Cabure

We stayed the night in Parnaiba, and then the next morning drove two hours through thick vegetation known as cerrado until we reached the  town of Tutoia. Winding through some of the back trails in town we were
back on the sand dunes, and we headed west along the beach another half hour. The scrub grass struggled to grow through the sand, making the whole thing look like a lawn with a covering or snow on it. A group of
fisherman's huts made from palm fronds dotted the beachline next to a tall  antennae-like pole being used to test the area for wind generation.The beach was dotted with blackened stumps that poked out of the sand
as if they´d been buried. This is in fact what happened. Ten years ago  this was a mangrove swamp, but the wind slowly covered it with sand and left the mangroves strangled. Constant flux.

We arrived at the town of Cabure, which is in fact simply a group of  three different pousadas set back from the beach. There´s only power available half the day, provided by a diesel generator. The Rio Preguicas sits on the other side of the pousadas, and is the usual mode of transport for most people and goods and that come in and out.

Our pousada is a set of cabins set behind a large dune to shelter them from the wind, but the breeze is still so strong that it feels as if the rooms have fans blowing air through them all the time. Isa and  spent the afternoon on the beach, not swimming much because of the bizarre wave patterns and weird currents that make you feel as if something is sucking your legs out to sea. So we lay in the tidepools that form just back from where the waves break, skipping shells and chatting about nothing. I could barely feel the sunshine because of the wind blowing off the ocean.

The pools vary in depth from about an inch to about a foot, which gives them a variation in color. I really
only noticed this because I tripped and nearly twisted my ankle on one of them. A buzzard sits watching us from the remains of some abandoned structure. Beauty and hostility all rolled into one. Life´s not easy here, says the manager of the pousada, Irai. The spectactular beauty of the place keeps people coming back, to watch the sunsets of the Rio Preguicas, to see the stars at night, to fall  asleep to the sound of the wind and the waves. I love the sand and I love the water. But there´s so much to do that I often don´t get out there. And people come here complaining about all sorts of things.They say there´s so much sand, it´s too windy, they want air conditioning.

We took an afternoon tour to watch the sun set over the  river and watched the bright pink guara birds play overhead. We went back to our room and read until the lights went out. It´s been a while since I put down a book on account of lights out rules.