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According the the Lonely Planet Belem is not a particularly interesting place but I loved it! We stayed in Hotel Amazonas which was really a hostel but we managed to end up with a 4 bed dorm to ourselves with private bathroom ( this doesn´t happen often). The hotel was very simple but nice and clean, although I did find two bedbugs in my bed! These little bug-ers can bite you up to 70 times each in a night so it´s lucky I got them before they got me.
The first thing we did on arrival in Belem was to go to the Esaçao Das Docas, this is where I got my first view of the mighty Amazon River, I found it amazing that a river could make a gigantic cargo boat look like a rubber dingy, what a sight. On the Docs there is also a modern glass building that streches about 500 meters along the riverside fronted by old fashioned cranes called yellow dericks, it was here that I discovered Farrero Roche ice cream.. YUM!
For the rest of the first day we strolled around the area to decide what to do ever the next few days (I just realised how interesting that last sentence was, note to self keep up with blogging to avoid being boring! lol) ANYWAY! So we went to a really funky market called Ver-O-Peso that sold lots of unusual things like herbal medicines in brightly coloured jars, piles of dried shrip and hundreds of giant sacks of tapioca, great for making pancakes with honey for breakfast.
In Belem they also have Forte Do Presepio, built to defend the area after the portuguese kicked the Dutch and French out. The Fort had a great little museum attached with traditional art and pottery inside, some of which depicted cannabalistic tribes cooking up some lunch!
In the evening Sal and I went to a quirky little beer kiost in the Praca Da Republica, a large park area, here the waiters wear bowties and you get to sit on the mosaic terace listening to the music belting out of the Theatro Da Paz. We met a lot of interesting people at the kiost, there was the friendly Brazilian who had lived in Europe and the U.S, he spent the night telling us about his past and also translating for everyone else who wanted to speak to us (eveyone was interested in the ´Gringos´ apparently). Next there was the cross eyed Brazilian who had a very creepy obsession with Sal followed by the group of 25 plus year old group of lads who were eager to spend the whole evening teaching me to swear in Portuguese. Finally there were the 3 teenage boys who spent the night buying us drinks and playing Adele to us through their mobile phones, the youngest of the 3 (around 16) was so shy that he physically couldn´t speak, not even to other Brazilians. These 3 were really nice chaps, we tried our best to buy them drinks back but they really wouldn´t have it, we later found out that they don´t earn in a week what we earn in less then half a day! It seems to be a re-occuring pattern that all Brazilians want to do is help you and for you to like them and have a good time, it makes for such a great experiance in a beautiful country.
On our final day we went to the natural parks of Mangal Das Gerças and the Bosque Municipal Rodrigues Alves (The Botanical Garden). In these parks we got to see so many unusual animals like Scarlet Ibis, Macaws, a crazy Howler monkey that wouldn´t stop playing with his goods, a really sweet looking sloth and also a tortiose who had rolled onto his back and couldn´t get up after having fun with a lady friend, I ended up having to save the poor old boy buy jumping the fence (not the worst way for him to have gone though!). There are some pics of lots of other creatures and butterflys we saw here in my album of Belem.
Our original plan for all of South America was to travel by bus and boat only but at this point we are already behind time so we managed to book a realitively ´cheap´ flight to Manaus and I´m so glad we otherwise Ocho may never have been created.
I´ll explain soon...
- comments
Dad Hi Ped, Those hammocks on the Amazon River boat sure look comfy!! Did the small paying mantus pay to share with you or was he free laoding! Amazing views you have over the river and the sunsets look incredible. Keep blogging Ped and travel safely Dad