Been on the road for the last 3 days, in remote areas, staying in different places each night with little or no Internet access. Our next port of call we’re there for 3 days so hopefully I can catch up properly!
Day 17 – Journey from Barreirinhas to Jericoacoara
This was an insane day that started off normally enough. We’d checked our route and had a 6 hour drive to the beach town of Jericoacoara, 240 miles away. We left after breakfast so felt we were in good shape to get to ‘Jeri’ by late afternoon.
The first sign that things would not go to plan (and unfortunately I’ve no pictures) was when the road outside of Barreirinhas heading south suddenly turned into sand. We got about 100 yards before deciding something was amiss and reversed gingerly up the road.
Back in Barreirinhas we had great difficulty figuring out what was up. Almost nobody speaks English in this part of Brazil so we went to the tourist office. Nobody at the tourist office spoke English either. I managed to explain eventually that we were trying to get to Jericoacoara in a ‘normal’ car and to cut a long story short discovered that it was impossible to get there directly without a 4×4. The first maybe 30km or so of the route is deep sand, even though the maps and Google suggest otherwise. The alternative was a 600-700km(?) round trip, back the way we had come to Sao Luis and then deep inland. We’d never get there in one day.
Refusing to accept this and after seeking alternative opinions, we were taken by a very helpful local to someone who spoke English (who came with us in our car) and this person telephoned another knowledgable local, who suggested there was a ‘clay road’ shortcut, which involved driving ‘two sides of a triangle’ to get to a point just south of Paulino Neves, about 30km away. It was not on the maps and we’d need a guide on a motorbike to get us there. Everyone was incredibly helpful and friendly, and we found a willing recruit immediately.
We set off after our motorbike guide on the clay road…
The road was incredibly rough and bumpy, and sandy in places. The undercarriage of the car was hitting the ground, a lot, and our guide kept speeding off into the distance out of sight. It was not exactly relaxing from a driving perspective, although some of the remote places we were passing through were fascinating.
We had no idea how long this track was, a key bit of info we’d failed to find out. After 30km or so of fairly high stress driving, we reached our first village and a small stretch of laid road. Our guide had stopped and we thought we’d made it, but what we didn’t know was we had another 70km to go. It was about when this photo was taken that we learned this!
Some parts of the road were fun and we were able to put our foot down (in light sand)…
But most of it was nervy, slow going, including some not exactly safe looking bridges
And eventually, our fear materialized as we got stuck in the sand
We dug out the car and carried on, and eventually after 4 hours and 100km of sandy track made it to the main road just south of Paulino Neves. Tarmacadam never looked so good.
After a brief stop in Tutóia, a run-of-the-mill town to get cash, we were finally making good progress again towards Jericoacoara.
Jeri (as its known) is an unbelievable beachside fishing village surrounded by dunes in a national park. You can’t really get to it in a normal car (although there is a route at low tide). We were arriving late at night, so dumped our car in the nearby ‘mainland’ village of Jijoca. They have a pretty efficient operation where there is secure parking and guys waiting in pick up trucks to drive you across the dunes.
We dumped all our belongings into the back of the pick up and headed through Jijoca towards the dunes
The route across the dunes to Jeri was incredible and very rough in places. It was dark but we were able to make out moonlit dunes and looking up saw more stars than we’d seen in our lives. No pictures obviously (too dark) but eventually, about 10.30pm, made it to Jeri, 12 hours after we’d set off from Barreirinhas.
The night in Jeri was amazing (Jeri is one utterly incredible place – a bit like Burning Man on the beach), but unfortunately I’ll have to write that up later. We have another long drive ahead of us today (to Pipa from Beribe) and we’re not 100% sure the whole road is good!
Stay tuned!
Suddenly you find yourself driving across brilliant white… desert 
