Jericoacoara

Lonely Planet calls Jericoacoara "the ultimate backpacker hideaway", so I decided to go there for Xmas. Getting there involves getting a bus to Jijoca, then a 4wd over the sand dunes. There are no ATMs there either, so you have to take plenty of money with you. All of this makes it sound far more of an adventure than it actually is. I booked a ticket with FretCar via DP Turs in Fortaleza. You get a regular bus for the first part of the journey then for the last hour and a half, it's just another bus, just one a bit better equipped to cope with the sand roads and the last 45 mins or so driving up the beach to get there. And yes, there are no ATMs, but as I've mentioned once or twice, they're not very reliable anyway. When I actually succeed in getting money out of them, it feels like I've won on a fruit machine. As for it being a hideway, there are at least 3 bus loads of people arriving every day.

The village itself is more or less 3 streets. Far from being a backpacker place, it's mostly full of Brazilian families. So if you're expecting it to be like a Brazilian Cairns, you'll be either disappointed or delighted depending on your outlook. There are plenty of bars and restaurants. The streets are all sand and in theory, only registered vehicles are allowed in the village and there's a car park on the edge. However, either an awful lot of cars are registered or it's not enforced.

The beach itself is nice. It's windy most of the time, so the place is full of windsurfers and kite surfers. When the tide is in, there is some surf though it was on the small side for the 4 days I was there. At one end of the beach is a big sand dune which everyone climbs up to see the sunset. I'm not sure why as I don't see how it would look any different from up there.

As it was Xmas, I had actually booked some accommodation well in advance. It was the only accommodation I'd booked for Brazil. So I turned up at Posada Maria Bonita to be told they'd never heard of me and didn't deal with Hostelworld anymore. They did have a room, but it was R$430 for the 4 nights rather than the R$200 I'd signed up for. In retrospect, that does seem rather cheap. R$430 isn't though. I would have though about R$320 was more like it. Fortunately they took credit cards and they seem to work reliably. Unless you're putting them in one of those useless ATMs. Or trying to book a flight online. So I guess I'll find out if the Hostelworld guarantee is actually worth anything when they get back to me.

There aren't many bars, mostly restaurants. There are a load of stalls on the beach at night which do cocktails mostly involving crushed up fresh fruit. People only start going down there after 10pm. I'm not really sure what people do between finishing dinner and then moving on. There aren't that many shops and they're mostly of the surf wear variety. Everyone just seems to mill around.

It's not cheap either. A 600ml beer is R$7.50 rather than the usual R$5.50, plus if they've got some dodgy bloke in the corner crooning Portuguese songs along to a guitar, they charge another R$4 or so cover charge. Given I'm tolerating the noise rather than listening to it, this does seem a bit much.

So I spent most of the 4 days sitting under an umbrella reading my book with the occasional beer. All very relaxing, but I feel the need to do something soon.

The bus ride south took a while. First onto Fortaleza, then hanging around for a few hours, before going onto Natal. The most noteworthy bit was when booking my ticket for Natal. The guy asked for my passport and when I gave it too him, he started entering my name as "British Citizen" on the ticket. And he'd had the cheek to roll his eyes at me just before when I didn't understand one of his questions. I should have let him continue really. It would have been a ticket worth keeping.

Santarém to Fortleza

I had an early (6am) flight out of Santarém to Fortaleza via Belém, so went there for the day. It isn't the most exciting town in the day though it gets more interesting at night when lots of people descend on the river bank. There's one pizza place on stilts over the river where you can watch the joggers go past, most of who seemed to be walking. For a cheaper option, there were carts selling beer and even mobile pizza ovens and they'd just put cushions on the promenade for you to sit on.

I was slightly worried about getting a cab that early, so got up at 3am. I couldn't sleep anyway, knowing I had to be up soon. The cab took ages to arrive, so I didn't get to the airport (15 mins away) until gone 4am, but checkin wasn't until 4.30 anyway.

The flight were uneventful and with TAM again. They must be one of the few airlines left that still hand out sweets before the flight.

Fortaleza is on the coast but it's a big city. I decided to stay in the centre at Backpackers Ceará which only cost R$20 a night for a dorm room. Unfortunately, there's lots of dodgy places in Fortaleza and they seem to be right next to the safe ones. There are a bunch of bars in an area called Dragão Do Mar, which are quite nice though not cheap. The central market has a few restaurants many self service where you load up your plate, then they weigh it and charge it by the kilo.

I took a day trip to a small beach town called Canoa Quebrada. It was R$40 and took us about 2 hours each way in a mini bus. They then dropped you in a highly expensive beach bar but there were other choices and it's a nice, little place, though very touristy. I wouldn't have minded staying there a couple of nights. It's probably a better bet than Fortaleza. There were lots of bars and restaurants, so I think it would be quite lively. It was windy, with windmills everywhere on the dunes, and there were several people out kite surfing as well as parascending on offer.

Christmas is the only accommodation I booked in advance for the whole of Brazil. I'm going to Jericoacoara, a smallish place on the beach north of here.

Manaus to Alter Do Chão

Manaus may be in the middle of nowhere in the Amazon jungle, but it's also a city of 2 million people, so it doesn't feel like it. I was there 4 days, which on reflection was too long. It was nice to be somewhere which actually had shops with things in them you might actually buy. It even had shopping malls though the prices weren't much cheaper than home.

Opera house

Manaus riverfront

I did go out to see the Meeting of the Waters where two rivers of different colours meet but don't mix. You couldn't see an awful lot from the shore. It just looked like muddy water to me, in fact not too dissimilar from what the sea looks like for the first 5 miles of Eastbourne when it's been raining heavily.

I also went to the Bosque Da Ciência which is some rainforest inside the city. There are various animals running around in the trees plus some pens of Amazonian manatees that they're planning to return to the wild, alligators, electric eels, one otter and a few other animals.

All these things meant catching the bus, which wasn't too difficult. It's a flat rate fee. You get on. Hand your money to the conductor and then walk through the turnstile on board. You basically need to pay to get off as the exit door is on the other side of the turnstile. Of course the tricky part is knowing when to get off. I used Google Maps to cache the 10 square kilometres of the city whilst I had wifi in the hostel and then, using GPS, would take a punt on when we looked like we were nearest to where I wanted to go. It wasn't perfect but it was a lot better than guessing.

There aren't many roads out of Manaus. There are lots of river boats and my next stop was Santarém which is 36 hours down the river. Alternatively, it's an hour and 10 minute flight and it wasn't much more expensive. For reasons known only to them, Brazilian airlines seem to like scheduling flights at 3.30am so I wasn't exactly wide wake when I arrived at 5.40 at the small airport in Santarém (different timezone if you're wondering where the hour came from).

After knocking back offers of a taxi about eight times, the bus turned up and I got it into town. I got off at what looked like the centre then looked around for the bus stop for Alter Do Chão. They actually have bus stops with the destinations marked on them there, though I couldn't find mine when some other people waiting shouted "Alter Do Chão" at me and there it was. I guess it was fairly obvious where I was going with my backpack.

Off we trundled, the bus driver doing his best to imitate Ayrton Senna over some incredibly bumpy roads. So obviously I fell asleep, occasionally waking up with whiplash on the exceptionally big bumps, and was woken up by my fellow passengers when we got there. It's not a big place and Lonely Planet neglect to provide a map, which is annoying when trying to find somewhere to stay as a lot of the pousadas are down side streets. Pousada Tia Marilda was the first place I tried and I got a room for R$80 a night with en suite (cold) shower, TV with one channel (no.3), a fridge and air con. For 4 nights, I probably should have argued a bit.

Alter Do Chão's big draw is its river beach. It does look pretty. There's an island in the middle of the river. There are boats across for R$3 but at this time of year, the water is only just over your knees. There's also the Lago Verde and I took a kayak out for R$5 an hour. It was nice being out in the quiet, on my own, paddling along the banks listening to the various birds and/or animals making noises in the rain forest.

There's a small square in the town. There was free wifi which worked most of the time there, a convenience store and several restaurants. Some of the restaurants were only open at the weekend. I was surprised that the whole place wasn't busier. There's no bank. There is a Banco Do Brasil ATM in the store and it did work for me, but obviously you can't rely on it.  There were very few travellers about. It was mostly Brazilian families and there weren't that many of them. Most of the restaurants seemed to do the same food, either meat on a skewer (churrasco) or river fish, all with rice, beans, salad in vinagrette and farofa. Farofa is manioc root ground up. It's a bit like yellow grit. I wasn't really a fan. Breakfast choices were a bit limited. There is a Lanche just around the corner where you can get unhealthy pastries and even a cup of coffee without half a ton of sugar in it.

Into Brazil

It was finally time to leave Venezuela. The advice I was given was that the best way was to get a carrito to Boa Vista as they were about 3 reais (£1) more than the bus, then get the overnight bus to Manaus. Eventually I found one outside the Chinese supermarket but it wasn't ready to go as there was a woman who'd clearly come over from Brazil to do her month's shopping and she wasn't finished. The immigration office shuts from 12-2, so if you need a passport stamp, you're out of luck. So I went for lunch, got a cab and waited for the office to open. It did at 1.45 which was a bit of a surprise. It did occur to me that maybe it was shut 12-2pm Brazilian time and that it was 15 minutes late, but that could just be my suspicious nature.

It  seemed a lot of effort for a stamp. He wasn't interested in the form I'd bothered to fill in. Then it was a bit of a walk to the Brazilian border post, where I did the same. It was all quick and easy with no questions and he even fitted the stamp onto an almost full passport page, which was a plus. I'm running a bit low on blank pages.

The town on the other side, Pacaraima, is a small, sleepy place. There was a Banco Do Brazil with cash machines. Using them was a bit of a novelty after 3 weeks as the Venezuelan ones charge you the office 4.3 Bolivars to the dollar rather than the black market 13 Bolivars, so you don't use them.

I asked for R$300 and the machine said it would only give me R$140, so I took them, all in 10s. Then I went to the bus station. The contrast to a Venezuelan bus station was striking. It wasn't grim. There was a cafe with people sitting outside on tables. There weren't any armed soldiers to be best avoided. There was also a very helpful man who volunteered to translate for me as soon as I walked in. Given my Portuguese isn't great, this was appreciated. The advice was to book both the bus to Boa Vista and then onto Manaus there as it would be busy on a Sunday. The 4pm bus was scheduled to get to Boa Vista at 7pm, then there was an 8.30pm onwards. So I asked for that. The price? R$141.65. You couldn't make it up.

So back to the cash machines I went. Then I discovered the reason why I had only got R$140 out. It was empty. So was every other machine in the town. Eventually a guy in a shop gave me a R$2 note in exchange for 20Bs.

The bus seemed to stop everywhere. We got to Boa Vista at 7.55pm, which still gave me plenty of time to discover that all of the cash machines there weren't working either. Still, at least it was slimming. Mind you, all that messing around meant I forgot to get my hoody out and the overnight bus was freezing. It must kill their fuel consumption having the AC that high.

Manaus bus station is a small, poky affair. There aren't many places you can go there by bus. It did have cash machines. And one of them actually worked on the 2nd attempt. I thought about getting the bus, but they looked very full and I have a big bag, so got a cab.

He had no idea where the Hostel Manaus was, but did understand my Portuguese when I told him the street, which was a bonus. 10 minutes into the ride he tried to persuade me that we should go to some other hotel because it was better. This would be better than the place he'd never heard of? Strangely unconvinced, I stuck to my original plan.

So my advice before coming to Brazil? Make sure you got plenty of Reais, because you can't rely on their cash machines, particularly on a Sunday night. I was a bit surprised the bus company didn't take Visa as plenty of other places seem to, but they don't.

Roraima

When I first started looking at going to Venezuela, Roraima was one of those places that came up a few times. It's a flat topped mountain which rises up out of the grasslands of Gran Sabana to over 2,700m. It was also the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book, The Lost World.

I found a trip with Backpacker Tours which had the right dates. The only thing was that it was a 6 day trek. I've never been treking in my life and decided the best way to prepare for the trip was to not read the itinerary, particularly the distances, too closely.

I arrived in Santa Elena the day before and we headed off the following morning. We had quite a lot of porters. There were 5 of them with us at all times but there were others who went ahead with the food or were waiting for us with the food on the way back. This meant you didn't have to carry your tent, just your personal stuff, sleeping bag and rollmat. I'd gone with 3 changes of clothes, wet wipes and a poncho since my waterproof jacket had been in my bag that disappeared. The backpack weighed jut under 9kgs. This proved to be quite enough.

So we took 4wd to an Indian village and set off from there. It was about 4 hours walking through mainly grasslands on the first day. The first bit was uphill but most of it was then downhill for the rest of the time. It wasn't hard. It did pour with rain for about the last 20 mins before we made camp which was bad timing.

Roraima  is the one on the right

The tents were all set up for us. They weren't in the best condition. I think the zips were dodgy on every single one of them. The next morning after arepas for breakfast, we were off, leaving the porter to take the tents down. He had his breakfast after us, took all the tents down and then overtook us about two hours later wearing Crocs on his feet. All a bit depressing really.

Day two was quite warm and it was about 5 hours walking, mainly uphill. It was quite gentle until the last hour which made me a bit out of breath. There isn't an awful lot to see in the Gran Sabana, just a few birds, lizards and miles and miles of grass. Apparently there are rattle snakes everywhere but I didn't see one.

That afternoon we made Base Camp and there was a small pool you could have a wash in if you could stand the cold. It was somewhat refreshing. The next day was the day we went up to the summit. It looked steep. It was steep. It took about 4 hours on day 3 and I was quite out of breath when we finally made it up there. It was mostly dry though there was a brief shower just as I was walking under a waterfall, which made it run a lot faster. I felt the mountain was mocking me.

The "path" to the summit

The top of the mountain is like a lunar landscape. It's not as flat as it looks from a distance and there are lots of plants that are found either on other mountains in the area or just on Roraima. This includes 4 types of insect eating plants which try to compensate for the poor soil by being carnivorous. Sadly there was no sign of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's dinosaurs or monkey people. Our camp site even had somewhere you could go swimming or take a wash, though at 6C, it was only for the most hardy.

Endemic carnivorous plant

The cathedral

Highest point. Don't you love the poncho?

Above the clouds

Day 4 was spent exploring the top, though it's so big, we only saw a small fraction of it. There were waterfalls, ponds, strange phallic rock formations and a cave. We only went just inside the cave, which was probably just as well given the lack of helmets and decent lights. Apparently it extends a long way and take 6 hours to traverse. You need to make you way through sumps too.

Day 5 was hard. We went back to the camp that we'd stayed at on the first night, so it was all the distance we'd covered on days 2 and 3. It was down hill, which made it quicker, though it was quite hard on the knees. My legs had had enough of walking downhill by the end of it. That said, it was hot and someone did drop dead from a heart attack on day 5 a couple of weeks before.                              

On the last day my legs were a but stiff, though not that bad and we did the 4 hours back to the start and caught the 4wds back into town. The trip was quite hard, but not that hard. Despite the plentiful supply of food during the 6 days, I'm pretty sure I lost weight. My legs were stiff and I had a fair few bites despite liberally coating myself in Off. The small, black flies they call puri-puri which leave you with small, bleeding, itchy bites seemed to regard it as honey glaze.

So a bit hard work, but worth it, I think.

Bus To Santa Elena

I'd been to the bus station the previous day to buy my ticket. The guy had explicitly told me that I was on the 6.30pm with Los Llanos bus company. So the bus turned up, I checked my luggage on then we started to get on board. Then the guy pointed out my ticket said 8.30. Well it could have been an 8 rather than a 6, it wasn't entirely clear. I said there wasn't an 8.30 and he told me to go to the office.

So off I ran, as my luggage was already onboard and a couple of people had a brief discussion and they handed me another ticket, which was computer printed with my name (spelled wrong) on it. Apparently I was on the 7.45 pm with Occidente, a completely different company.  Err, how?

So I went back to get my luggage. They weren't very happy but I did tell them it wasn't my fault, it was the idiot in the office. I gave him back the baggage tag, but I think he wanted my old ticket so he could cross it off, but I didn't have it anymore. There then followed a brief tug of war over my bag which there was only ever going to be one winner of and I ran off tell him I'd be back in a minute.

So I hid around the corner and eventually got on the Occidente bus which actually left at 9.25pm. We went through at least 3 military checkpoints on the way down. I'd heard stories of them relieving tourists of their dollars but they just checked my passport a couple of times and left me alone. I doubt they would have found my dollars given they were under the insole of my right boot.

So here I am in Santa Elena. The Roraima trek starts tomorrow. It's raining.

Angel Falls

We were all up at 7am the next mornign for breakfast. Then we set off for the airport. It was a bit of a novelty being in an organised group after doing everything myself for the rest of the trip. There were 4 of us, a Swiss guy and an Argentinian couple.

When we got to the airport, despite only having small hand luggage, they made us check it in. And gave us nothing back in return. Even on the bus, they always give you a receipt.

Trying to board the plane and I and the Argentinian guy were told we were going on a later plane. The other two went on before us. We got on the 6 seater Cessna and there was no sign of our luggage. The flight took about an hour and a quarter. It was reasonably smooth. The area around Ciudad Bolivar is mostly flat and boring, but it turned to jungle as we got near the national park.

On arrival the Argentinian's guy's girlfriend had hs luggage as it had been on their plane and obviously she recognised it. There was no sign of mine. The tour guide came up to me and we had the following conversation:

"Where's your voucher?"
"Where's my luggage?"
"I don't know where your luggage is. I need you voucher."
"It's in my luggage."

Obviously this endeared him to me and didn't do wonders for relations between us as it turned out he was our guide for the next 3 days. And equally obviously, I didn't care.

The plane the others had caught had already left, but it came back 15 minutes later.I asked the pilot about my bag and he said it wasn't on the plane.

So then I hang around at the airport for a couple of hours whilst we waited for the last plane. It didn't turn up. The guide was not much help and mostly hid from me the whole time.

Eventually we gave up, so I had three days with one pair of contacts, no clothes, no malaria tablets and my camera, which fortunately I'd taken out of the bag.

The accommodation was about a 10 minute walk away and would be described by an estate agent as "rustic". I would describe it was badly built and badly maintained. The location was fantastic though. It was on the shore of a river fed lake opposite some waterfalls. I had wondered what I'd been missing whilst at the airport. Apparently not a lot. We had lunch and then our first activity wasn't until 2.15, which was obviously more like 2.30 before anything happened.

We got on a boat and went to look at the waterfalls. Then we got out at one and walked behind it, which was good. A bit of a walk through the trees to another couple of falls, and I think we saw about 6 in total. Our guide also showed us some plants that the locals use to paint their faces and some with a nice perfume.

There was a television in the lodge, but that was about it for entertainment, so everyone went to bed quite early. We were up at 7an for breakfast the next day ready for an 8am departure. For some reason, we had to take everything with us and wrap it up in plastic bags to stop it getting wet. Why they don't provide lockers to allow you to leave things like your passport behind, I don't know. And as the camp didn't have showers, lugging all your toiletries there and back seemed equally pointless.

Anyway, we walked over to the head of the falls on the other side of a lake, hung around a bit more, then our luggage turned up on the truck and we got on a canoe. There's one set of rapids that they make you get out for. There's also a shop there where you can buy some handicrafts and drinks. The river needs to be quite high to allow you to make it up and we got stuck a couple of times. The boat trip was 4.5 hours in total. The scenery is good. The banks are covered in jungle and flat topped mountains rise up out of the jungle to about 1000m high. That said, 4.5 hours of even that is more than enough. There's also plenty of spray, so you get soaked. A poncho is a good idea as it usually rains for at least some of the time. You can buy one before setting off for about 40Bs.

The camp was quite basic. There were 4 toilets, one of them working and a roof with hammocks slung under it. After lunch, we were to walk to Angel Falls. Our guide told us we could leave everything there. Needless to say, I didn't.

The walk to the falls is about an hour and 15 minutes. The path isn't that hard but it is quite rocky, muddy in places and there are tree roots everywhere. Boots with ankle support are a good idea. It's also mostly uphill. Some of our group took more like 1 hour 45 minutes to get there. First stop is the Mirador, which is a rocky outcrop overlooking the falls. They're an impressive sight. It's a huge drop down from the top. It's so far, that it doesn't look like there's that much water coming down until you look at the size of the river at the bottom, and it's obvious there is.

Another 10 minute walk away is the base of the falls. You can swim in the pool there. It isn't that warm. On the opposite mountain, there's also another set of falls which look very pretty in their own right, though obviously they're somewhat overshadowed by whats in front of you.

That night was the first time I've ever slept all night in a hammock. Everyone started going to bed at 8pm, so obviously I was awake by 3am. We had breakfast at 5.15am and left at 6. The trip back is quicker because you're going with the flow over the rapids. The boat took a bit of a beating on rocks a couple of times, which might explain why they're not exactly waterproof.

Then more hanging around before our flight back, which was smoother than the one out. At the airport, no-one seemed to know anything about my luggage, or care, come to that. We got a taxi back to the posada with probably the world's thickest driver. We gave him a map which showed the posada was one and a half blocks south of Paseo Orinoco, the main road on the banks of the river, and one and a half blocks east of the main town square, and he still got lost. Back at the posada and told Connexion Tours what had happened. I thought that the guide had already phoned them, but apparently not, so he was even less helpful than I thought he'd been.

That night, I struggled to find anywhere to eat in central Ciudad Bolivar. By day there's a market selling mostly cheap crap, but by night, it's dead. There was one cafe near the posada which was open but there was no-one else in there and it didn't look promising. Still beggars can't be choosers, so I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised. I had a mixed grill with chips and yuca and it was really tasty, not to mention cheap.

So they arranged for someone to take me back to the airport the next morning. He was a tour guide, spoke English and was really annoyed that this had happened, because as he said, it shouldn't and it's the sort of thing that threatens his livelihood.

I'd checked in with Rutaca. They were adamant that they'd passed on the 4 bags. The flight was operated by Convalles Avion . They said they'd only received 3 bags. I know who I'm inclined to believe.  I wrote a letter explaining what had happened and Connexion Tours obviously made some calls and I was asked if I could hang around for another day and go back at 10.30am the next day. I was supposed to be on the night bus to Santa Elena, but had a day spare, so I agreed. I didn't really have much choice.


There's not a lot to do there in the day. I mostly had a look in the shops to try and find somewhere where I could replace some of my stuff if I didn't get it back. Trying to find anything that wasn't crap looked like it wasn't going to be easy.

That night I went to the only place Lonely Planet said was open, La Bellena. They also describe it as "rather dark and seedy" which just goes to show how rubbish it is as a guide. It's not seedy at all. It's Tasca, which is a traditional Spanish bar/restaurant. The guy behind the bar was immaculately dressed in his white shirt, black trousers and tie. He gave me the menu, everything I asked for wasn't available, so I had seafood soup and fish with garlic and very nice it was. Sitting at the bar afterwards, I did get some idiot who looked about 14 try and talk to me for 5 minutes. He seemed to think that the Gringo should give him some money, but that was about all I could make out from his execrable accent and his mate eventually persuaded him it was a bad idea.

So the next morning and, as expected, little in the way of joy. Carlos of Connexion Tours had been to the airport and they'd more or less laughed in his face, which considering he books tours with these people daily, seems a little short sighted. That's the mentality you're dealing with though. The police will only give me a report for things I have a receipt for, which is obviously nothing. Plus they'd probably want paying. Mind you, if I paid enough, I'm sure they'd do me a report saying anything I liked. So Connexion Tours gave me 1,000Bs as a sorry, which they weren't obliged to do and I've been out to buy some new stuff.

I'd like to say lesson learned, but I don't see what I could have done different. I had no choice but to hand over my bag at the airport and hope they weren't thieving scum bags. Sadly, it seems they probably were. Hopefully my tale of woe might make the insurance company take pity on me. I ought to be covered for the airline "losing" my bag.