Buffalo Festival and sleeping in restaurants

Hello again!

To continue with the buffalo festival - afterall such a momentous occasion deserves some more detail! So we headed down to our usual restaurant for some cheap dinner (not only is the food cheap and tasty in this place but the girl cant really add up so even when you go back to tell her you havent paid enough she says you have !) and could hear the set up of the band and compare aacross the road as things were warming up for the opening ceremony. So after another bowl of tasty fish soup with about 100 prawns init - still int hier shells (not sure ive fully digested them yet!) followed by some pudim ( a Brazilain version of creme caramel) and some ice- cream for Jo we made our way over to the ho down. While wed been sitting in the restaurant wed noticed all the girls arriving in thier hoards with the dresses nad heels on and evn the Grannies on the backs of the bikes or in the back of the pick up trucks had their hair feshly blue rinsed! This was clearly a big event on the social calendar of Marajo!

So we took a wander around the show grounds wondering how the girls were managing with the sand and grass underfoot , interspersed with buffalo and horse poo as we were struggling in flip flops. First we took a stroll around the merhandise tent, selling everything from leather and buffalo hide bags to chickens for 1 dollar, not forgetting the random cake stands and deep fried food inbetween. There was also the officail food stalls which we ate at the next night - these competed with each other not only with their homemade savoury dishes and cakes but alos for whoc could play the dodgiest music out of the huge speakers theyd hauled in or have the tackiest fake flower arrangements dottted aorund the plastic red and yellow furniture that is compulsory in any eating place in south America! We did a crawl of these the next night. we atarted by ordering chicken lasagne which turned ou to be ham lasagne and then thought as we werent really full wed follow it with a chicken empanada ( bit like a small chicken pastry - normally!) However this time the chicken empanada turned out to be a full chicken pie served with farofa (yellow fried manioc flour - looks like sand and they sprinkle it on everything) and some form of crisps. So 6 dollars each later wed had 2 full meals and were ready to move on for a dessert crawl of pudim, chocolate cake and ice-cream - when in Rome and all that! Seriously we do have a bit of a cake addiction nad have traded any alcohol consumption for cake in recent weeks!

So back to the festival, soon things started gearing up over at hte main ring so we headed over there past the random buffalo and horses milling around. There was a lot of orgainsing f]going on and people talking on mics but not much happening but the crowds were gathering so we decided it must be worth hanging around for. Some time later the show began, started by a compare running around the ring in jeans that were far too tight for hima nd souding like he was going to collapse at any minute. After hed done a few laps and people were cheering him along there were a few official speeches then out came a guy n a horse with a Brqazilan flag. he preceded to gallop around the ring a few times while the National Anthem played. This was follwoed by the entry into the ring of another big local on a buffalo with another flag and he did a few laps of honour aswell. next came the buffalo pulling hte woman with a mic on a little trailer behind. She said a few words then as she lapped the ring burst into Ave Maria - we wernt expecting that!!

Next came the dancing , some traditional dancing on the stage with some great music, this consisted of a lot of girls flying around in fancy twirly skirts and then some cowboys doing a dance that invilved a lot of lassoing - very amusing and quite catchy. Then came the part of all the local girls that had been so excitedly and patiently hanging around the edges of he ring fixing htier hair and twirling thier dresses - obviously a big night for htem to show off to all the local booys! So eventtaully led by some guy full of hand signals thier daning began. It can only be described as a brazilain version of riverdance mixed with a buffalos head been danced around the ring while ther was some kind of ceremony dance going on. They referred to it as contempory dancing! What made it very amusing was the fact that the leading guy kept telling htem what to do and showing them waht actions to do so it loked more like one f theri rehearsals than the real thing but entertaiing all the same!

The dancing was followed by the fireworks - these came out of nowhere , and if had been at home would have defintiely been illegally set up or at least against all health and safety standards! They had them ziplining right across the ring infront of all our faces so that we had to jump back, they had them spirralling out of wooden signs and out of the ground and anywhere else they could put them. When they finally stopped the kids were allowed into the ring to play with the left over bits of them - again health and saety - clearly not existent!! Then for the show stopper , some druum rolls were played and the first cowboy was mounted onto the bucking horse and let out of the pen - but not before the horse / mules leg got wedged in the gate which made him buck even more and took at leat 4 men to get it out! So eventually he was out of the pen and abruptly thrown within a few minutes! The procedure follwed as so , some better than other until the one came out and gave not one buck much to the riders embarassment - this provoked a lot of laughter and cheering. Next came the buffalos - these were angry buffalos and put on quite a show, so after watchig at least 8 riders we decided this was going to go on all night and got back on ourbikes and made our way home over the grass and and roads i the dark trying to avoid large piles of sand and buffalo poo not to mention random livestock lying around the streets!

We spent 3 nights in Soure and then left the comfort of our very nice pousada as we hopped back on another boat and made the 20 minut very choppy journey back to Salvaterre and the other side of the island. As we got of the boat a huge wave came over the pier and managed to soak me as I was paying for our journey - nice start to the day! We had been told the bus to Joanes - the next town we wanted to go to should leae around 9.30 so we briskly made our way (as fast as you can with all the bags we have to carry) up the street to where it supposedly goes from. Seeing a bus about to leave but not being able to see the front of it I banged on the side of it and tried to stop it. As the doors opened and I asked if it was going to Joanes I felt my bag catching on something and turned around as in slow motion I watched the domino effect of all the locals bicycles that Id just hit and were now falling in succession to the ground. Jo meanwhile was pretending to ignore that this was happening or at least trying to pretend she wasnt with me!!

Eventaully we got ourselves on the right bus and again being the only tourists we were looked after by the conductor and as we approached what appeared to be the main town - one shop,one radio station and a random lady selling stuff our of her garage. So we were told this was where we should get off as this was wher the only two pousadas in the "town" were. We shuffled down thesteep hill to the beach and then back up some steep steps into the first one. Here we were told a room was 95 reals a night - way more than we wanted to pay and it wasnt that special . So after atempting to ask her if we could hang our hammocks somewhere nad pay less and getting a negative response we headed for hte only other pousada. The gate were locked with some string contraption but we saw some shoes outside one of the rooms and a cat - the only signs of life. So we somehow opened the gate and took a wander around. Bit creepy and absolutely no sign of anyone there so off we set agin back to the beach. Plan was to go for a refreshment stop in one of the 3 beach restaurants and ask them if we could pitch our hammocks anywhere on the beach. So back down the hill again and soon we were sipping on the nicest mango juice ever and ofcourse the agua de coco which has lots of rehydrating effects - so were told!

So when we ascertained that the owner seemed normal enough and not a psycho we moved in with the mixed up Spanish , Portuguese, English combination of "Can we hang our hammock in your restaurant please"? This was met at first with a strange look but then a smile and him disappearing t check with his wife . If it was ok with her and we ate in his restaurnat we were in! 10 mintes later we got the okay and we were truly excited that we were finally going to get to use our hammocks that wed been carrying around with us all this time. We left our bags in the corner of the restaurnat under the plastic chairs - where else! and went for a lie down for a couple of hours - all this organising is very stressful! At about 3.30 the wind begain to pick up ad we noticed they were taking in the table and chairs so we decided wed better go investigate what time the restaurant was open until. Luckily we did as last order were going to be at 4.30. As everyone was shhutting up and ther isnt really any shops in town we would have been pretty hungry. So we had to order oour dinner nad said wed go for a walk and be back at 4.30. They had a huge menu but only fish and buffalo were actualy available. Not eating fish Jo opted to try buffalo - again very brave!

On our return from our walk we wer served up a huge meal, mine being a fish stew big enough to feed a family - still managed to get through most of it as it wa the first non fried fish Id seen since arriving in Brazil - very exciting! We dragged diner out till 5.15 then took a stroll around town - dodnt take too long! When we came back the shutters wera ll down and it loked like it was time to hang the hammocks. So we picked a beam and tried to look like we knew what we were doing. Soon enough we had them up and did a test run - all seemed fine and we had abit of alugh when we realised our eye masks colour co-ordinated with our hamocks - good colour choice Nic! By about 7 , having had a shower - (yes we scored a good restaurnat with a toilet and a shower!) we were ready to go to bed. The wind was really picking up so we put down some of the wind protecter things over the non existent windows of the restuarant . While Id been in the shower the owner and his friend ( who was seemingly also hanging his hammock for the night) had been organising driving the cars off the beach and into the restaurnat for the night and at the same time Jo had been trying to change into her pyjamas. She got caught with her shorts half off and her leggings half on as the headlights came in - sorry I missed that!

Soon we were back in our hammocks, mossie sprayed up and ready to fall asleep to the sound of the waves - it was about 8 pm! As I got into mine there was a creak and suddenly Jo and myself were at least half a foot closer to the ground - not good! The owner havnign heard the commotion came over and did some fancy fisherman like knots and soon we were stable again! Slept fine until about 11pm then the wind shields started flapping like mad, adn the friend was snoring over the other side of the restaurnat. So all in all we didnt get a gret lights sleep but it was fun , an experiece and we were up at 6 ready to go for a run - we are desperately tryign to kickstart our running routine again after all this cake eating! On return form the run we were foffered breakfast and for the around about a euro each we got served a large jug of feshly squeezed mago juice, 2 rolls and a huge plate of scrambled egg! We certainly picked the best restaurant to sleep in ! We had planned to spend 2 nights here but the mossies had attacked our shoulders and we both look like we have a bad case of acne on our upper backs so we opted to call it a day and return to the mainland a day early - also less stressful in case there was a storm as we have to be back for the fligth and disnt want to risk missing the boat.

Arrived back to Belem last night and moved to a much nicer hostel that doesnt smell of poo and treated ourselves to a very nice meal in a posh Italain restaurant , actually ate a plate of food that wasnt bread or fried and enjoyed anti pasto buffet for the price of 20 dollars - thats expensive here but was well worth it!So now we are hanging around catching up on correspondance and trying to organise ongoing flights etc as we dont have to be at airport till 1am tomorrow where we fly to Bogota , Colombia nd then hopefully straight onto Cartagena. Anyway thats all the news for now,. Love to everybody back home, hope the weather improves,I hear winter is kicking in! Dont miss that!!xoxox Jane and Jo