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We had a couple of nights in Sao Luis enjoying the streets and lovely tiled buildings, visiting a couple of interesting museums - one exhibiting masks and costumes from the folklore and festivals they celebrate in Maranhao (the state where Sao Luis is) - (something to do with a legend about the sacrifice and resurrection of a bull... again stemming back to the influence of the mix of cultures including African....); and another museum showing things (still) used in daily life in the area, including fishing traps and nets and dug-out boats, and native Indian feather headresses. It is such an interesting part of the country in the north.... so much history...
We had not the best bus journey for 15 hours to Belem along rough tracks, continually stopping and starting to pick people up and let them off all through the night. Not sure what the arrangement is... Seemed as though some of them were just hitching a ride....!
Two nights in Belem - paid an extra 6 quid to have cable TV and have made the most watching crappy HBO film after the next! Loved it! There's a great redeveloped waterfront area here with restaurants and shops etc. from where you can see further down to the port and the ships in one direction, towards the sea, and walk down to fruit and shrimp markets and stalls selling everything in the other, to a marina full of fishing boats, and vultures after the remnants of the catches... Really good.
Just a few hours left now until we board the boat to Manaus, for 6 days, several hundred miles up the Rio Amazonas and into the rainforests. We've 'cheated' a bit and gone for an air-conditioned cabin rather than hammocks...!! Up river you sail closer to the banks and hopefully get to see more.... Lots of stops on the way in towns pretty much inaccessible by road.... An experience!!
Quite exciting... leaving the coast and making our way across and out of Brazil - the next stage! Talk to you later! xxx
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