I am currently in São Luis, killing time before a 12 to 14 hour night bus tonight (depending on road conditions). It will take me to Belém, where I will be straight onto a boat, that will depart sometime during the day. Five nights up the Amazon to the central Amazonian city of Manaus. From there I will complete a two day expedition into the jungle. So you may not hear from me for a while.In the meantime though, the hotel we stayed in in São Luis has a sloth! Look at her, with her three toes and slow movements. She lives in a tree in the middle of the hotel, and though she's quite high when sleeping (about 20hrs a day), she comes down very close to the third story balcony when feeding.
Yesterday though, she disappeared. Everyone was wondering where she went. A couple of the tour groupies went downstairs, and saw one of the waiters carrying her. She had fallen, near a group of French tourists (I think). She, bruised and battered, managed to get herself back up into a low palm tree. The waiter had to get her down, carry her back up to the third story, and dangle her on the end of a broom to put her back into the tree. Poor thing. Apparently it happens from time to time though, so beware. I imagine she also goes to the toilet from time to time...
São Luis is the only colonial town in Brazil with French roots, so the buildings here are all old and French looking. There is of course the new town, and slums, but where we are it's Frenchy. It's also supposed to be the Reggae capital of Brazil, but I didn't get to hear any sadly. I bought a hammock though, for the Amazon boat and beyond.
Above is where we went in Barreirinhas. Some national park whose name I can't be bothered looking up right now. It's about 30% low bush, and 70% dunes, with lagoons in between every one of them. There are about 20,000 lagoons, and the dunes stretch for about 40km from where we were on the edge of the bush to the sea, and 120km along the coast. It was very beautiful. The water was so blue. The tour guides also do camping trips in the high season, which are amazing apparently, as there are millions of stars which light up the reflecto-sand to the point where you need no lights.
The trip there and back was exciting too. We were on the back of (another) 4wd, which went through many many water crossings on the track to get there. Some were very deep, and in one we very nearly tipped. Luckily though the jesus mudflaps saved us, and we came right.
Barreirinhas was a nice town on a river. There seemed to be perpetual lightning in the distance one night, which was very beautiful, lighting the clouds in flashes. The first night we went to a bar with dancing and music. It was on the waterfront. The next night some went to a "Reggae" party, hold the Reggae. It was just a DJ playing extremely loud Brazilian hits. So no Reggae for me this time either. The best part of that night was going to and from the party on mototaxis - aka motorcycles that you pay very little to ride. A five minute experience of being in a motorcycle gang.
That's all for now - so I hope you don't miss me too much (though the poll indicates otherwise. I'll get round to updating it soon, but let's just let it sit for a little longer).
