Down the Coast of Brazil by Bus - Part 1 (Macapá, Belem and Praia da Pipa)

  

When I once took some Spanish lessons, the teacher asked me why I chose to learn the language. I enthusiastically answered that I always dreamt of living in Brazil. She looked at me in with a puzzled expression and suggested that I was in the wrong class – that I should seek Portuguese lessons instead. I felt very embarrassed by my dumb blunder but, sadly, I never did take up her suggestion. As a child, I fantasised about living in the Brazilian jungle, running around barefooted with animals as my friends. I’d live in a tree house and, at times, I’d walk to the centre of Rio de Janeiro (which of course, in my fantasy world, was just a short walk away from my jungle tree house). Together with my animal friends, I’d do good deeds in the city and save the day when needed. That was basically it – my childhood fantasy of Brazil. In the present, I was heading down the coast of Brazil, to discover this country that I had only previously dreamt of. Would it live up to those dreams?

This kid was dreaming of living in the Brazilian jungle

I hardly got any sleep on the 6pm bus from the border town of Oiapoque (in the extreme northeast of country – next to French Guiana) to the city of Macapá. The road was bumpy and the bus seemed to stop every hour or so for people to get off and buy some food or go to the toilet – which they did every time even if it was the middle of the night. We arrived in Macapá at about 4am so the bus ride turned out to be much less than the 12 hours I had predicted. I therefore did what I usually do when I arrive at a new destination so early in the morning: I found a safe-looking spot in the bus terminal and took a nap till sunrise. Once the sun was up, I began to focus on the essentials. My first big worry was a lack of cash. I only had a few pennies with me due to the fact that, since leaving Manaus, I wasn’t able to withdraw cash in any ATMs in Brazil. Before doing anything else, I needed to sort that out.

Not even 20 hours previously, I was still stuck by the roadside in the middle of French Guiana – trying without luck to hitch a ride to the capital of the French overseas department, Cayenne. I couldn’t believe that I was already in Macapá so soon after. My luck had changed very suddenly thanks to a kind immigrant from Guiana Bissau. It was now about 6am on Monday 10^th November (2014). I had two days left for the date when I had agreed to be in Belem to meet my girlfriend, Sofia. She was meant to arrive by cargo boat down the Amazon River from Santarem but I hadn’t heard from her for several days. I just hoped she would stick to her part of the plan as I hoped to stick to mine. Macapá isn’t connected by road to the rest of Brazil south of the Amazon River, so I needed to catch a boat from there. Given the very poor information available online, I wasn’t sure which days the boat left, how many days it would take to arrive to Belem and how much it would cost. I only knew one thing: if I couldn’t access any cash in Macapá, I wouldn’t be able to catch any boat or other means of transport, no matter how much it cost.

I tried to withdraw money from a couple of ATMs at the bus terminal but they didn’t work. I kept calm and decided to walk to the centre of town to look for a bank but a friendly young guy told me that the centre of town was actually a few kilometres away so there was no way I could get there on foot. I counted my very last pennies and saw that I had just about enough to pay for one local bus ride. After that, I wouldn’t even be able to buy a bottle of water. Thankfully it was a Monday and banks would be open in a couple of hours. If no ATM in town worked, I would at least try to withdraw cash directly from the bank employees for a fee as I had done in Guyana. I hoped onto the next bus heading to the centre and indeed it took a while to arrive to its destination. Macapa is a surprisingly big city in the sense that it’s very spread out. There are no high-rise buildings as in other Brazilian cities, but it did seem to be home to a considerable amount of people (just under half a million). As I started to see more shops and people walking in the street, I realised I was in the centre. I therefore tried to get off at a particular stop but didn’t get down from the bus in time. I did manage to get off at the following stop though – and the previous missed-stop turned out to be a major blessing since the same international bank where I have my main account has a branch exactly where I got off the bus. I couldn’t believe my luck. I had somehow thought that Macapá would be a tiny fishing village – I had never imagined I would have found a branch of the bank I use in my home country of Malta. 

A stroll by the river in Macapa

It was still very early in the morning and the bank wasn’t open yet but I tried the ATMs to see if I could avoid waiting till the opening hour. My credit card didn’t work. As a backup, I had a debit card with me … and lo-and-behold, the ATM screen greeted me with my very own name and surname! I knew at that moment that my cash problems were solved. Indeed, the debit card worked and I withdrew enough cash in Brazilian currency to keep me going for at least three weeks. That cash in hand felt like fresh air after almost suffocating! I felt so happy that I hopped around like a silly fool.

Defending the Amazonian colonies: the old fortress of Macapa

I could now focus on the next step: getting a boat to Belem. But first, I wanted to roam around Macapá for a bit since I felt I had enough time on my hands (though this was only my perception since I had no concrete information as to when the next boat for Belem would leave, from where and if there was even going to be any boats leaving that day or even the next)! With my new-found bliss, I roamed towards the coast and noticed a fortress along the riverbank. Some locals were enjoying a morning jog as I passed by with all my belongings on my back. I walked beyond the fortress and spotted a little port from where some cargo ships were docked. I was hoping that I had found my boat but the staff at the port told me that boats to Belem actually leave from the little nearby suburb of Santana (which is not within walking distance). I went back to the centre to find my way to Santana and was told that buses heading there leave from in front of the old central market, which is right across the road from the fortress. The market is quite picturesque and people were already sitting around having breakfast at the stalls.

Macapa's Central Market

After a short while, the bus for Santana picked me up in front of the market and I arrived there after about 30 or 40 minutes. Once in Santana, I got off the bus and asked for the port so some helpful people pointed me in the right direction. I had barely arrived when a man on a bicycle approached me and asked if I was looking for a boat to Belem. I told him that I indeed was and he said that he worked for a company that had a cargo ship leaving in a couple of hours’ time (at 10am). Things were going my way now – the timing of everything was just perfect. I must point out that in Brazil, people often come up to you with useful information (in Portuguese) and make things really easy. What a difference from French Guiana where most people hardly even look at you. The helpful man told me that the boat would arrive in Belem after about 24 hours so I would actually get there a full day before I had expected to. The man got off his bicycle and walked with me to his office. I paid him 130 Reales for the ticket and stocked up with some food for the boat ride since, unlike other Amazon cargo boats I had been on, this one provides no free food. I basically bought water, bread, mustard and some biscuits to keep me going till I get to my destination the following day. For the sake of information, I tried to find out if these cargo ships leave from Santana every day. I didn’t quite understand if they do or not due to the language barrier – but I suspect they do indeed leave every day at about 10am, except for Sundays.

The little river-port of Santana

I boarded the cargo boat and met a few other passengers on the deck hanging up their hammocks. I had no hammock so I rolled out my sleeping bag and used it as a cushion as I sat on the floor. A kind old lady took an interest in me – I was obviously this strange-looking person from some far away land sitting on the floor on his own with all his belongings. I’m not sure if she took pity on me or felt that she had to be kind out of a sense of hospitality. Either way, she gave me a plastic chair from the cabin she was staying in and kept on asking me if I had enough food and if I wanted a coffee. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really communicate with her due to a lack of understanding of spoken Portuguese. Before leaving on this travel, I had tried to read Portuguese texts and understood them well. I had therefore thought that I would also easily understand the spoken language. I was very wrong.

The cargo ship being loaded as we wait to leave

Heavy duty: loading the ship

The cargo ship left from the port of Santana later than scheduled (at about 11am), after loading all goods to be taken to Belem. This is a very interesting part of the Amazon since there are a number of fluvial islands, some very large, scattered around towards the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean. The small ship from Santana to Belem passes through these islands, the largest of which is the Island of Marajó (which is apparently the size of Switzerland). On this island, people use buffalos as a means of transport. Even policemen in uniform go around on buffalo back! Legend has it that these buffalos first landed there after the ship they were being transported on was shipwrecked just off the island.

Passing through the jungle islands along the river

I spent the next few hours reading, writing and watching the stunning view of the jungle which covered the islands. We passed stretches of river that were very wide and others which were rather narrow. Several kilometres of uninhabited jungle alternated with spots where little wooden houses were scattered along the riverside. Children could be seen swimming and playing beneath these simple houses. Some people were rowing around on their canoes. Everything seemed so peaceful and lovely here. This part of the world seems to be very unspoilt by the clutches of man-made ‘progress’.

Life in peaceful isolation

A care-free childhood

As the sun was setting, two impish little boys on board started to take an interest in me. The other passengers made signs to me to watch out for my belongings. They suspected that the interest of the little boys was not an innocent one. I’m not sure if the boys indeed intended to snatch my belongings whilst I wasn’t looking. Just in case, I did shoot a few stern looks at them and stayed firmly next to my possessions throughout the journey. Nevertheless, when they came along to see what I was writing, I did talk to them and showed them my tattered little diary. They seemed quite amazed for a while – and then they got bored since writing isn’t the most fun thing to watch. Nothing got stolen that night and I didn’t see the little boys again the following morning. I spent the night huddled in my sleeping bag, leaning against my backpack to ensure that nobody touches it. I slept reasonably well on the whole.

 

Nature all around

 

We were still passing by jungle islands by sunrise the following morning. Only a few hours later, approximately 24 hours after leaving from Santana, the ship exited from a narrow river into a very wide stretch of river that almost looked like the sea. I could see big ships around and skyscrapers in the distance. We were obviously close to Belem. As the ship approached the skyscrapers that were towering along the Belem skyline, my heart sank. After so many wild adventures in the Amazon, here I was at the mouth of the river where this part of the travel was about to end. I wasn’t looking forward to land in this seemingly intimidating city – but I was soon surprised to find out that it would become one of my favourite cities in Brazil.

Belem: Intimidating skyline

Once the ship arrived at its destination, I hopped off and started to look for a cheap hostel, eventually finding one in the city centre for 20 Reales per night for a dorm bed. Privacy isn’t the order of the day there, with my dorm having no walls – but the atmosphere was good and I quickly made friends with the other guests. I checked my emails to see if Sofia had also arrived from Santarem and to tell her where I was. There were no messages from her – neither to say that she had left Santarem, nor which day she had planned to arrive in Belem. I therefore had no idea when or if she would arrive, considering that the boat ride between the two Amazonian cities takes a couple of days. I accepted that I had to wait and see what would happen, also since I had arrived a day earlier than expected thanks to my good luck with hitch-hiking in French Guiana –  and my bad luck with couch-surfing (which meant that I didn’t spend the night in the expensive Cayenne).

Colonial buildings mixed with a modern hustle and bustle

"Why the long face?" One of the more particular encounters on the streets of Belem!

I didn’t remain alone for long, though, as I met a very friendly Brazilian man called Joao who was occupying on the upper part of my bunk-bed. Joao is from Salvador and had recently been swindled on a major scale by the person who had sold him his house. Joao had worked many years to buy his dream house in the countryside – and now that he had finally set it all up to his liking, it was gone … together with his money. He found himself in the midst of a legal battle to either get the house or his money back and it was taking its toll on him. To make matters worse, his wife of many years had recently left him for another man. Feeling stressed and rather dejected, he decided to leave it all behind him and hit the road for a while. It was probably the most sensible solution to try and maintain his sanity, though he did admit that he was still extremely affected by what he had been through.

Belem's impressive opera house

An unexpectedly attractive city

Joao and I hit the roads of Belem’s old centre and, to my surprise, what from afar on the cargo ship had seemed like a skyscraper-laden monstrous city turned out to be extremely pleasant with lots of culture and museums, colonial architecture (including an opera house and a fort that one can visit) and a number of bustling markets next to the river. The most famous and picturesque of the markets is the Ver-o-Peso, where you can eat the typical acai with fish. Acai is a purple-coloured berry which grows on palm trees in the Amazon and has a very particular bitter taste that requires some getting used to. It is also said to have an extremely high nutritious value, actually being considered one of the healthiest foods around. Here in Belem, it is eaten as a soup and is generally accompanied by fried fish. Acai is also popular in most of Brazil as frozen pulp, with sugar added to make it sweet and other ingredients such as cereal and fruit added by request. Next to the Ver-o-Peso market is a very quaint little port for fishing boats, which actually seem to be the home of a number of people. Belem is famous for being the location of one of the largest religious gatherings in the world: the Círio de Nossa Senhora de Nazaré (The Candle of Our Lady of Nazareth) which is said to attract as many as two million participants each year. Nevertheless, what I loved most in Belem was watching the sunset by the riverbank, seeing the jungle trees in the distance on the other side of the in the Guajará Bay, at the estuary of the rivers Guamá and Pará (which branch out from the Amazon River).

 

The Ver-o-Peso Market along the river

The fishing port of Belem

Full of activity: the markets of Belem

Taking a nap: a fisherman enjoys a relaxing moment on his boat

 

The following day, Sofia still didn’t turn up so I got a bit worried since it was the day we had agreed to meet on. I was also somewhat upset since it should have been easy for her to arrive in Belem on the right day, making use of the frequent boats in this part of the Amazon. To pass the time, Joao and I went to the botanical garden which also had a little zoo and museum. One thing that struck me in the museum was a section on pre-Colombian cave paintings found in Monte Alegre, along the Amazon River (not too far from the city of Santarem). If I ever find myself in this part of the world again, I’ll surely try to visit these archaeological findings from approximately 7500 year ago. So many discoveries of pre-Colombian culture indicate that the indigenous people wiped out by the European colonisers were far from being the mindless savages that the Europeans claimed they were. I often wonder how the South American continent would have evolved had the Europeans never arrived and practically destroyed the populations who lived there together with their culture (apart from a few exceptions).

Bamboo reeds in the botanical garden

After I had given up hope of seeing Sofia that day, she finally turned up at my hostel in the evening. Her boat had arrived several hours later than scheduled. She had obviously received the message I had sent her by email but she hadn’t seen it before checking into another cheap hostel. She turned up with Andres, a Colombian youngster she had met on the boat. Andres is a craftsman who makes jewellery using special stones and he travels a lot to acquire such stones. He lives in Rio de Janeiro and was heading down the coast of Brazil in order to get back home. Andres already knew Belem rather well so he took us around that evening and we ended up eating acai and fish at the Ver-o-Peso market. Being very outgoing and friendly (as many Colombians tend to be), Andres knew several vendors at the market and stopped to speak to them as we roamed around. The vendors obviously seemed to love the guy.

Friendly atmosphere - the riverside markets

Along the streets of Belem

The world being a small place, Andres also introduced us to a Colombian refugee whom I recognised from Lago Agrio. The young fellow has a tragic past, having seen his wife murdered by irregular armed groups in his home country, and he never quite got over it. He’s now roaming around South America, feeling sorry for himself and angry with the world – trying to find a new place to call home but never quite managing to fit in anywhere. Often, a negative attitude keeps people tied to a horrible past and prevents them from moving ahead in life. Hopefully, it’s only a phase in this person’s life – but it could go on haunting him for the rest of his life. That evening, we said goodbye to Andres and took down his contact details in order to try and meet him when we passed through Rio.

The old centre at dusk

Sofia and I planned to catch a 36-hour bus ride heading south the following night to get to the city of Natal. There were other places to visit in the area around Belem such as the charming Marajo Island and the colonial city of Sao Jose, which is about 12 hours south. Nevertheless, we thought it would be best to start heading further south as soon as possible given that we had just over two months to reach Patagonia during the austral summer, with plenty of places to travel to before that. Brazil is enormous so it isn’t possible to see everything of interest in a month and a half. We decided to stop in Natal to take a break along the long bus travel to the south. From there, we would go straight to Praia da Pipa (Pipa Beach), which is considered one of the most beautiful beaches in Brazil. I reckoned that it would be a good place to stop for a night or two to rest along the way. I also wanted to see a bit of the famous Brazilian coast. Further north is the famous beach town of Jericoacoara. My friend Xavi (who crossed the Amazon with me) and his girlfriend Catia (who joined us in Manaus) had been to Jericoacoara and told us that it’s a great place for backpackers to chill and have fun. Nevertheless, it would have taken us a number hours off the main route to get there, thus not being a very convenient stop. Pipa worked fine for us since it’s very close to Natal and not too far from our next destinations: Recife and Olinda.

The 36-hour bus ride to Natal wasn’t too bad in the end. The bus stopped often (perhaps too often) but the seats were comfortable and the views from the window were interesting as we passed through the often-changing landscape of the northeast coast of Brazil and some small towns and villages along the way. Apparently, this part of the country has been largely affected by deforestation and the poorly planned exploitation of resources, leading to a rather unfertile land in some places where there was once lush vegetation. Certain parts of the area also seemed to be affected by mining. Due to the lack of sustainability in exploiting the land in the past, there are far less natural resources left, leading to much poverty and very little to show for the several decades of destruction of nature. It is all gone, like dust in the wind. Perhaps some greedy plantation owners in the past became very rich. They’re now dead and their riches have gone with them. All that is left is a desolate unusable land, a curse for a number of generations to come. The mining and deforestation still going on till today in many parts of Brazil (and South America in general) shows that not much has been learnt from the terrible mistakes of the past.

Arid lands in the northeastern state of Piauí

Sofia and I spent two nights and a day on the bus until arriving in Natal. It is always best to begin a 36-hour bus ride at night to be able to save yourself two nights of accommodation and arrive at your destination in the morning. Once in Natal, we changed bus and arrived at the seaside town of Pipa that same morning. Unfortunately for us, it was a Saturday so a large number of local tourists from nearby cities and towns invaded what was once a quiet fishing village (but which is now mainly one big tourist resort). My initial impression of the village is that it has lost any character it might have had in the past. Sofia and I found a camping spot at the back of a hotel, surrounded by other tents. Not speaking Portuguese, we couldn’t really communicate much with the other campers around us.

 

Weekend at the beach for many locals

There are a few lovely beaches around Pipa – long sandy beaches with cliffs right behind them. The nature is really quite impressive along this part of the Brazilian coast but there are way too many people at the weekends. Thankfully, the beaches are large enough to allow you to find a quieter spot if you walk far enough. Along the extensive beaches, a number of people were learning how to surf, taking advantage of the constant waves provided by the Atlantic Ocean. Others sunbathed and drank cocktails. Everything seemed to be a bit too expensive for our budget so we couldn’t really make the most of being here. Thankfully, having our tent meant that we didn’t pay much for accommodation and could simply enjoy a day at the beach, eating home-made sandwiches.

Outstanding natural coast

That night, tents seemed to sprout all around us at the most unearthly hours. Some of our camping neighbours also decided to keep their horrible techno music on full volume all night long. It wasn’t what we were hoping for after a 36-hour bus ride and a day in the sun on the beach. I hardly got any sleep that night and wished that people would learn how to respect each other. The following morning, we got up very early (whilst some of the other campers around us had just gone to sleep) and took the tent down. We packed everything and caught a local bus to a nearby village, from where we hoped to catch a bus headed to our next destination: the city of Recife. We eventually made our way to the highway, to catch one of the intercity buses that were heading down south. We didn’t have to wait too long. We hoped onto the bus and went to Recife, which was only a few hours away from Praia da Pipa – glad to be running away from the noisy, selfish weekend beach-crowd that had infested the area.

A surfer goes out to face the waves