Dune Buggying in Natal

Fortaleza is a large Brazilian City of 3.2 million people, and our next port of call after chilled out little Jeri (population 1500). Indeed, there was culture shock. Particularly since our budget hostel in Fortaleza had neither air conditioning, nor a pool. Dear, oh dear ... we were really roughing it now.

We stayed just long enough to visit Beach Park, a beach-front aquatic wonderland, complete with numerous water slides, wave pools, and rides in rubber rings. The highlight was something called "Insano", a 120ft, near vertical slide, with speeds approaching 110km per hour. The best/worst bit, was the short slow section before the drop, allowing you to contemplate the sheer foolishness of what you are doing - before going over the edge. We did it twice.



Fortaleza does not hold much else of interest for the backpacker, so we got moving and bussed it down to the beach paradise of Natal. There were no budget hostels that we could find in Natal, so we were forced to stay in a lovely mid-range pousada (complete with air-con and pool of course). What a shame.

Our first day in Natal was supposed to be spent checking out the area, and having a look at the picturesque (if windy) city beach of Ponta Negra. Unfortunately, despite numerous emails, phone calls and assurances from them - STA (our Travel Agent in London) had failed to change the dates of a flight we were booked on as far back as September 5th. So, we spent most of the day trying to sort that out with a local travel agent (conclusion still pending). Anyone thinking of travelling with STA ... don't. They are rubbish.

Desperate for fun, on Day 2 we caught a bus south down the coast to a small town called Pirangi - home of the world's biggest cashew tree. The branches of this tree have spread to an area of over 500m2, and it is still growing! It's not quite as an impressive sight as it sounds, since due to their weight, the branches have grown more outwards rather than upwards giving the whole thing the appearance of a gigantic bush. It was still cool to get right into the middle of it however, and see all these huge branches spidering out. As well as the tree, Pirangi also happens to have a very nice beach next to it, so we spent the afternoon lounging around, watching some expert kite surfers practice flips and jumps in the surf in front of us.

On Day 3 it got serious. The coast north of Natal is supposed to have a concentration of great sand dune backed beaches stretching many many miles from the city. To visit these, you can either attempt to get a bus to each one individually (a confusing and logistically tricky task), or you can go on a full day beach buggy tour of the lot of 'em. We went with the buggy.

We were picked up early that morning, by an enormous Brazilian going by the name of "The Black Tyson". Before setting off, he asked if we wanted the journey "com o sem emocao" (with or without emotion). We decided on "with". The full consequences of this decision were not fully realised until we had picked up a further two passengers, and arrived on the edge of the first beach we were to visit. As soon as the buggy left tarmac and hit sand, Tyson jammed the wheel violently to the right, then the left, seemingly in an attempt to flip it over and kill us all. Somehow, the buggy managed to stay grounded, and we came to rest in a cloud of sand. “Yeeeeehaaaaa!!! Com emocao!!!” screamed Tyson, before slamming his foot down on the accelerator, and peeling out across the beach.



Over the next few minutes, we were subjected to 3 or 4 near fatal experiences, which after a while made me feel a touch light-headed, and semi-hysterical. It was a bit like going on one of those really old wooden roller-coasters, where the thrill of the ride is increased by the very real danger that the whole thing might collapse at any moment ...

After a while, Tyson calmed down a little, and we were able to take stock of the beauty of our surroundings. The beaches were wild, desolate and stunning. We drove along these beaches for a while, before heading inland towards a few large dunes. We stopped on one of these dunes just long enough for Liz to have her picture taken with a donkey.



It was then time for a bit more buggy russian roulette, before our next stop on the dunes of Genipabu beach. We grabbed a “coco verde” here, which is simply a ripe coconut with a straw stuck in it. Since neither Liz nor I particularly likes the taste of coconut, we had never bought one of these before, despite seeing them sold at nearly every road or beach-side stall for the past 4 months. Predictably, we loved them, and vowed to drink at least one every day we had remaining in South America.

A bit more buggy pinball later, we were on a dune overlooking a lake. Here, for a couple of quid, you could zipline over the lake on a seat, or put on a large plastic nappy and throw yourself down a long plastic shoot. Sensibly, I went with the zipline seat option which afforded wonderful views. It was quite actually serene until my bum made contact with the water at 20mph. Liz went for the nappy option, which was hilarious for me, and, judging by the loud, long scream, pretty fun for her as well.

It was then time for the main event – driving round at high speed around some very large “golden” dunes. If Tyson's manoeuvres were scary before, they were about to get downright terrifying. The highlights were “Vertical Descent” and “The Wall of Death”. The first is self explanatory. The second was similar, except approached at pace from around a blind corner, and involved a period of "air-time" when no part of the buggy was in contact with the ground. Our vehicle suffered a broken exhaust upon “landing”. Here's a picture of me with the wall in the background on the right. It doesn't look like much, but imagine going over the lip and high speed in a dune buggy ... you get the idea.

The rest of the day was pretty chilled by contrast. We got out of the buggy at one point, and had a walk down a secluded river running between two dunes. We then stopped for an enormous all-you-can-eat meat buffet, before relaxing on a beach for half an hour. It was here that we decided to put the camera on a wall, set it on timer, and get a picture of both of us with the beach in the background. So, I set up the shot, put the camera on timer, and bounded back to where Liz was standing. However, in my haste to get back in time, I stumbled a little on the sand. I was then off balance when I reached Liz, and instead of sliding seamlessly into position next to her, I ended up colliding with her and accidentally headbutting her on the nose. The camera of course was still on timer, and took the picture about a second later ... and here it is!


It took a while, but eventually Liz saw the funny side, and wasn't too badly injured to enjoy the return journey ... in typical Tyson style. For a bit of respite we stopped for a couple of coco verdes at the lake bar ... a bar that was actually situated in a lake. A great end to a wonderful day:

Pipa!

On our route back down to Rio a very important stop was a little town about 2 hours away from Natal called Pipa. We´d been told by friends we absolutely had to go there and that it rivals Jeri in terms of beach and beauty..we were very excited- it had a lot to live up to! And we were not disappointed- Pipa was great! There were a few lovely beaches to choose from and our favourite was Praia dos Golfinhos. This beach was the 2nd best beach we have come across on this trip (after Ilha Grande in southern Brazil)- it was absolutely beautiful- white sanded pristine beach surrounded by limestone cliffs.

However our most favourite thing about this beach was that dolphins come and play in the bay everyday at low tide!! It was incredible- we turned up about midday everyday and swam out to see them. They would come right up to us- we were so close to them and could hear the funny dolphin noises they make!! We spent 4 days at Pipa and swam with the dolphins every day. So Pipa definitely wins on the beach and dolphin front, but Jeri is still my favourite place we have been!

Jeri- My Happy Place!

We finally arrived in Jeri on the Friday after 3 days of travelling..to be fair we had seen some amazing sights in those 3 days so it wasn´t all bad...and as soon as we set eyes on Jeri we knew it was worth it! The village is set on the beach with 3 main streets (not really streets, more like sandy paths- there is sand EVERYWHERE!) leading up from it. The village is full with lovely little restaurants, cafes and fancy boutiques packed with tiny little Brazilian bikinis and beach wear. We wandered around on the first day and loved it, the atmosphere was so laid back, people saying hi and walking around with no shoes on-it was the most chilled out place we´ve been in a long time. Another reason we loved it was our hostel, it was lovely! There was a pretty little courtyard full with hammocks leading onto a huge sparkling blue swimming pool-and this is where we spent at least 3 hours of every day!

In fact we loved everything about Jeri, the more and more we explored the more and more we loved and found we didn´t ever want to leave this place! We found a DVD rental shop and gave a lot of business to the owner! The restaurants were fab, and of course we found a sushi bar that served excellent sushi- and 20% off on certain days-perfect! Jeri is surrounded by huge sand dunes, and there is one in particular quite close to our hostel called the Por do Sol (sunset) dune and everyone walks up at about 5.15pm everyday to watch the sunset over the sea- such a beautiful sight.

Every evening around 6pm there were impressive sunset performances of Capoeira to watch on the beach, the amazing martial arts dance. Around this time too the cocktail carts would be setting up- providing the most amount of alcohol concoctions ever- my favourite was a maracujaroska- freshly squeezed passion fruit and vodka...lovely!

The beaches were great too although Jeri´s best quality is said to be the wind- apparently the east-west aligned coast brings excellent breezes every day and it was fantastic to sit and watch the kite surfers and windsurfers from the beach.

However, I think our favourite part about our stay in Jeri was the Monday night. Chris and I were sat eating at a little cafe we had spotted during the day and thought looked quite nice. We had just finished our yummy fish stew and were discussing which DVD to rent for the night. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I notice someone running towards our table..it was Rich our friend from Trekforce!! We actually couldn´t believe it, and I still can´t quite believe it as I write this now, but Rich and Jo - our very good friends- were on a 3 week holiday in Jeri! There was a lot of screaming and so many shocked double takes at each other- we couldn´t believe they were in this tiny little place that took us 3 days to get to..in such a huge country as Brazil!! It was simply amazing!! It was so so good to see them! Unfortunately they only had one more night and were returning home to England the next day! But at least we had one night..thank goodness Rich had spotted us!! This was becoming a bit of a habit- the same thing had happened last summer when we were both on long weekends in Cornwall!


We had a crazy night out spent mainly sat by the cocktail carts drinking various mixtures and saying ´I can´t believe you are here´! We tried to make the night last as long as possible and finally retired around 4am- we were walking back to our hostels and suddenly realised that our hostels were next to one another- how had we not seen one another!! Chris and I noted that maybe we had spent too much time watching DVDs in our room and eating sushi..whoops. Anyway, at least we had seen them! We met the next morning too and sat by our pool mainly just saying ´I can´t believe you are here´! We waved them off when our time was up, absolutely gutted that they had to leave and incredibly hungover. We decided to get another DVD to cheer ourselves up!

It said in our guidebook that you will probably stay for longer than expected in Jeri. We planned to stay 4 days and ended up staying a week. After chilling out to the max by reading and sunbathing by the pool, watching as many DVD´s as possible and lots of eating and drinking we thought we should do something active and decided to walk to Pedra Furada- an arched rock formation about 3km east of Jeri. The walk was spectacular along the coast walking across dunes and rocks and spotting lots of donkeys along the way! We made it to the rock after an hour and rested for a bit.

The walk back was slightly more hairy than the walk there- the tide had come in and for some reason we had decided to try and make it by going across the rock pools rather than higher up on the dunes-and where the path was! It was quite fun to begin with- clambering in and out of rocks trying to dodge the water, but after a while it turned quite tiring and slightly dangerous as the rocks became very slippery and wet. After an hour or so we decided to find the path again- successfully thank god and just in time to watch the gorgeous sunset over the bay.

We reluctantly bought bus tickets onwards after a week, not because we wanted to- but we have a flight to catch from further down south in a couple of weeks and felt we wouldn´t make it unless we left then..I really think we´d still be in Jeri now otherwise! It was an amazing place with some amazing memories- definitely one of my favourite places in the whole world!

The Journey to Jeri

Sao Luis was a cool place to spend the afternoon and evening, but we had bigger fish to fry. We were very excited about getting to our next destination: Parque National Dos Lencois Maranhenses (a national park with fantastic scenery) and then on to the unpronounceable backpacker mecca of Jericoacoara (hereafter "Jeri").

As we were short on time, we wanted to see all that the national park had to offer in one day, and then ideally get on the road to Jeri that evening. This meant getting the very painful 5am bus out of Sao Luis. Somehow we roused ourselves, caught the bus, and reached the gateway to the park - another unpronounceable town called Barreirinhas - at 9am, just in time to be shepherded onto a tour leaving for the park at 9.30.

We clambered aboard an enormous 4 wheel drive truck and set off. Before long we had left the tarmac and were slipping and sliding on a sandy track. This track soon gathered gradient, and we found ourselves racing up and down sand dunes, and fording the occasional 3ft deep river. This truck was amazing - nothing could stop it. A bumpy couple of hours later, we stopped on the side of a dune. We had arrived.



It was scorching hot, so we applied some sun cream, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed out over the dunes. Parque National Dos Lencois Maranhenses is so called because of its immense expanse of sand dunes that supposedly look like lencois (bed sheets) stretched across the landscape. We didn't see anything that remotely resembled bed sheets, but we did get to see a few turquoise lakes interspersed between vast white dunes. It was amazing. Just look at the photos!

We walked from great lake to great lake, jumping in each one to cool off, then taking hundreds of pictures. The scenery was just incredible.

After a few hours of wandering around with our mouths open in amazement, we clambered back into our van and headed back on the bouncy road to Barreirinhas. It was then that we needed to try and sort out passage to Jeri - and it was here that things got a little tricky. A bit of research in our guide book revealed that there was no direct bus to Jeri from Barreirinhas. Not only that - there were no real roads either.

Getting to Jeri from Barreirinhas is so complicated, that the Lonely Planet guide has dedicated more than one entire confusing page to the travel arrangements. You need to get a combination of 4WD trucks, large buses and even dune buggies on the following route: Barreirinhas - Paulino Neves - Tutóia - Parnaíba - Camocim - Jericoacoara. An absolute mission considering the distance is just 200 miles down the coast (a very short distance in Brazilian terms). None of these forms of transport have any kind of regular schedule either - they just go "whenever they feel like it".

From Barreirinhas we got lucky, as one of the guys at the tour company knew of a family who owned a 4WD truck, and were travelling the first leg of our journey that afternoon. He gave them a call and we were on our way - over sand dunes and through rivers once more. We reached the tiny village of Paulino Neves at dusk and were dropped off at the only guesthouse in town. The driver said he'd pick us up for the next stage of our epic journey at (oh please no not again) 5 the next morning.



We grabbed a quick very cheap meal at the only restaurant in the village, then managed a couple hours of sleep. Next thing we knew we were on the truck again, barrelling over dunes as the sun began to rise. The next transfer ran very smoothly, and at 8.30 in the morning we found ourselves rolling into Parnaíba - just two stops from our destination. Here we hit a stumbling block ... the next bus out of there was at 7.30pm. Cue an 11 hour wait in a small town bus depot. Apparently this happens to everyone trying to get to Jeri. Why they don't have another bus going at a sensible time is beyond me.

We caught the 7pm bus, and were forced to spend a night in Camocim at the cheapest (and contender for the worst) hotel in Brazil. Our room had just 3 walls. Where the other one should have been was a large gap facing backwards out of the hotel. As it happened - that night there was a big fiesta in the adjacent plaza ... with fireworks and a parade ... that did not stop until the wee hours.



Our luck changed the following morning after we'd lugged our luggage the 1k to the "Jeri Bus Stop" - actually a car park where various vehicles going in that direction pick up passengers for a price. After an hour of waiting we managed to hitch a ride on a dune buggy! The route to Jeri is literally across miles and miles of deserted beach, which we burned through on the buggy. It was great fun. At one point we reached a small river where we had to put the buggy on a "ferry" - more a collection of wooden planks lashed to some air drums - which was then punted across.



Finally, windswept and sand blasted, we rocked into Jeri. The whole journey from Sao Luis had taken the best part of three days. Some parts were wonderful, and we did see some great scenery. However, the many hours waiting, and the insistent jerking around on uneven terrain, made it an adventure we weren't keen to repeat in a hurry ...