We made it!

24 hours after getting on an hour and a half delayed coach in Piripiri, we arrived at Brazil's eastern port on the Rio Amazonas delta today at just before 5 in the afternoon. It may well be too early to say this, but we may have landed on our feet as we ended up in a boat ticket office with 3 Brazilians from our coach who negotiated a deal from R$250 to R$180 for 5 of us to go to Manaus tomorrow evening. The trip will take 5 days and has 3 meals a day and even has showers, much to Sal's delight. We forgot to ask if we'll need our own hammocks though - oops. Will get it all sorted tomorrow though.

The last few days have been great. Aside from the giant sand dune and a particularly nice pineapple, Jericoacoara was pretty crap. The best part about it was actually leaving - in an all-day 3 leg journey to Piripiri, we first got on a vehicle that was something like a cross between a 4WD and a milk van (seating extension in the back). Driven by a slightly stressed looking local called Carlinhos, he was already fully booked but Sal persuaded him to take us anyway... one of our travelling companions was a Sicillian who was with his dog, who was refusing adamantly to get onto the truck, or even come to his master... Sal once again proved her charms by becoming a dog whisperer and managed to get the frisky hound on board.

Once under way, we left to the west along the beach (we came in from the east coming into Jeri, after driving north from the main road along a dirt track in a big 4WD bus)...and kept going for quite some distance. The girl next to me somehow managed to fall asleep on me, despite us being packed in like sardines, dog and all, and going over some pretty big bumps in the sand. The best part of this leg was definitely when the 2 trucks (we had a convoy!) pulled up at a shallow river and we were told in Portugese to all get off. Before we knew it, two rafts only a little larger than the trucks were being poled across by enterprising locals. Sal watched in disbelief as they drove onto the rafts first time, then we crowded on board too and the skillful ferrymen poled us across to the other side.

Another hour or two later, we rocked up to Camocin and straightaway a minivan took us on board with promises of Parnaiba, our final destination before Piripiri. Sure enough, we got there eventually, despite the driver stopping to talk to every local he knew along the way, leaving us baking inside in the belting heat!

Our last connection at Parnaiba was a bit of a pain, as we got in around 2pm and had to wait for the 6pm bus, so we hung around the city a bit and decided it wasn't a bad place really. Moving on, we arrived in Piripiri (the bus station is cunningly not called Piripiri so ask the driver if you're going!) at a horribly late 10pm ish. The taxi driver ripped us off charging us 7 to get into the town centre, which is a huge 10 min walk away, dropping us off at the Hotel Texas, run by a friendly old guy.

The next day (despite some nervousness on Sal's part about when and where the free employee bus arrived - we must have asked half the town about it!) we went to the Seven Cities National Park, which is basically a load of rock formations caused by marine features being exposed to the elements when the sea level fell, eroding and cracking (somewhat like many major Brazilian highways......more on that later) into some pretty impressive shapes. We chose to do a bicycle tour (you had to have a guide with you to make sure you didn't clamber on the cities etc.) which cost R$20 for the guide, for 3 hours, and R$2/hr for the bike hire. (Working out at R$16/person).

There wasn't actually tons of bike riding involved, and the guides are very friendly and fairly flexible about how much of the park you want to see. They've given most of the rock formations names - and there's a lot of them! - but some really are quite impressive, photos will be posted when I get a chance. What's most impressive though are the native indian rock paintings on some of the "cities" - making the park a national archeological treasure too, the paintings have been there for many thousands of years, and some of the things they depict are quite strange, leading UFO-types to believe the cities are the work of aliens!

Wildlife was also quite interesting. Many more lizard photos than I really need, and an awesome shot into a small cave of bats that came out really well - without the guide we never would have known they were there, but the flash illuminated them in all their sleepy glory. Also a big mouse/squirrel type creature, and a couple of shots of the many turkey vultures that hang around that area of Brazil - huge, flappy and quite cowardly mofos.

After playing cards with the guides (who have the easiest job!) for most of the rest of the day, we caught the free bus back to town at 5pm, did some supplies shopping for the Belém bus then stayed in the Hotel California, which is a bit pricer but much nicer than Texas, and also takes Visa. Only down side was we got rudely awakened by shouting people and kids - sound carries very well in that place...

The bus, as stated before, was a mammoth 24 hour journey. Some of it was quite hair raising: along a substantial stretch of the road, it was full of giant potholes, unsurfaced and randomly varying width. Of course, Brazilian coach drivers are no different from any other Brazilian drivers, and the roads if nothing else are usually quite straight, so overtaking is the rule, as is swerving quite hard around any large potholes along muddy swathes of road that look like they wouldn't be out of place in Iraq after a mortar attack. Closer to Belém it gets better again though.

Feeling a bit dodgy this evening, due largely to exhaustion and lack of a proper uninterrupted night's sleep. I can't remember the last time I slept normally. Possibly in Pipa? Jeri we slept in tents and got woken up by confused cockerels in the garden next door before dawn and kept awake by annoying music down the road from one of the bars. Texas we had to be up at 5am to make sure we didn't miss the bus. California was rowdy people waking us up at the crack of dawn again. Then the bus last night... we had it all really: bounced and thrown around by dodgy roads, screaming, and I mean screaming demon child, and a crazy old guy yelling in Portugese when the kid finally had enough.

Hoping I'll sleep well tonight. I'm going to need it. Very excited though - cruising up the Amazon River is a pretty big deal! - and the Inca Trail is getting closer too........  ¶ 3:43 PM