Date of Entry:  July 11th 2016

Date of Writing:  September 16th 2016

I wake up after a good night sleep at Dragoao do Mar and enjoy their included excellent breakfast chatting with some friends from Germany before my bus to Jericoacora arrives.  About 10 years ago Jeri was hard to get to and only dedicated backpackers made it to this tiny desert oasis, but now times change and it’s firmly on the tourist trail.  Oh well, my loss.  My sources (fellow backpackers)  tell me it’s a still a beautiful place well worth the trek.

I booked the transfer through the hostel so the big bus comes right to the door and picks me up, soon enough I’m dozing on board as we ride for about 4 hours to a small town where we are all ushered off the bus and into the flatbeds of waiting pickup trucks for the last two roadless hours to Jericoacora.

Soon enough we leave any type of urban landscape behind for roads made of sand driving through a desert which grows ever more impressive as we go, the dunes rising to more and more impressive heights as the convoy of 4×4 trucks plunges deeper into the coastal deserts of North east Brazil.  Eventually we stop at a mysterious little lagoon and are all told we have a half hour to explore.  For me this stop is an unexpected pleasure and the white sand dunes that stretch on as far as the eye can see.  The wind is strong but the desert is beautiful.

We eventually get back in our trunk, me chatting in Spanish the whole way as through random coincidence our truck is filed by 3 Argentinean girls and a Chilean couple.  With each passing week in Brazil my Spanish has been getting worse as I try to master Portuguese, so it’s refreshing to get to practice again.

After another 45 minutes zooming through the endless dunes sparsely dotted with shrubbery’s and donkeys and the odd cow the little somewhat greener village of Jericoacora nestled onto a little sandy point surrounded by the ocean.  We speed into town and I’m dropped off at Jeridise hostel, anew place run by an argentinean-brazilean couple at the edge of town.

I end up waiting outside the locked door of the hostel for about 45 minutes chatting with curious local kids before someone shows up at the hostel, but they’re just getting started ad by now are much better organized and very friendly people.The dorms are simple but fine and the kitchen is modern and the hammocks in wifi zone are a nice touch.  That plus everyone is friendly and they have a freshly adopted puppy makes the 30 reals I paid for a 4 bed dorm well worth it.

I settle in and chat with Renata fora bit before heading out to find some food and explore the town which is much bigger and busier than I’d been expecting.  There’s lots of good food available at a price but I just get a pastel off the street and head down to the beach, which is full of cocktail carts offering countless twists on the famous Brazilian caiparinha

As the sun starts to sink low in the sky I follow the ant trail of tourists up to the top of a dune at the edge of the beach to watch what is said to be a spectacular sunset.  I think this might have been a spiritual unforgettable experience ten years ago, when it was just a handful of people and potential new friends. Now there’s about a thousand tourists up there.  They make for some interesting photographic but also remove a bit of the magic of this spectacular sunset.  Still, I’ll be damned if it’s not downright beautiful despite the hordes.

As the sun sinks lower and lower i decide to head back to my hostel away from the thousands of tourists and whipping wind which makes sitting on the dune a very sandy ordeal.  As I retreat back along the beach towards the town the sun breaks through the low hanging level of clouds and provides some more pretty desert sunset pictures.

On my way back through town I book a tour in a shared pickup truck because I have no one to share a buggy with.  In Jeicoacora there are two main tours, east and west, and tomorrow I’m going east.

My stay will be limited to three nights because there’s no ATM’s in Jericoacora and I foolishly forgot to load up on cash in Fortaleza.  Restaurants accept credit card but my hostel and most of the tour agencies don’t so soon enough I’ll be heading south again, but before that comes several days of adventures here in my favourite place of the north east so far.