The Lencois Maranhenses were probably the biggest draw for this trip. They did not disappoint. They were just the postcard idyll I imagined from looking at pictures online of the blue-green lagoons in the middle of sand dunes. They form during the rainy season as the rain fills up the spaces between dunes, and then most of them totally dry up between October and December as the rains stop. And they migrate. Each year the wind blows the dunes to one side or another, meaning that the rainfall fills up the craters in a different place each time.
Our guide picked us up at the resort and drove around 20 minutes on a sand road and parked the pickup alongside several others that had already brought tourists to the area. We walked less than five minutes
when we were already at the first lagoon. The turqoise freshwater is really breathtaking. They lagoons got bigger as we walked further in,each one beautiful than the next. I made a routine at each lagoon of
swimming across it, then climbing up the dune and charging back down into the water.
The pictures really are worth a thousand words (see them on my Facebook page). Our guide took us to a nearby house where the woman who lived there cooked us an amazing fish lunch. The charming little farm house had a refreshing breeze and great views of the open cerrado wildnerness and the dunes in the distance. We chowed on cashew fruit picked from the trees outside. I´ve eaten cashew nuts all my life but really never
came across the fruit until I got to Brazil – I never once saw it in Venezuela. You can get it at juice bars in Rio, though its often from concentrate.
We drove back to the hotel along the sand track. The sun beat down on the leaves and the shrubs, the scent reminded me of the smell that hot northern California sun creates when it beats down on eucalyptus and
pine in the summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment