a cliché scene from a movie”.  Then… “What do I care!?”  And you you let that feeling of being alive, all that energy out across the mountaintops in one big shout and it doesn’t feel like a trite cliché, it feels natural.  And you think to yourself “They have those scenes in movies because that is human, that is who we are.”

Maybe you are hanging out of the open door of a train as it passes through a small village.  The wind is blowing through your hair and bits of dust and sand are into your eyes.  The tracks thump underneath you click-clank, click-clank, click-clank, click-clank, and you feel the vibration under your feet.  The sun is hot on the side of your face and beads of sweat are collecting dust.  You have been traveling for days straight and need a shower but this only makes you feel more alive.  The train passes through little villages that are so different from what you know at home that your home seems like another planet, one that is far away.  Little kids run to the train tracks to wave at you as it passes by.

No one is there to take a picture of you hanging out of that boxcar on the train, but if they were would the exhilaration be captured in the faint smile that rests so naturally on your face?  Would you see it in your eyes?

*****

My midnight arrival in Bogotá was met with the quick realization that I had made a classic Gringo blunder. I had not even stopped to think that Bogotá, the third-highest capital city in the world (after La Paz and Quito) which sits at 2,625 meters (8,612 ft), might not be the tropical wonderland of Brazil that I had just arrived from. I stepped off the plane in short sleeves and flip-flops and walked out of the airport into a cold and rainy night with people wearing big coats and scarves! (deja-vu of my arrival in Amsterdam from Kenya in November of 2001). I woke up the next morning to more rain and more cold, put on shoes and socks for the first time in months, and set out to explore. That first day I didn’t wander too far from the hostel but I loved the city from the very beginning.

To me at least it has a very European feel, one reason is that like Buenos Aires there is more culture in the air, you see more bookstores, more libraries, more art museums, cathedrals that are hundreds of years old, and some nice architecture. Because of its intellectualism and abundance of culture Bogotá is often referred to as “The Athens of South America”.

There are also lots cafes and restaurants that have a cool artsy look and feel to them, a little funky and with character, not boring cookie cutter establishments. Here are a couple of pictures of a really cool cafe that had lots of little rooms full of art and old furniture and funky artifacts:

I also found the city to be rather organized, clean, and modern. The architecture is an interesting mix but there is quite a lot of British architecture that gives you the feel that you are walking around on some old university campus. Almost every building you see is made of brick, which can get redundant but helps keep the city looking well-kept (So many other Latin American capital cities have buildings with cheap concrete facades that stain black and look real dingy and depressing.) It later dawned on my that the dreary weather (my only complaint about Bogotá) also probably helped give the feeling of being in Europe.

I had been looking forward to my arrival in Bogotá for a long time, for years Iguess you could say.  Because it was not just visiting a new city but I was going to

get to visit an old friend who I had not seen in years. Silvia is a Colombian biologist from Bogotá who I lived with and worked with as a volunteer in Costa Rica years ago in 2003. The last time I had seen here was during a short trip I made with a friend to Cartagena in 2005 but we had always maintained a close bond. (in 2005 Colombia was still a pretty dangerous place to travel so we didn’t wander too far from Cartagena).

I had thought about and talked about a reunion in Colombia with Silvia for the last 6  years and it was everything I had imagined it would be. And so I had a best friend, a tour guide and a home for the rest of my time in Bogotá that would last about a week and half. She took me on a tour of her university where she is studying for her masters, it was one of the coolest campuses I have seen. We went to art museums, a flamenco show, saw a movie, visited markets and churches and walked hundreds of blocks through the city. Her boyfriend Flavio is one of the nicest guys I have met and was also always there to show me around and answer all my questions about the city.

I also got to spend lots of time with Silvia’s mom who is an amazing person and accepted me with open arms and I was even invited to a family dinner where I got to meet the rest

of her family. The next day her mom and her boyfriend invited us to go to an ecological reserve near Bogotá that is located in a cloud forest. It was my first introduction to a landscape that I would see again and again as I travel through Colombia…huge mountains and steep cliffs all covered in lush greenery with patches of clouds and mist settling into the nooks, crannies, and crevasses of the green land. It is a landscape that I have fallen in love with.

So…one question that is probably on lots of readers minds…”What are you doing traveling through Colombia by yourself? Isn’t it full of drug lords, FARC, paramilitary, and kidnappers? Isn’t it really dangerous?” Well, yes Colombia is still the worlds largest producer of cocaine (although production is declining), and yes there is still FARC and paramilitary in Colombia. As for kidnappings, in 2000 there were roughly 3,500 kidnappings, by 2006 that number fell to 680, the last report in 2009 was 172! Thats a decrease of about 95%.  As for the guerillas and drug lords and drug violence…where that was all once out in the open, an aggressive military campaign has pushed all the guerillas to basically “no-mans land”, far from any place where a tourist might want to visit. The result: I have felt much safer traveling around Colombia than I have in most other Latin American countries. Now that Colombia has been made safe for tourists it is in the beginning of boom, hostels are popping up everywhere, backpackers are as common as in Peru or Ecuador, and for the first time in decades locals are also getting out of their cities, taking to the roads, and exploring their own country. Former president (from 2002-2010) Álvaro Uribe Vélez and his extremely aggressive military campaign against the FARC is the man responsible for restoring order in Colombia.

So, it was in high spirits and with a thirst to dig into this new treasure trove of culture and nature that I set off to discover Colombia. Silvia had school obligations so couldn’t join me on my first leg of the trip that would take me through the South of the country but she promised to travel some with me in the North East later in the month. And so I boarded a night bus for a 10 hour trip from Bogotá to San Augustin where I would wake up to a new town, new people and a new adventure…..

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest
sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

To see more photos click here:  More photos of Bogotá

Also, I have added a new page to the Blog.  Look towards the top under the picture of the volcano, where it says “Past Adventures”.  This has a very brief history of some of my past world rambling as well as some some short slideshows of photos.

This Post covers March 2nd-March 22nd

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So arriving in Belem was like coming home, thanks Roselis, the jewel of the Amazon, and her friends Leandro and Simoni. Roselis was to be my couchsurfing host for my first few days in Belem and as soon as she opened the door of her apartment it was like walking into the home of an old friend. Her passion for life, her intelligence, and her mischievous which all shone in a twinkle in her eyes. She has a PHD in Biology and works for The Nature Conservancy forming relationships with Amazonian tribes to assist them in using their political influence to help conserve land (Yea…pretty cool).

It was so nice to meet someone who I shared a connection with, someone who propelled conversations into new realms and who was funny as hell!  And as if it wasnt enough of a gift to meet Roselis, as part of the package deal I was introduced and welcomed into her group of intimate friends that functions like a family. The first night I was there we cooked a big dinner and were joined by Simoni, her best friend who lives across the street and owns a pizzaria down  on the same block. We spent the night drinking wine and beer, sampling rum and salt from around the world, talking and laughing. And thus began my time in Belem, which was to last a week and a half but ended up lasting 3 weeks!

Belem was founded in 1616 and was the first European colony on the Amazon.  I actually thought the city was rather charming.  Huge mango trees line the side of the busy sidewalks dropping gifts on the heads of unsuspecting pedestrians (It’s known as the Cidade das Mangueiras (city of mango trees).

The culture of the Amazon is everywhere, in the food, the markets, the music and of course the weather which was hot and rainy.  Speaking of markets, Belem is  home to the “Ver-0-Peso” market founded in 1688 which claims to be the oldest continually operating market in The Americas.  The market is a kolidoscope of colors and smells and sounds.  With hundreds of stalls selling everything from Amazonian fish the size of a full grown man to crazy fruits that look like they belong in imagination of Dr. Seuss.  The market also has a huge section of traditional herbal medicines, potions, and concoctions meant to cure or cause just about any ailment or emotion you can think of.  Want to put a hex on your landlord?  Just sprinkle some of this green stuff on his doormat.   Gastritus?  Chew on this stick.  Want that girl to fall in love with you?  Just eat some of this pickled dolphin vagina (seriously).  All this is taken VERY seriously.  To the locals this is no novelty and they are quick to share stories with you (in all seriousness) about…”That one time when my best friends ate some macoca root to help him sleep and he didn’t wake up for 6 days!”

I took bunch of photos of the market so if you want to take a photographic tour of Belem click here:  Ver-O-Peso Photo Tour (I added to descriptions to some of the photos)

So why the hell was I in Belem for three weeks, a city that most travelers skip all together or at the most spent 2 or three days? One word, a word so great and powerful that it is really 3 words…DETRAN…also known at the Department of Transportation.  I will spare everyone the details…details which have been smothered by liters of tropical heat induced sweat, levels of frustrations nearing psychosis, and stacks and stacks of bureaucratic papers. The jest of it is that I had to sell Coco.

I had a buyer…a couple of coushurfers who wanted to drive her back down south and then into Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. But before I could sell the car to them I had to have it legally put into my name (I had been driving it under the grace period given when you buy a new car). This experience turned out to be one of if, not THE most challenging and frustrating things I have ever been faced with in over 30 months of my life I have spent traveling.  My patience was undergoing tests that resembled shock therapy.

Just one quick story that doesnt even scrape the surface of the whole ordeal but must be told….So on my fourth (out of 7 trips) to DETRAN, I was still naive enough to think that “today would be the day”. I drove the 40 minutes in sweltering heat to DETRAN where I got my “inspection” of the car. I failed. Why? Because my SPARE tire was “too worn”. Yep. Defeated for the day (DETRAN closes early) I made a plan for the next day. Next day I make the treck again but stop at a tire place near DETRAN and strike a deal with the guy. I’ll pay for a new tire, he “lends” it to me to pass my inspection, I return the tire two hours later and he gives me 90% of my money back. Deal. I walk out of the place with my new tire and in the 10 minutes that passed while this deal was being struck, a gigantic crack appeared on my windshield. Just like that. Crack. No way I’ll pass the inspection with that so I set off looking for a place that replaces windshields. I’m sweating like a pig driving around for 2 hours till I find a place. $200 and 3 hours later and I have a new windshield. Of course now DETRAN is closed. Next morning I was up ready for battle, head to the car and…Its been broken into! Everything was stolen, GPS, my lucky hat, the spare change from the ashtray, and…the spare tire I was supposed to return. Ok, stay calm, that’s life. Gotta go to DETRAN, gotta get this done. Jump in the car and head out. I go 5 minutes before I realize I need gas and pull into a station. I reach for the key to the gastank (always kept in the ashtray) and of course it disappeared with the spare change. So now im out of gas and have no way to put gas in the car.  Did I ever make it to DETRAN that day?  Yes I did (with the help of locksmith). Did I sort out all the paperwork? Lets just say that the paperwork should be all sorted out sometime this week. Yes, literally this week. I arrived in Belem on March 2nd, am currently in Colombia and have been since March 22nd and it is STILL not complete. But alas, those are the challenges of traveling, always testing one’s patience, persistence, and ability to adapt.

So all this time I had on my hands in Belem was not waste away but rather was spent in good company of my new friends.  As Roselis had to leave for a while to go to a conference of tribal leaders in Manaus I also spent some time with a couple other couchsurfers.  I was hosted by a couchsurfer named Lysmar who was super cool.  He lives with his family, mom, 2 brothers and sister in a very (Belemese) neighborhood.  I also spent some days with Leandro who works with Roselis at The Nature Conservancy and who introduced her to couchsurfing.  Leandro was just as welcoming and open and cool as Roselis and formed an integral part of the little Belemese family that I fell into.  The other family member who I have already mentioned was Simoni who I saw just about every day.  Like a couple of accountants dividing up their restaurant bill we would geek out with restaurant talk…food costs, fickle customers, and the difficulties of training good servers.  Having heard of the legendary martinis from my familie’s restaurant that I used to run in Hollywood she went out and bought the ingredients and we had a Martini Night at her restaurant.

ROSELIS & SIMONI MAKING MARTINIS

Simoni also invited me to go kayaking in the river one morning (Woohoo!)  So I got to spent the morning kayaking through the amazon basin past mangroves and jungle.  We stopped in a floating restaurant and had an amazing lunch of grilled fish plucked straight from the river.

Hmmm, what else did I do while in Belem…there was a great open air market and free concert in the main square (which was one of the nicest plazas I saw in Brasil).

A lot of my time in Belem was also spent trying to figure out an adventurous way to reach Colombia.  Someone told me there was a large industrial port in a nearby city so I  actually took a one hour boat ride and a one hour bus ride to reach the port with hopes of getting some commercial ship that would sail along the coast of the Guyanas and Venezuela to Colombia to let me sneak on board and work in exchange for my passage.  Didnt happen 😦  But at least I gave it a good try.  In the end I found a couchsurfer who used his airmiles to buy me a ticket for half the regular price.

And so, thus were the my final days in Brasil…at least until I return in May to conquer the Brasilian Amazon.  I caught a plane to Bogota on May 22nd.  Thanks to my Belemese family…If not for them my three weeks in Belem would have felt like a waste of time, instead it was a time a I will always remember.  So long for now Brasil!

PS:  In my last post (Farewell to Coco) I forgot to include the map that showed my route.  If you want to check it out click below on the blue link (you can click on the little blue pin markers also for details).  In the end I did 6500 kilometers (over 4,000 miles).  That is just the straight shot route that does not include all the other time and miles I spent driving around in cities, taking wrong turns and othe random detours.

Map of Coco’s Final Route

So I made the last part of the trip solo and had a good time of it.  I could have made the drive from Sao Luis to Belem in two days and one night but I found myself trying to stretch out every last bit of the drive.  I didn’t want the time with Coco to end.   So I found a random dirt road on the map…one I was sure would slow me down, and headed for it knowing that it would delay me enough so that I would have to spend one more night with Coco before arriving  in the city.

It was almost dark and I had been on this dirt road for an hour and had seen no safe place to pull off and park for the night.  I was beginning to get a little perturbed when I caught myself and decided to think positive, I took a deep breath and visualized myself finding a spot that would be suitable for parking.  And I swear, not 30 seconds later I saw a smaller dirt road that split off the larger one I was on…a promising lead.  So I turn down the road which is flanked on either side by rows and rows of palm trees that evidently used to be a palm plantation but that had been neglected, allowing the jungle to begin retaking what was rightfully hers….

And at the end of the road…I find the PERFECT spot to sleep for the night!  The most random thing ever to find a big well kept soccer field in the middle of nowhere!  Literally the nearest house must have been a kilometer away and the nearest town another 5 kilometers!   So that is how I found Coco’s final camping ground…

So I spent a pleasant night alone.  Made myself a caipahrina, lit some candles, put on some music and cooked a nice dinner.  I thought about all the things I would miss about life on the road in Brazil, the sunsets, the roadside fruit, waking up to see a new landscape everyday and just the thrill, the feeling of being a foreigner behind the wheel in a strange land, its almost as if you are doing something forbidden, something incredible.  I also thought of all the things I would not miss, the speed bumps, the mango fibers in my teeth, the sweat, the mosquitoes.  And so it was…my last night in Coco.

I made a little video documenting the occasion…not so riveting so feel free to skip it but for those who want to watch it here it is….

From day one I made a rule that everyone who rode in Coco, even if it were just for one kilometer, had to commemorate the occasion by adorning themselves with tiger ears and a clown nose.  I mentioned in a previous post that I often stopped to pick up random locals on the side of the road who flagged us down thinking that Coco was a transport vehicle.  The locals we picked up were given a choice if they wanted to participate in our “photography project” or not…all but one or two agreed and everyone sported the gear with big smiles, probably wondering how their day had taken such a strange turn to find themselves wearing a clown nose in the back of a Volkswagen bus full of gringos.   These people along with friends, couchsurfers, and other travelers who I randomly met on the road were those lucky enough to float (and bounce) down the highway on Coco’s steel haunches.  Without Coco I probably would never have met or come into contact with most of these people.  And so, a farewell to Coco from all of her friends….

Tchau Coco!

And so, I cruised into a Belem on March 2nd, my final port of call, where a new “adventure” of registering Coco at the Department of Motor Vehicles and passing her off to her new owners would soon begin.

For those of you who are subscribers I accidentally published this post before it was finished. So if you got two emails in your inbox ignore that first email and just click above where it says “The Homestretch, Ubajara to Amazonia” to view the post.

It appears that the music option in my last post was experiencing some technical difficulties.   I think I have it fixed now.  So if you want to listen to some REALLY Brazilian music while you read this post, click below (Mas Que Nada by Jorge Ben, 1963):

(This Post Covers February 20th – March 1st)

So again, I’m going to let the photos do most of the talking here.  We Left Parque Nacional Ubajara and headed to Parque Nacional Jericoacoara, of course with some detours, and adventures on the way:

During this stretch of highway I had the first and only real mechanical issues with Coco, and when it rains it pours so to speak.  First the throttle was getting stuck at full speed, then the muffler turned red hot and looked like it was going to explode, the the car kept stalling (found out later was a problem with the carbuerator), the starter was failing on us, and the car would loose power when we got above 60kmph.  Ill spare the details but all this happened and was resolved within two days and caused lots of headaches.  One nice thing that came from it all was a guy who saw us on stalled on the road and pulled over to help, he ended up spending the entire afternoon (about 4 hours) with us taking us from place to place helping us get the car fixed, driving me to parts stores, offered to let us take a shower at his house (His nice way of saying that we looked like dirtballs), and he did it all just to be nice.  These acts of kindness by strangers when you travel are always the most memorable.  So if you ever see a traveler lost or struggling with a problem give them a hand, they will remember you the rest of their life.

Parque Nacional Jericoacoara is a small national park on the coast full of sand dunes and crystal clear lagoons.  We hired a dune buggy to drive us around to explore the park (its the only way to see all the spots).

Next stop was Parque Nacional dos Lençóis for more dunes and lagoons.  We got kindof stuck in some random tiny town because our map said there was a road that led to the park from that town.  There was a road…this one:

Needless to say, Coco is a tough chica and even a good swimmer but she was not in shape to make this treck.  So we had to wait in this tiny town till a Land Cruiser was leaving that could take us to the park.  While waiting around in the town we ran into our Italian friends again, the couple who drove from Los Angeles to Argentina, seems they were following us, or we were following them.  I drank a bad coconut and got a good old case of travelers food poisoning. That made for an interesting night camping out in Coco.  So it was on shaky legs and a topsy turvy stomache that I made the trip to he park, but this was my payoff:

From there we continued north to São Luís along crappy roads full of pot-holes and….

One night we were looking for a place to park the car and sleep.  We had a tip from a couchsurfer to check out some beach but on the way we saw a sign for another beach, not on the map, that pointed down a tiny dirt road.   We were already in a very rural area and so this little dirt road would take us WAY off the beaten path.  Here’s a little video of the adventure that ensued:

It was a challenge but Coco pulled through (we had to get out twice to push or put stuff under the tires).  But in the end we made it and the payoff was having a beautiful beach all to ourselves.  This is where we parked and slept:

Next stop was Sao Luis, a small city with cobblestone colonial streets and plenty of colonial houses and buildings all falling slowly and steadily into decay in a charming sort of way.   In Sao Luis the Coco Kids split up to go their own ways.  Francesco had to catch a flight to Italy and I think it was just an unsaid mutual agreement that Anna and I would be better off going our own ways.  This all suited me just fine.

I was supposed to stay with a couchsurfer named Hamon.  On my way to meet him it was POURING torrential rains and I was following Ecowapi’s directions when it led me up a steep hill in a favela.  Well I got to the top of the hill to find that it was a dead end.  So I started carefully backing Coco down the hill when WHAM!!! Everything on the dashboard comes flying at my face and I find myself looking out the winshield at the grey wet sky above.  I had only been about 6 inches from the end of the asphalt which then dropped off steeply into a ditch.  Well with the rains pouring down like they were the asphalt just gave way and this was the result:

So there I was in a favela in the pouring rain with Coco in takeoff position.  Luckily the rain eventually stopped and the sun came out (along with all the neighbors).  Of course this gringo and his flying car was the spectacle of the neghborhood but the people were SUPER cool.  At one point I probably had about 10 people trying to come up with solutions and offering their help.  This along with about a dozen neighborhood kids who left their cartoons in favor of the spectacle I had created.  In the end a towtruck came and rescued Coco and aside from the 100 Reales that it cost me to get her out it was a worthwhile adventure, spending 3 hours hanging out with the people and kids of the favela.  Some photos of my entourage:

So I finally did meet up with Hamon who I spent the next couple days with.  He works in film and animating and is half Hindu and Half Brazilian.  He offered to host me at his uncles “farm” about 30 minutes outside of the city.  His uncle Marihno is an eccentric artist who lives on this “art farm” where he has a very simple brick house open to the elements with a wood-burning stove and an outdoor toilet patrolled by baby turtles.  This is all surrounded by jungly plants and fruit trees with trails leading to random “art installations”.   Marihno is also part of an Ayahuasca Community that shares a the farm with him.  Ayahuasca is an Amazonian plant that is a powerful halluginagen and is used in spiritual rituals.  Spending time with Hamon and Uncle Marihno was an interesting detour from my preceeding adventures.  They are both a little quirky in their own pleasant way and I was fond of them both.

As Carnival was right around the corner the city was abuzz with pre-carnival concerts and parades and parties.  Hamon and I headed to the Historic Center to check out the scene and who do I run into, now for the third time in about 4 weeks…The Italians!  So we ended up having lunch with them and then joining a carnival “Bloco” which is basically a band playing music who march through the streets followed by a bunch of costumed drunks.

From Sao Luis the homestretch to Belem was a welcomed solo drive.  Nice to have some time to myself to reflect on the previous months adventures in Coco before arriving at my final destination, Amazona…where Coco could proceed no further.

To see more photos click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59170494@N05/sets/72157626374759244/

Again, for those who are subscribers and who opened this from their email account, click above where is says in blue letters “Coco in the Northeast, Salvador to Parque Nacional Ubajara” to read the blog from the actual site.

If you want to listen to some REALLY Brazilian music while you read click below…It’s is “Mas, Que Nada” by Jorge Ben:

(This post covers February 9th through the 20th)

So I left Salvador with a new travel partner who would travel with me for more than 3 weeks, a girl from Poland named Anna who has spent the last 4 years in Buenos Aires but was about to move back to Europe and wanted to see a bit of Brazil before she left.  She spoke pretty good portuguese as she was studying it in Buenos Aires so of course this came in handy.  I really can’t say anything bad about Anna but there just wasnt much of a connection between us.  Sharing enthusiasm over the small things, being silly, laughing, sharing the same curiosities, waxing philosophical….I came to appreciate with new vigor and understanding all those who have traveled with me in the past who shared these things with me (you know who you are).  But we got along well enough really and so off we went.

Im not going to write much in this post, will leave most of it to the photos and videos and the descriptions under the photos on the flickr site.  So here are some photos and stories from the trip fro Salvador to Parque Nacional Ubajara  From Salvador we hit a whole bunch of small beach towns all with their own little flavor and character.  One night we slept in the bus at a beach where sea turtles come to lay their eggs.  There was a conservation project nearby that releases newly hatched babies every other day on the beach.  not knowing this ahead of time we just happend to arrived on the beach just as the last sea turtle was marching furiously towards the beckoning waves.  If we had arrived 10 minutes earlier we would have seen the full brigade but at least we saw the one!  The next day we visited the conservation center and got to see more babies up close:

A little side story here that will come into play in the next post…  As I mentioned before, VW  busses in Brazil are almost exclusively used as work vehicles and transport vehicles.  And in some regions they are used as transport vehicles inbetween small cities.  So its quite often that as we would be heading down the highway people standing on the side of the road would see us approaching and would think we were a transport vehicle so they would put their hand out signaling for the buss to stop.  Well, we always stopped.  They would approach the window to ask how much we were charging and when they would see a couple gringos they would take a step back, but I always gave a big reassuring smile and asked them where they were going and would offer them a ride for free and this always got their attention.  These were usually people who lived very simple modest lives in small towns or farms, people who we might normally not have come in contact and who were certianly surprised to find themselves in a bus full of gringos.  But we always tried ot make pleasant conversation in crappy portuguese and their expression and demeaner was always one of wonder (What the hell are these gringos doing here in this buss!) and of a restrained excitement of the turn their day took. In the end we always got them smiling and with a little luck laughing at our absurdism.  Surely they would return to their families that evening with the tale “You’ll never belive what happened to me today!”

Some more photos as we continued north:

We spent a few days with a really cool couchsurfer named Fellipe in a small city called Aracaju.  Aracaju means “Cashew”.  Cachews are a big thing in Brazil.  The trees are everywhere and they sell cashews on the side of roads and streets in every city.  They also make a juice out of the Cashew fruit.  Fellipe is a true adventurer having spent months cycling around Brazil trying to raise awareness for biking as an alternative to cars. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture with Fellipe.

We spent a night with two couchsurfers named Wonder and Luciano in Maceió who were also heading north so they joined us for a day and we gave them a ride to a town about 250 kilometers north.

We spent a night in a small city called Recife that has a pretty cool colonial historic center.  Here we were hosted by Albert who was a really nice guy but we hardly got to spend anytime together.  He’s a lawyer and an actor (Sounds like he should be living in LA!).  We lucked out and the one night we were there in Recife they had a big pre-carnival celebration (Literally you can feel the approach of carnival throughout the whole country about a month before it actually comes…every big city has huge parties every weekend for a month leading up to carnival).   Here is a short video of some people playing music in the street:

From Recife we went to a small very colonial town just north called Olinda.  Narrow cobblestone streets with small shops on either side painted in different bright colors.

The next memorable stop after Olinda was in Macau which is one of the largest sea salt producers in Latin America.

So we had to do anther ferryboat crossing near Macau and one of the other 4 car on the boat was a news agency.  I tried to chat with him in Portuguese, asking what they were reporting on.  Turns out they were doing a piece on the culture and beaches of that region.  He asked what I was doing there and I explained how I had bought this VW bus and was driving up the coast, he thought it was a great story and asked if we wanted to be interviewed for the news piece…Sure!  I cut out a bunch of it and added some subtitles (thanks Moose)…this actually aired on the local news, pretty funny…

We found an amazing spot to sleep that night next to a lighthouse on a bluff overlooking the ocean, we woke up to an amazing view of the Atlantic…

We stoped at some other nice beaches on the way to Fortaleza, Pipa, and Canoa Quebrada being the best.  In Pipa Anna stepped on a venomous Stonefish which created a bit of a ruckus and almost had us paying a visit to the hospital but she toughed it out until the pain got better.  So we arrived in Fortaleza and stayed with a really cool couchsurfer named Gerson.  It was interesting to listen to his explanation of how things function “territorially” in a city like Fortaleza that is pretty dangerous.  How there are certain streets that are “safe passage” to walk on even late at night, streets the criminals dont hit because they know that if YOU know that street is a safe passege that you must be from that neighborhood and they dont like to mess with people from their own barrio.

In Fortaleza we also gained another passenger, an Italian girl named Francesca who owns a wine bar in Tuscany.  She joined us until Sao Louis (about 4 days) where she had to fly back to Italy.  A good sport with positive energy I was glad to have her aboard.  From Fortaleza we felt we had gotten a bit burnt out on beaches so we decided to get off the beaten path and headed towards a random national park that is not on most tourist routes that was supposed to be about 3 hours inland.  3 hours turned into almost 8 due to HORRIBLE roads with gigantic potholes and torrential rains.

And so I will quit here for now, at Parque Nacional Ubajara with plans to head to Parque Nacional Lencois.  You can see more pictures by clicking here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59170494@N05/sets/72157626295399604/

Tchau!!!