Nordeste Tour Part II - Lençois Maranhaenses

On the next day we left Sao Luis at 5 pm on a bus we had previously booked. Our next destination was Barreirinhas, a small town at the doorway of the famous Lençois Maranhaenses Dunes National Park, four hours from Sao Luis. I slept most of the time but Barry told me the landscapes resembled a "tropical paradise", whatever that is. The bus left us at a recommended pousada called Brisa do Mar (Breeze of the Sea), where we booked a tour to the dunes for the same afternoon and checked out the town and surroundings.

Market scene in Barreirinhas

One of the many mango trees with some locals

Barreirinhas has a main street and a few dirt roads, a river called Río Preguiças (Laziness River) and lots of mango trees (see above). Barry reckoned the people looked like Indians, but that was a mere exaggeration.
Our pousada was located right on the river so we tried to use one of their boats but overturned it instantly, so we decided to swim across the river. On the other side we found a ship wreck.
Then we had lunch and walked around a little bit on the market and bought a watermelon to take it with us to the dunes.

Butcher's shop "Super Cheap"

Fishmongers

behind our pousada

Río Preguiças

At 2 p.m. we were picked up by a "Toyota", a term which in that part of the country seemed to be used for any kind of truck or van, although our vehicle was indeed a Toyota. Besides us there was a couple from Sao Paulo, another Brazilian family, including an elderly man with a huge belly and a shirt saying: "I am fat but I can lose weight. Worse is you, ugly!", a young hippie guy we came to call "just-live", a driver and a guide.
To get to the dunes, we had to cross the river, and the only means to do this is a raft:

On the raft

However, after crossing the river, the ground started to become sandy and apparently our Toyota was not the best one around, so we got stuck pretty soon. After a couple of
luckless tries to pull it out, our driver decided to change the truck for a better one so we were left behind in a tiny village ind the middle of nowhere, under the hot equator sun. Besides a few shacks, the only things around were zillions of cashew trees. You guys have probably never seen one and are not aware of what a cashew fruit looks like, but they are pretty yellow, orange or red very juicy fruits, with the actual cashew nut at the rear. On the pic below you can see a cashew tree with lots of red fruits on it.

Cashew tree (zoom in!)

However, while you can eat the fruit right from the tree, the nut needs to be roasted, as it's poisonous when eaten raw.

Enjoying some cajú

Cashew ....

... and more cashew!

After an hour and a half ou so, the new truck arrived and this one indeed took the sandy road without major problems. It was already late so we had to hurry to make it to the dunes before dark. The following ride through the park took about one hour and shook us from top to bottom. The car crossed several creeks and drove through narrow curvy paths in the middle of the bush (Caatinga).

This video may give an impression of the ride through the Lencois!

Then we arrived at the bottom of the dunes and had to climb the first one to see the overwhelming panorama. The Lencois are huge dunes of almost white sand as far as you can see. In the valleys between them, pools of crystal clear water form, and reflect a deep color blue from the sky. There is no vegetation at all, though somehow a species of tiny little fish lives in the lakes. Their eggs survive the dry period and the baby fish come back every year.
The landscape was amazing, like something from another world. We walked barefoot and swam in several of the lakes, and stayed for the sunset, which looked majestic over the dunes.

Swimming in the dune lakes

beautiful sunset in the dunes

On our way back we stopped in a small settlement at the beginning of the dunes, had our watermelon and bought a big pack of tasty cashew nuts from the people who grow them there in the middle of the park. After that, yet another shaky ride, this time in darkness and without major incidents.