Round the World 2008

Barrierinhas is the starting point for travel to Lençóis Maranhenses National Park and tours on the Preguica  River.  The bus ride from Sao Paulo is about 4 hours and since I appeared to be the only non-Brazilian, I was prepared to say in Portuguese:  I don’t understand and I don’t speak Portuguese.  Luckily at the first coffee stop I met Aline, a Brazilian who lives in Barcelona and is fluent in English.  She became my friend and translator for the next few days.

We checked into our pousada in Barreirinhas and then got started on a large 4×4 vehicle that took about 12 of us into the park.  The main features of the park are large fields of sand dunes with lagoons where rain water has accumulated.  After a short time of exploring the dunes we spent much of the afternoon swimming in the lagoons.  The group was friendly and made efforts to communicate with me and I did surprisingly well speaking to them in Spanish.

Aline and I had both a nice lunch and dinner of fresh fish and seafood at one of the many riverfront restaurants in Barreirinhas.  I sampled many juices made from fruits found in Brazil like acerola and cupuacu.  In the evening there were live bands bands playing up and down the waterfront and it was hard for me to believe just a few days earlier I was in London.

Yesterday we took a speed boat on the river where we got off at various points to go into the sand dunes, pass some time in a local village with a lighthouse and an outside bar, have lunch on the river, and swim in the Atlantic at the point where the river meets the ocean.  The water was very warm, but the current was extremely strong.

I was pretty overwhelmed by the natural beauty and the friendliness of the people.  Back in Sao Luis, I’m preparing for the trip to my next destination of Fortaleza.  I had planned on taking a bus which I thought would be a few hours from looking at the map, but apparently it is 18 hours, so I’ve decided to fly.  Brazil is a huge country, larger in area than the lower 48 US.