Pay-Off

I am in one of the most incredible places I have ever been in my entire life. It is basically utopia. This place is called Jericoacoara, and it is in the state of Ceara in northeastern Brazil. It's a little village about 200 kilometers north of Fortaleza that you can only access by taking a four wheel drive vehicle on the last leg of the journey. It is surrounded by enormous sand dunes and stunning rock formations. Until the 1960s or 1970s, it was pretty much just a tiny village of fishermen. Then the Brazilian hippies discovered it and brought a bit of a Jamaica vibe. Then the kite surfers and kite boarders discovered the amazing wind here. It's a tiny quaint village of colorful pousadas with hammocks everywhere...sand streets with kids playing soccer and locals setting up makeshift bars outside so you're never outside a five foot radius of a capiroska...people horseback riding on the beach that's at least a quarter of a mile wide, with beached sailboats and enormous dunes in sight...local artists selling handmade jewelry and clothing...crazy keyhole rock formations with kite boarders whizzing by...green rolling hills with wild horses, donkeys, and cows...it's Brazil with the friendliness and camaraderie you would expect, but there is no crime. And - I am the only American here in this village of 1000 locals and 2000 visitors. In fact, I am the only person whose first language is English. So - how did I get here? What brought this gem of a place into my life?

The lesson that I have proved to myself over the past few days is that you do indeed get back what you put into this crazy universe. I don't even remember what made me decide to book a flight to Fortaleza and check out northern Brazil. I think that my guidebook said that the nightlife was good - I don´t know. The point is that I set my mind towards putting in all of the grassroots effort that was necessary once I got to Brazil to figure out what places I should go. My guidebook mentioned Jericoacoara in a paragraph and didn't even reference any hotel names or reliable means of transportation to get here. There is no way that I would have known to come to Jericoacoara if I hadn't started asking Brazilians what I should do in northern Brazil. There was one girl in particular - I briefly mentioned her in my previous post, and I wish I could remember her name - who said that I needed to go to Jeri with a special sparkle in her eye - like "I know something that you don't know yet, but you're going to see for yourself and think of me." There were a few other people who said "how long are you going to be in Fortaleza? only four days? ahhh - Jericoacoara takes 7 hours by bus, it's too far, just enjoy the beach in Fortaleza and rest before Carnaval." But what was I going to do sitting around being lazy for four days? In my mind, the trip itself would be an adventure too. So I set my mind on Jeri.

When I got to Fortaleza on Sunday, this all became extremely confusing and complicated. The people at my hostel were uninformative and unhelpful. I walked around in the hot sun to at least 7 or 8 other hostels and hotels and ran into the same situation. To make matters more complicated, very few people speak any English in Fortaleza, and the English I did encounter was very broken. Most people gave incomplete information about bus times - like, they only referenced the timetable of one bus company. Nobody had any brochures for tour companies I could call. There was no information about hotels. I wasn't having much luck on the internet either because the one tour company that I found had a nonfunctional website. I saw one "tourist service" type company on the street that was closed because it was Sunday, and so I resigned to tackle the task again in the morning.

On Monday, there was another person at my hostel who said that I needed to walk to a hotel up the street to get information about the bus. So I set off in the mid-afternoon heat - after having shown the name in writing to three or four people and walking for 40 minutes, I finally arrived. The hotel sent me to a different kiosk outside (for a company that my hostel could have easily called) who had a bus in the morning (Tuesday), but no hotel information, and a return bus at 10:30 PM on Wednesday night that they wouldn't let me buy a ticket for in advance - "but it is before Carnaval, it will be no problem." So - I took their contact information and went back to the tourist service place - to make a long story short, I booked the first bus and the hotel through the tourist service and the return through the other company once I got to Jeri, but I had to beg - they were "sold out." Ahhhhh crazy Brazil! My American sensibilities were in shock and frustration! I have money to spend, what the heck is the problem?!?!

Haha, ok enough of that. The past two days have been incredible. I have been having pseudo conversations that I basically don't understand with Brazilians and Italians and a few others in a combination of English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French. Hilarious. I have been hit on 72 times or so. I am actually starting to get a tan. I´ve been dancing in the streets to Brazilian acoustic surfer rock (-I am coining that term). I hung out with a large family watching a soccer game on a TV set up outside. I managed to order the same totally unappetizing dinner involving shrimp, pineapple, cream, and cheese two nights in a row. None of it was consumed. I also met a group of awesome Argentine guys today who live in Buenos Aires and who I can see later in my trip. The good times keep on rollin. The moral of the story - thanks Mama - is that you can do anything you put your heart to...sometimes it just takes a little bit of effort.

I love and miss you all. ciao ciao, K