Becoming a beach bum
Trip Start
Nov 11, 2009
1
18
19
Trip End
Jun 01, 2010
Jericoacoara, State of Ceara, Brazil
Friday, May 21, 2010
The place is tiny, just about four streets, all of which are made of sand and lead down to the main beach. There are no ATM’s or street lights. They have internet but it is so slow that it’s not worth bothering. It was low season so there weren’t many visitors. I had my own room with a hammock outside it and a view to the sea. It was the perfect place to hide away and do very little, and recover from a busy few weeks. The only decisions I had to make every day were which beach to go to, and then which restaurant to have dinner at. I could just about cope with that.
Jericoacoara is the kitesurfing capital of Brasil as it is quite a windy spot. It is also famous for being surrounded by beautiful big sand dunes. In the rainy season (which had luckily just finished), rain water collects in the basins between the dunes and forms large lakes, which sporty types kitesurf on. I decided I would follow the kites that I could see in the distance, and would presumably find a nice lake to lie by all day. When I finally arrived there (sand is SUCH hard work to walk on), I had a nice dip, then covered myself in sunscreen and lay down on the sand to sunbathe. About two minutes later, thanks to a force 7 gale, I had sand stuck absolutely all over my body. It was at this moment that I also happened to notice an abundance of horse shit in my vicinity. So I trudged all the way back to the main beach, where I found myself a much better option: a super comfy sun lounger in front of a posh hotel, where a very nice man brought be fresh mango juice whenever I wanted one, and where I remained horizontal all day long. I didn’t even need to move to see the beautiful sunset over the sea.
For those who have the inclination to move off the main beach, there is the option of a buggy tour. This involves sitting on the back of a little dune buggy and being driven at high speed along the beach for about 50km, and up through the dunes. When you are speeding down a really steep dune it is terrifying, as it is when you go over a bump and almost fly out of the back of the car. We ended up at a lake for lunch and a lie down in hammocks that are hanging in the water, then it was time to drive back again. As if the terror of simply driving along wasn’t enough, we stopped at the top of a huge dune and were persuaded into paying to slide down it on a plank of wood, finishing up in the lake at the bottom. This turned out to be quite good fun, but climbing all the way back up the dune again wasn’t. Our last stop was for a much less adrenalin filled activity: going in a boat to look at little seahorses. The boat owner was working on a "no sighting, no fee" basis. But not only did he spot lots of seahorses for us, he was intent on poking them with the oar from the boat as well, which seemed somewhat unnecessary.
Another day I took a different dune buggy tour, with a random Brasilian guy I met. This turned out to rather less pleasant than the previous buggy tour. When it was lunchtime, our driver dropped us at a restaurant by a lake and agreed to pick us up at 3.00. When we sat down, rather than a tranquil lakeside spot, the owners seemed to be doing a spot of DIY which involved very noisy drilling. The Brasilian wasn’t happy, and decided we would walk in search of somewhere nicer, having asked the staff to let our driver know where we would be. While walking down the road, we met another buggy driver who recommended a restaurant just around the corner – the Brasilian loved this idea because two Brasilian girls who we had met earlier in the day, and who were wearing thong bikinis, would be there. The Brasilian guy asked the other driver to somehow inform our driver of our new location, and off we went for a lovely lunch with the girls in thong bikinis. They then got collected by their driver, but there was no sign of ours, probably because he had received so many confusing messages about our constantly changing location. At this point Brasilian guy became very annoying and patronising, and I went for a lie down on a sun lounger until he’d sorted the mess out. When our driver did finally materialise, him and the Brasilian had a huge row which I thought was going to end in bloodshed, before we could finally start driving back to Jeri. Which we did at very high speed because the driver was so angry. The sunset from the beach on the way back was spectacular, but marred somewhat by my fear of being about to witness a murder.
Apart from being home to that really annoying guy I met in the dune buggy, Brasil is really rather wonderful. Oh, apart from just one other flaw – being too bloody big. To get from Jeriocoacoara to my next destination would involve 24 hours and four buses. And several nightmares. I left Jeri late at night, sped down the beach in the open sided truck, then switched to a bus to take me south, back to Fortaleza. Sometime in the night I woke up, stumbled in the dark to the back of the bus and into the toilet, which remains pitch black until the door is closed, when the light comes on. As I walked into the cubicle, I placed my left hand on what I thought was the wall, and used my right hand to pull the door shut. At this point I realised I had slammed my left thumb in the door. It was agony and I almost passed out, but just managed to kick the door back open and release my throbbing thumb.
We got to Fortaleza just in time to catch the next bus to Natal, at 5am. Well, we were in time, but the woman at the office wouldn’t sell us a ticket and insisted that we bought them on the bus. Except the ATMs didn’t work at that time of the morning, and we had no cash as we had spent it all in Jeri, where there are no ATMs. After begging the driver to let us on the bus and promising to pay when we got to an ATM in Natal, he refused our pleas and we had to sit in a dodgy bus terminal for four hours until the ATM sprang into life and we could get the 9am bus. As I sat in my seat waiting for departure, hoping the window seat next to me would remain empty so I could spread out and sleep, a woman made her way down the aisle with a five year old child on her hip. Oh great, not one neighbour, but two. The child sat on her mum’s lap swinging her leg into mine for several hours and crunching crisps extremely loudly in my ear. There was a brief interlude while she projectile vomited, then she resumed the swinging and crunching. The journey lasted nine hours. Then we had to run through Natal bus station laden with all our bags to catch the last bus of the day to our destination, which took a further two hours. And then walk along cobbled streets all the way through Pipa to find the hostel.
Luckily, Pipa is a lovely little beach town and was absolutely worth the long journey. It’s one of those places that old skool backpackers think has been spoiled because it’s no longer the preserve of hippies - it now has nice shops and restaurants and stuff – which I would imagine means a great improvement. I didn’t mean to stay long, as there were a couple of other places I wanted to see too, but I soon ruled that idea out and stayed almost a week. The sun shone and the beaches were beautiful. One of the bays is visited daily by dolphins so you could just swim out and they would come and circle around you, it was amazing. The ice cream man passed by my sun lounger several times a day. In case you didn’t want an ice cream, he also did a side line in amusing photos that played on perspective, so he would take photos of you holding up what appeared to be a giant coconut, or leaping out of a beer can, or surfing on an ice lolly. Good times!
There was nothing much else to do, apart from watching the dolphins. Although that was the funny thing – having been away for so long I did develop an ability to be perfectly happy doing absolutely nothing. For hours. It was great. Although I did fear that I might lose the use of my legs due to muscle wastage from lying down all day, so in the afternoons I would go for a stroll along the beach with my Ipod, singing along very loudly – it felt great, and in case you’re wondering, I hardly ever saw anyone else, and if I did, I stopped singing – that’s something that should never be inflicted on anyone, unless a method of torture is required. On the way home from the beach I would stop and get my daily fix of acai which is a kind of sorbet made from the acai berry, grown in the Amazon, which is allegedly a kind of “power food”, then they add chopped banana, honey and granola – it tastes amazing and is allegedly good for you. The Brasilians live on the stuff, and it seems to work for them.
In the evenings I went with friends from the hostel to see live samba bands which were amazing. I even had a samba lesson but I still couldn’t do it properly. And one night there was a full moon party at the beach club – more live samba and reggae. A friend and I were approached in the street by two Dutch guys one night and invited to join them and two girls from Rio for some drinks. It turned out that they had all met at the beach that day, and the Dutch guys had invited the Brasilian girls out to dinner. Unfortunately for the Dutch guys, at dinner the girls had explained that they were actually a couple. So the Dutch guys were on the hunt for a couple more available women. Sadly, they were quite annoying.
People often say that travelling is about finding yourself, and indeed in Brasil I had finally discovered my optimum skill in life – being a beach bum. I think I could have quite easily moved to Pipa on a permanent basis, but sadly I had to leave due to my imminent flight home. Oh happy days, another 22 hours bus journey along the bumpy roads of Brasil. On a positive note, I managed not to get my thumb trapped in the toilet door this time – result.
