Marajo Island: 28th -
28th January – Wednesday
Happy birthday Manu!
There are some people in this world that have the power to make you stand back and reassess your trivialities, Cecilia is one of them.
The boat trip from, Belem to Marajo was smooth and painless. When we got to Soure there was a free boat waiting to ship us across the narrow divide to Salvaterra. OK, I’m gonna stop here – I am so pissed I cannot even spell the word ‘I’ correctly – LMFHO. I’ll do today tomorrow! Till then …..
Tomorrow: So when we got to Salvaterra I was quite shocked that the taxi wanted 100 rs to take me to Joanas, it was only 40 on a moto but I really didn’t fancy that distance with all my stuff. I contacted Cecilia and she arranged a lift for me for 70 rs. Still more than I had been expecting but with no Uber on the island I had to make do. WoW, what a stunning island. I so enjoyed the drive, with James, and the scenery so much. Everything is so picturesque, it really did look like paradise.
I was so disappointed when we got the house. It was as pictured on booking, and so clean but not in the right location. It was completely the wrong end of town, in fact it was not even in town, it was a 15 minute walk away. I spent ages trying to work this out with Cecilia’s sister and James, thinking perhaps they had another property in town which looked the same, but in the end I had to let it go. All of my complaining wasn’t going to change the location of the house! After they left I really wanted to cry, but held my tears and went looking for the supermarket. FFS, both supermarkets were closed, one being across the road from the property, and the other in the town. In fact everything was closed except a little hole in the wall shop. And Joanas is not even a town, it is very small fishing village with absolutely nothing to it, not even an ATM, just a couple of roads and a tatty beach, or so I thought. I was so hungry and upset. So much so I went back to my room and started looking at places in Salvaterra or Soure to move to. The shop
and bakery finally opened at 4pm, but I couldn’t buy food to cook as the lady would not let me behind the counter to have a look at what she was selling! And a walk along the long dark road to see what was open in town was out of the question. It did not look safe. I ended up buying a couple of pastries from the very lovely guy in the bakery.
By now I was in deep message mode with Cecilia, using translate, moaning to her at how isolated I was feeling. She assured me I was safe and had nothing to worry about, but I still didn’t fancy that walk into the village on my own. Anyway to cut a long story short, I decided to stay the night but booked a place in Soure for today (I am there now). Cecilia must have spent a good two hours messaging me, at first I thought she just didn’t want me to feel isolated but I when I said I’d let her go she didn’t want to go. She certainly gave me food for thought and put a stop to my whining. It turns out she is in Belem for hospital visit, she has a cyst on her kidney. On top of that both her big sister and her mum have very serious bladder diseases, her mum is a due an operation on the 2nd. She sent me a picture of her sister, OMG, she looked so emancipated, my heart broke for them. I have absolutely nothing to moan about and need to be more grateful for the amazing healthy life I have. Cecilia said she understood why I wanted to move, and agreed that 5 days there was probably too long, but was glad I was staying the night and said I should explore the village in the morning.
I went to bed pissed with a lot of food for thought.
29th January – Thursday
I woke with a new stride in my step and I am so bloody glad I stayed the night. I did as Cecilia suggested and explored the village this morning. Joanas is a smashing little fishing village and everyone so amazingly friendly. Everyone who passed me wished me a good morning and people even waved to me from their front gardens. I walked the whole length of the town to the area where booking said the house was and then further on, following the signs to the ruins. The ruins were not very impressive but that is probably because they are so old. They are the remains of a 17th century Jesuit church and are next to a small church that is currently in use. In the surrounding area there are a couple of bars and restaurants and what look like fair stalls on the village green. However, everything was closed and, even if they open in the evening they are about a 40 minute walk from the house. It did make me wonder if I had done the right thing in booking a new place in Soure, but now I am here I know I did the right thing. I think having a car or moto would have been perfect for Joanas, I would be able to get into the village at night as well as explore the local area, never mind, what is meant to be is meant to be.
The walk to the village green and ruins made the bottoms of my feet really sore. My trainers stink, so I went out in my plastic sandals – big mistake. I really shouldn’t walk far in them, they are not comfortable or easy to walk in. It was quite a relief to go down onto the beach and I walked back, bare feet, in the warm water. OMG, how beautiful was that end of the beach, as Cecilia had promised me, a little piece of paradise. If only the house had been where booking had said it was, I would have been by bars, restaurants and a stunning bit of beach, which was what I had been expecting. I would not have thrown by bottle out of my pram and would probably still be there now. But such is life.
James came and picked me up at 1pm and drove me back to the port. He was quite delighted when I told him how happy I was that I had stayed the night, and how beautiful Joanas is. The ferry across the water was 4 rs and took all of 5 minutes. There where no taxis waiting so I ended up getting a moto. I needed help getting on – lol, it was the weight of my rucksack on my back, I just didn’t have the strength to pull myself up. The driver took my two other bags on the front and I asked him to go nice and slowly, which he did. It was also a struggle to get off and there was no one around to help. I thought my right leg was going to get stuck crossing the seat, the driver was laughing his head off.
Now I am here I am glad I made the move – there are people here – lol, as well as a very big toad and quite a few cockroaches – but I am sitting outside. The staff are lovely, but then the Brazilian people are lovely people. There are also two small pools and lots of hammocks, but they are outside of people’s rooms and I don’t think they were happy to find me on them when they returned this evening. I actually spent the afternoon in a hammock, I tried to read but ended up messaging Manu for most of the time. She had a shit boat journey for Macapa to Belem and was in quite a state, at one point she even threatened to get a flight to Lima and home asap. I had to tell her several times to chillax, but she was hungry and angry. The boat sat outside Belem port for 4 hours before they disembarked. Welcome to Brazil Manu. Anyway, she finally made it to Vanessa’s, which is where I stayed overnight and got a meal in her before making her way to the bar I had my first caipirinha in. Unfortunately by the time she got to the boat ticket office it was closed, which set her off again. She will just have to get there early in the morning and buy her ticket then. It is low season and my boat was not full so I don’t expect she will have any problems. I just hope that by the time she gets here tomorrow she is a positive mood and can start seeing how beautiful it is out here.
Early evening, after the shops opened, I went for a very short walk. I had to wear socks with my plastic sandals – lol – not a pretty sight but it worked. I literally only went around the block, not my block, but a block about two blocks away. I found the nearest supermarket but it is an island town supermarket so had
very little in it. I then found a guy selling deep fried breaded cone shaped snacks, I tried one of each, a chicken, a prawn and a crab. All were very delicious. I then went to the local corner shop and bought 4 beers, the ones at this hotel are quite expensive. The guy in there made me a love heart with his hands, I think it was because I kept laughing so much and only bought beer. He will be seeing me again very soon, lol.
Anyway, Manu arrives tomorrow, I think she will be happier here than in Joanas village. The house was lovely, I could actually live there, with a moto, but I think all of the creepy crawlies at night and the distance to the bars and restaurants would just fuel her dislike of Brazil. It is obviously still extremely rustic here but it is defo a few steps closer to civilisation. I just hope her bed is cleaner than mine was. There were hairs in it – ug. But I politely, with a smile on my face and without making a fuss asked for clean sheets, which I got. I also gave them back their blanket as I am far happier using my beautiful red one – it was such a good buy. I really am looking forward to having some company and someone to go out with in the evenings, I am just praying she starts to like it here and stops all of the negativity that I have had to deal with over the last couple of days.
30th January – Friday
What a lovely morning, a leisurely start, my favourite, and then a stroll down to the docks to meet Manu. Soure is gorgeous but not as picturesque as Joanas, and there is no real beach here, the nearest one is 11 kilometres away. Manu’s boat came in about 15minutes late, so I had time to have a walk around the area and then sit and watch the world go by, it’s so relaxing just chilling watching the boats go back and forth between here and Salvaterra. I saw my first red ibis, it was so stunningly red and beautiful. At first I thought I was seeing things as all these birds flew across my vision, but one was bright red. I even managed to get a photo of it but it is just a red speck on the horizon. I hope I get to see more.
It was so lovely to see Manu and she was in a very positive happy mood. She upgraded her room so is not upstairs with me, she has a hammock and hammock chair outside her room, it is on the ground floor but is the other side to the pool, which is cool as we didn’t have to lug her suitcase up the steep steps. We spent the afternoon sitting outside her room catching up, which was awesome. She didn’t really tell me much about her experience on French Guyana, but she did tell me how horrendous her coach and boat journey were. But she is here now and that is all behind her.
This evening we went for a walk along one of the main drags through town, not much was going on but we had gone out early and from experience I know things don’t liven up until at least 8pm, but we were both starving. The first restaurant we tried told us to sit, gave us the menu and then announced that the chef had not arrived – lol. So we continued our walk and ended up sittng outside Ilha Bela Pousada and Restaurant eating and drinking. On the way back we bought more beers and just continued catching up. It was nice.
31st January – Saturday
Today was really nice, relaxed and chilled. I am actually writing this a few days later so it wont be as detailed as usual. After our tapioca cheese, ham and egg breakfast we headed an area called ICC (International Coastal Clean-up) Brazil, Ocean Conservancy, which was no more than 5 minutes from our hotel. It involved a fairly long wooden walkway that accessed lots of run down shacks that were still being lived in. Every now and then there was a wooden walkway passage leading to more shacks. As always, it was really interesting to see how some people live and those sitting outside of their shacks were so friendly and greeted us as we passed them. We finally came to an open area that was grassland on the edge of the Paracauari River. There was no shade so we sat under my umbrella on a log to savour the scenery. Much to our delight their were several red ibis’ feeding in the marsh land which were a joy to watch, it is such a shame I did not have my camera out to film them as they took to flight, it was so beautiful to watch. Suffering from the sun we notice a wooden balcony behind us which was casting a strip of shade onto the grass. On investigation it stank of piss so we could not sit there. Manu suggested sitting on the actual balcony but I did not want to trespass onto someone property even if it appeared they were out. Next to it was an open balcony that looked like it was part of a saw mill so we perched there for quite a while then decided to walk to Bela’s bar for a spot of lunch and a drink.
At the pool at the hotel we met a woman from Belem. her and her daughter holiday in Soure all the time and she told us about an event we should go to that only happens every Saturday night. So in the evening we went to a tradition Amazon dance, it was fantastic. The drumming was so fast and strong and the dancing consisted of spinning round and round and waving an extremely large skirt around. It was almost like the woman was the matador and the man the bull. I had a go and got so dizzy, but it was so much fun. Manu upset me, on the way back we got a moto each and she said that that was the best part of the night. FFS, the dancing was the best part of the night, OK the food was shit, it was that soggy baby food mash that they like here, but the drinks were good and everyone, expect Manu, was obviously having such a fabulous time. It is such a shame she had to say something like that.
1st February – Sunday
The poor woman who works here arrived at 7 am this morning but had no key to open the kitchen – I was hungover and desperate for coffee but had to resign myself to the wait, so I stretched out in a hammock and was quite content until Manu came out stressing that we could not leave early for our cycle ride. Uhm, she was dressed and ready to go and I was reeling around in a hungover haze – lol. The kitchen finally opened and we got coffee and breakfast but the poor girl was on her own and by now most of the other guests were up and wanting their breakfast. By the time me and Manu finally left for our cycle ride the poor girl had gone from being happy and smiling to stressed and miserable.
It was quite funny, we got about 50 meters down the road and I could hear Manu behind me complaining that her bike didn’t feel right. She had a flat tire! Anyway the guy from the hire shop arrived really quickly and gave her a new bike, so off we set again. It was a really lovely cycle, although my bike was hard work as it had no gears and was more a town bike that a long distance bike. A lot of the roads around here are red grit and it really pained my knees to get up any form of speed. Luckily it was not as hot as yesterday and cloudy most of the time. It took about 25 minutes to get to Ranch Fazenda Soa Jeronimo and we sat for quite a while by a beautiful lake recovering. After that we cycled to the main house but there was not much there. A guy asked if we wanted to join a tour but neither if us were up for that so we took a few pictures of the buffaloes and then, taking on the tour guides suggestion, we set of for another 15 minutes cycle to Pesqueiro, which is a beach town. We actually had quite a pleasant time on the beach, that is until I said that we should leave between 4 and 4:30, this upset Manu as she wanted to stay longer, but she also wanted to go to a restaurant in town, that the ‘mad’ lady from last night recommended us to see the sunset from, and it was a 40 minute cycle back. After a heated discussion I told her that if she wanted to stay longer she could and cycle back on her own, but that I was going at 4:30. In the end we both left at 4:20 but only because all the stray dogs were now pissing her off. I had been feeding them my chips and shrimps, I had far too many of both, and one dog kept putting it’s paw on Manu for food and, understandably, she was not amused. By the time we finished faffing around getting ready to leave it was 4:45, the ride back took us 45 minutes and we arranged to meet at 6pm.
It turned out that that restaurant was a 45 minute walk away, and my body was clearly saying no to that. We looked on maps and chose one that was 5 minutes away. However, the lady there would not serve us a Caipirinha. I am not sure why not as Manu was doing the talking, in Portuguese, but I think she was saying that she could not serve spirits until after 9pm. So I suggested we try the bar on the corner. The guy there was so lovely and, although he had a bar full of spirits, he told us us that he could not make us caipirinhas, but told us to go to Bela’s. This was when Manu kicked off, it is their national drink and as far as she was concerned everywhere should sell it, it’s like going to France and not getting wine. I tried to explain that this is an island in the Amazon Jungle and perhaps the guy cannot make cocktails. I told her it was like expecting every shop on the UK to serve fish and chips, she said they do! I literally stopped talking to her the whole walk to Bela’s. At Bela’s she asked the waiter for a caipirinha and he also said no, they can’t do them so she ordered a coconut. I then asked him for a couple of different things on the menu, but he didn’t have anything I asked for so I (naughtily) tried for a caipirinha. He said no so I politely asked why not as by now I was very curious as to why no one would make us one. He said because it would take 15 minutes to prepare and would not appear on the bill. I said this was fine by me, that I was happy to wait, we got our caipirinhas! A smile, a positive attitude and speaking nicely to people goes a long way. Anyway Manu was happy with her Caipirinha and cheered up and, in the end, even though it was hard work, we had a good evening.