Round the World 2008

I’m back in Buenos Aires where I started the trip 8 months ago, completing my trip around the world. I’ve spent the past few weeks in Brazil traveling from Sao Luis to Fortaleza to Recife and then to Rio de Janeiro where I met Carole and Audrey. The highlights of Rio were Sugarloaf Mountain, the Christ the Redeemer Statue that overlooks the city and Ipanema beach. We then traveled to Iguassu Falls which really is one of the most incredible natural wonders in the world.

During the trip I took a total of 52 flights traveling 75,000 air miles. I look forward now to getting home and seeing family and friends who I miss very much!

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.

The weekend in London was great.  I was able to meet up with people who I met on tours this past year who live in the London area.  Nat and Zoe from the China trip, Marco, Lexy, Anika and Shreena from the Japan trip,  Andrew and Marnie, who I met in Bolivia last fall, and Jolie who I traveled with in Mongolia.  It was fun hanging out in London restaurants, cafes and museums and catching up with friends.

Yesterday at 2PM I got on the Tube and 29 hours and 4 flights later (stops in Paris, Rio, Brasilia) I was in Sao Luis, on the Atlantic coast in the northeast corner of Brazil.  My hotel is on the ocean and I was able to get a brilliant sunset my first evening here.  I came this far up the coast primarily because I wanted to see Lencois Maranhenses National Park, which is supposed to be one of Brazil’s most beautiful natural attractions. It’s pretty inaccessible if you want to go on your own so I booked 2 days with a guide which I’ll do later this week.

Sao Luis is a couple of degrees below the equator, so I’ll have some nice tropical weather, and it has a population of about 1 million.  While I’m here I’ll go into the historic center of town which is supposed to be an attraction in itself.  Over the next few weeks I’ll work my way down the Brazilian coast spending time in the cities of Fortaleza and Recife.