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With the fantastic Jericoacoara behind us, Yasmin and I took another short flight a couple hours west to Belem. Our plan was to spend the night in the city and then head to Ilha Marajo the next day. We arrived at the ferry "terminal" the next morning and my god was it hot. Belem is right near the equator so it is seriously hot and humid (94% humidity). As it was a friday 500-1000 locals were joining us on the ferry for the trip over to the island.
Ilha Marajo is a pretty unique place, it's an island the size of switzerland which faces the Atlantic and it's completely surrounded by fresh water flowing down from the Amazon. The waves crashing ashore are so diluted by fresh water that it barely has any salt. This was amazing for swimming!
The 3 hour journey was torture since we had a huge group of guys hanging out right behind our chairs yelling and getting drunk. The ferry even got stopped by the coast guard for an inspection, delaying us even more! We finally reached Ilha Marajo at dusk and fought through the chaos to find a taxi that would take us to Joanes, a small village population 1,500.
Arriving at our pousada (guesthouse) which is the one and only hotel type accomodation in town, we breathed a huge sigh of relief, the place was great and the setting was gorgeous. The pousada overlooked a sparsly populated beach from a small headland with stairs leading straight down to the sand. The sound of the waves reached right into our room, for $50/night this was the best option in town. The only downside was that it took about 75 minutes from the time we ordered food at their restaurant for it to be ready, talk about island time. So we learned our lesson and started going before we were too hungry!
Joanes is a little village with 3 roads, a small town square with a church and not much else to speak of. While Yasi and I were eating at a roadside shack Water Buffalo and Goats would pass by, grazing along the side of the main street.
We spent the next few days generally hanging around, going for walks on the beach, finding our own little tidal pools to soak up the sun in and swinging in hammoks. One morning we went with a local fisherman on a sunrise canoe ride up one of the rivers that runs through the island to spot wildlife. In only 3 hours we saw Tucans (yes!!), monkies, a variety of other birds and a sloth.
After 4 days on Marajo we headed back to civilization in Belem. We were a little put off at first since the sidewalks are in shambles (tretcherous even!) and our hotel was on a street with a bunch of homeless people and a couple urine soaked abandoned buildings. Getting past all that however we have been pleasently surprised by the city. It is fairly easy to navigate, has no favelas and some nice old buildings and parks.
We read about a great complex where we could hang out and have dinner called Estacao das Docas which was by the water, a few blocks from our hotel. After eating at mostly pay by the kilo buffets (these are everywhere in Brazil) it was a welcome change to have a sit down dinner in a nice location. The complex houses about a dozen restaurants, has some nice shops as well as a very well maintained promenade lined with old ship loading cranes. Yasi finally convinced me to eat at a vegetarian restaurant here and it was great! They had some fish on the menu so I guess they weren't 100% vegetarian but I had quinoa with pesto and cheese.
The highlight of Belem was a bottanical garden which is filled with animals of the Amazon. Since we will almost certainly NOT see a jaguar in the wild we opted for a trip to this place to see a few in captivity. One of the jaguars was sedated and it seemed like the staff were doing some dental work on it or something. We signed a guestbook in the visitor center and noticed that we are the only non brazilians to visit the zoo in quite a while!
On our walk to the gardens we ran across Basilica Santualio de Nazare which was a spectacular sight. Every October a million people visit this church for Brazil's largest religious vestival. It is the ONLY church Yasi and I have even seen which has LCD TVs mounted on the marble columns.
We also started our job search recently and have been scouring linkedin. It's hard to arrange calls with recruiters when there is no phone to call them on. We are officially arriving in London on September 1st!
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FLORA EACH TIME I READ YOUR BLOG ,I ENJOY IT MORE ;)
yasidrew We are glad you enjoy it!!!! It's all for you guys after all xoxoxoxo yasi
sheriff With great pleasure to read the post, the author thanks a lot! www.sheriff42.com