São Luís - Visit to an acquaintance

I spent most of February 21st at the hostel to take care of some things.

On February 22nd, I finally wanted to do the tour in the national park, so I booked the tour through the hostel. Suddenly, they said that I would be picked up around 4:00 a.m., so I wondered why it was not possible to do the tour the day before.

When I got up at night and packed my things, someone rushed towards me and explained that there were problems with the van and that we could not drive. I was then suggested to take a public bus to Barreirinhas and book the tour there through a tourist office. Since another guest from the hostel also took the public bus, I decided to follow him. Alone, I would probably have postponed the tour to the next day, as it would have been too risky for me without knowing Portuguese. Upon arriving in Barreirinhas, I found out that the tour would end too late, so I couldn't take the bus back, which is why I had to spend a night there. In the afternoon, we finally drove to the desert with the beautiful lagoons. Since it was still the beginning of the rainy season, not all lagoons were filled with water yet, but it didn't matter because you could still swim in the lagoons.

At the hostel, I met a Dutch woman and an Australian woman, whom I later met again in Rio de Janeiro.

On the 23rd, I returned to São Luís. After a shower, I was already picked up by car. A few weeks ago, I had posted a picture with a location marking on Instagram. Then Julia, whom I had met in San Francisco in the first five weeks of my trip, wrote to me. I told her about my plans for the last two weeks in Brazil. Suddenly, Julia told me that she lived in São Luís, so she invited me to her home for 4 days.

We spent the day eating cake, taking a city tour, visiting the grandparents' beach house, and visiting Alcântara.

In the grandparents' beach house, I was invited to eat seafood. Since I don't eat anything from the sea (except shrimp), it took a lot of effort for me. I actually had a little struggle because I was pretty disgusted to pull the legs out of the crab, to eat small chopped fish from the head of the crab, and to eat a whole fish off the bones. But because I wanted to be polite, I tried to be brave, but the fish was too much for me, so I politely declined.

The trip to Alcantara was also very adventurous. We sailed to Alcantara on a sailboat. Unfortunately, all the shops and museums were closed, so after 1.5 hours we didn't really know what else to do. On the way back, a sail also tore, so the boat went a little out of control. After trying to limit the damage, we finally reached the shore.

On February 26th, I flew to Fortaleza and then flew to Rio de Janeiro from there.

I was really happy to see Julia again and found it especially crazy that I met someone again in the last two weeks whom I had met in the first 5 weeks of my travels.

The family was really incredibly nice to me, it was great to sleep in an air-conditioned room and especially to have my own room with a bathroom. Julia's family is a rather wealthy family in Brazil. Everyone has their own car, they live together in a approximately 120 sqm, very modern apartment, and can afford to travel. They also have housemaids, as do the grandparents. It was a bit uncomfortable for me to be served, but maybe also because I'm not used to it.