fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

From where I left off last week in Sao Luis I don't quite know where to begin as it now seems like almost months ago, so I may just have to do things chronologically, day by day, as any other order would get me very confused.
Day 1: I arrived in Tútoia at 5am in the morning and watched the sun rise over the river. Tútoia is a smallish village in the Parnaiba delta, with donkeys and goats tethereded to chunks of rubble wandering the streets (or not in the case of the tethered goats). The market was starting to buzz with limited life shortly after (South Americans get up incredibly early!) and I set about finding the boat to the city of Parnaiba. However, that boat's engine happened to have died earlier in the week and I was starting to look forward to another exciting bus ride, missing the entire river route.
As things sometimes tend to do they turned out well in this case after starting to chat to several stoned fishermen (all of them there are, I later find out) who were heading to Parnaiba to sell their catch at a higher price than they would get in Tútoia. So, several hours later we were all cruising lethargically down the winding river in their five-man trawler.
In contrast to the boat from Manaus this one was much more entertaining with beautiful shores on both sides, heavily wooded then occasionally a white sand beach and dunes. There is also a point in the river where one second you taste the water and it is still salty and the next it has turned into freshwater. And the fishermen could cook, easily beating any of the grub served on the Amazon boats!
After a good six hours we arrived in Parnaiba where I met some fellow Gringos at the bus station and we made our way to Camocim that evening (another small town with the only nightlife being the 'bar' next to the bus station) and the next morning found a jeep that would take us over sand dunes and along deserted beaches to Jericoacoara. Jeri, as it's also known, is officially a nature reserve and used to be a small town with beautiful beaches, sand dunes, strong winds, a coconut grove and a healthy Capoeira culture. It is still all that but now it is also full of hostels, Italian windsurfers and a handful of backpackers (almost all of whom have stayed or decided to stay there for months and months). They seem to sleep most of the day in hammocks when not learning Capoeira, surfing or such like. In the evenings it is a tradition in Jeri for visitors to gather on a large sand dune overlooking the ocean and watch the sun drown into it while watching the sandboarding competition that sometimes gets going (or just the informal tumbling down spectacularly without a board competition). This is followed by everyone watching Capoeira on the beach - the acrobatics are pretty mind blowing - then sleeping a little more and towards the end of the week starting to go out in the bars (including more cheesy Brasilian Forro music for me :).
So, all in all, Jeri has a great atmosphere even if it does lie firmly on the Lonely Planet trail and it's probably only a matter of time before they'll build a Holiday Inn there. The locals are already ecstatic about the prospect! ;)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case I feel that even a camera roll full of my words (making around 36000 - a bit of a thesis) wouldn't really get the place across, which of course is another way of saying that my cameras have been nicked in Jeri (along with some other stuff, including my diary which was a particular bitch!).
At any rate, I have moved on and am now in Fortaleza where I've gotten a police report and am hoping that my travel insurance will stand up for what they're being paid for (Jeri only has a token police force that doesn't seem to have paper...). I'm also hoping to score a new, overpriced camera here. The city itself has beaches, beaches, beaches and gorgeous sea, all lorded over by skyscraper hotels. But it's a pleasant enough place and the cleanest city I've yet encountered in Brasil and I hear the night life ain't half bad either.
Several chores lie ahead for the next few days here, including deciding whether to go back to Jeri for a little while or whether to move on down South, and Xmas and New Year plans are currently completely undecided which may mean I'll have to greet 2004 with my backpack on when all the hotels are full. Oh, and I desperately need a haircut (I guess it may be a good thing that I have no camera anymore...)

[Here's the cheesily entitled 'Official Website of Paradise' I googled, but it does have some pictures of Jeri but they are pretty crummy and probably only worth about 50 words each.]