Nouvelle année, nouveau voyage...

Cette année, nous partons pour le Vietnam, mais les joueurs ont changé. Nous essayerons avec Sophie de tenir le blog (à peu près) à jour, avec un premier message dès que nous serons arrivés à Hanoi.

Joyeux Noël en retard.

Brazil roadtrip Map

Visualizar Brazil 2012 em um mapa maior

Amazon

From Belem, we went on a 24-hour boat trip on the Amazon forest. Not the deepest and wildest part of it, but enough to spend exotic moments...amongst crazy baby green parrots:

 

 ...Giant trees:

 

 A highlight of the trip was a ballad on rivers that are remote mouths of the giant river Amazona (which was too far to visit). We saw unique forest landsapes from near:

We said hi to the habitants of the area - who are very courteous - from their boats: 

  

 ...or their houses built on stilts at the river shore:

Jericoacoara

After a 29-hour bus trip including 1h on a vintage bus equipped for sand driving, we got to Jericoacoara. It consists in a little but touristy village fully built on the sand and surrounded by dunes that are protected by the National park designation.

One highlight is the Pedra Furada:

Another must-do is watching the sunset (together with a few hundred people...) on the dedicated dune, logically called "Duna do pôr do sol":

 The second day was spent Buggy-touring within the park (passeio do leste):

...featuring stops at the Lagoa Azul, which offers a unique lagoon-plastic-chair-sitting experience shared with our tour-mates:

 And a stop at Lagoa Paraiso, whose water is known to be very transparent:

 The trip also featured sandboarding at the "Lagoa do Coraçao" which unfortunately was too dry to have its heart shape. Here is a view of another lake we stopped by to admire the wind drawing sand clouds on the dunes.

 A particularity of all these lakes is that they have been created by the rain and are therefore filled with freshwater. We too were freshpeople:

Salvador, Bahia

We stayed in Salvador for few more days than initially planned. Salvador is a coastal city of a few millions inhabitants, which dominated the Bay of all Saints. Entry point of most of the african slaves a few centuries ago, it looks like a melting pot of different cultures, mainly African, European and Indian.

We had time to explore the different terraces up the hilly old town, and sip a caipirinha at sunset.

And after sunset, a number of live concerts start a bit everywhere on the street. Just as the cultures are mixed, the music is also an interesting fusion of different styles: bossa nova, samba, rock, jazz...

Our stay in Salvador was actually split in two, since we stayed for two days in Morro de Sao Paulo.

The skyline of Salvador, as seen from the boat taking us to Morro Paulo (see above post).