One of the Worldś Most Beautiful Beaches

Before arriving in Jericoacoara we heard that it is considered one of the worldś most beautiful beaches, which peaked our interest even further. We arrived to Jeri via a bus which took us to a trolley-like thing, because the bus could no longer drive through the ridiculous terrain. We drove for an hour or two along gorgeous beach that oddly enough featured cows and donkeys. Finally we got to Jeri. It is a beautiful beach town placed on a national natural reserve. That means that there were no real streets, hardly any cars, zero pollution, and tons of animals and such. We checked into a hostel that Ayal picked. Though it was nice, I had my eye on somethin' else. We went to the beach the next day, and afterwards we headed towards this hostel I saw when we first arrived to town called Masai Mara. It was beautiful. They showed us the master suite, and we simply could not help ourselves. It was absolutely heaven. Actually, we called it the Majestic Palace and refered to the upstairs portion that held our bedroom and fantastic bathroom as Heaven. Every time we opened the door to our apartment or walked anywhere in the Pousada (hostel) little frogs and geckos hopped all over the place! We went to the different beaches every day and hiked up the dunes. We got to see several fantastic sunsets, as if they were taken from post cards. They actually have a dune called Sunset Dune or something like that (catchy, I know) that people hike to get a higher up view of the sunset.
My favorite part, or one of them at least, was going to the Manglars. What is a manglar, you might ask. Good question! I wondered the very same thing! When we looked at the poster about how Jeri was a natural reserve we saw an icon for the manglars that had a crab, some water, and a tree growing out of the water. Then we saw another one that was supposed to represent the manglar that just had a sea horse. What could this thing be!? So one day we hired a guy with a dune buggy (that is how they drive around in Jeri--fantastic and fun) to take us to the manglars. We got to see the strange and magnificent terrain of Jeri and the surrounding area, which included a visit to the manglars. Apparently a manglar is a body of water with trees coming out of it. There were tons of crabs....so many it looked like the ground was gyrating. We also got to see some sea horses, even a pregnant one! The guy that took us on the boat told us that a pregnant sea horse holds around 700 babies. Can you imagine sending all those suckers to college!?
Aaaaannywhoo, we are now in Recife, still with Ayal and happy he is here, slowly making our way towards Salvador to catch our flight to Lima, Peru. We travelled for about 20 hours just to get here and we are staying in a shitty hostel, so now we are gonna go to the beach.

Iĺl keep you posted!!
I LOVE you!!

Miss Me?

We are in the fabulous national natural reserve of Jericoacoara. I need to write about this fantastic place, but its too wonderful to waste time by the computer!

Im sorry!
I love you!

Morro de Sao Paulo

We left Itacare early Sunday morning (around 5:30) and took two buses and a ferry boat that finally brought us to Morro de Sao Paulo. It was raining pretty hard core when we landed, but J and I are more hardcore than any rain! So we hiked with our bags through the crazy to the Black and White hostel. We chose Black and White because all of the israelis stay there :-) We got a chance to see a good portion of the island, though through the rain, but it was beautiful. The streets are made of sand and there are no cars. Stuff is really expensive here though because it is pretty much all tourists. Because of the rain we hung in our room a lot, which we shared with two other israelis. J actually got shocked by the shower....which was funnier than you'd expect. One day we ate shakshukah, another result of the strong israeli influence on this island. We met this israeli guy named Ayal and he decided to join us on our trip to Jericoacoara because he has been here for two weeks already just chillin in a hammock. So we are headed out in like an hour....gotta go eat!!

love from your backpacker abroad!

How I Love Thee, Itacare

Today is a holiday in Brazil, similar to Valentines Day, hence my appreciation for my love of Itacare. Yesterday we had our last day of surf lessons. I was a bit rocky at first, but then i conquered. J really got the hang of surfiny yesterday. Last night we ate dinner and took a nap. We picked up our certificates from the surf shop, saying we are officially AWESOME beginner surfers. Then we went to go see a friend Rut (like root) performing his reggae show at a local bar. He was great, and reggae in Portuguese is awesome. Today we woke up a little bit late because we didnt have a surf lesson. We walked all the way to the beach called Prainha. It is supposed to be a 45 minute walk, but we accidentally took the long way because someone gave us the wrong directions and we hiked for two hours! The hike was gorgeous though. We walked through and over waterfalls. We saw all kinds of animals, including the bluest butterfly i have ever seen. Finally we got to the beach...drop dead gorgeous. On our way back as we were finally leaving the jungle (we took the 45 minute short way back) these boys pointed and said the portuguese word for spider, and to our surprise there was an enormous tarantula! And i thought the massive snails at the hostel were crazy! We made french toast for dinner and now my tummy is happy. Rut invited us to see his show at Jungle Bar tonight, and I believe we will. But who knows!

Surf Day 2

So today was day two of surf lessons. We carried our boards all the way to the fourth beach (ribera or something). We first practiced how to stand on the board in the sand, and then we took a stab at it in the water. I stood up on my first try and rocked it! Surfing was not as hard as i expected, but just as fun. It is so exhilirating to work so hard at something yet feel so free. By the end of the day I was starting to turn a little and actually control my board. Maybe tomorrow they will upgrade me to a smaller board! I wish :-) After the boarding (and a lot of tough falls) we went to see a little water fall with our instructors. What fun! We then went home and showered really quick, and headed out to get a baguette at this place that had hebrew written on it in the window. I have been speaking to Adi in hebrew since I met her and she said I am really not that bad....though I often have to ask her what certain words mean and then I forget them a minute later. But, when we got to dinner the place was packed with screaming israelis and i really felt kind of awkward. It would have been nice and felt comfortable like home, but instead I was kind of embarassed that my people were acting like such animals. But, Adi was also embarassed and we carried on speaking in hebrew, which gave me that homey feelin i was looking for. Our surf instructors invited us out to a party tonight at a place called Favela so we will go to that pretty soon. We cant stay out too late though because we planned a trip for tomorrow and we have to have strength for our final surf lesson!

thinking of you all....and buying you gifts! haha

At the Hostel

There are a bunch of monkeys in the trees because we are in the tropical rain forest. SO beautiful and SO cool!

Local Surf Shop

Today we had our first surf lesson with the hottie Filipe from the Local Surf Shop. For 150 reais he will give us three days of two hour private lessons. On our first day we learned to mount the board, to sit up, several ways to turn around, and how to catch waves. Tomorrow we will stand up haha. As we were drying off from our surf lesson the guys from the Jamaican Hut invited us in for some delicious juice. They told us about a concert later in the week. I will let ya know!

salvador, ilheus and itacare

WAHOOO!! We are finally here! We landed in Salvador, Brazil and grabbed a bite to eat, then headed straight to our hostel named Alpha in Barra (pronounced ba-ha). The hostel was gross and smelled like piss so I was pretty glad to get out of there early the next morning. We chilled on the beach for a bit, then J got a Subway (they have them in Salvador!). We then hitched a bus for about 40 minutes to the bus station. On the bus we got to see pretty much all of Salvador. They have this really cool lake with statues of women dancing on it. Also, their port is absolutely gorgeous. They have a market that goes on next to the port that is just so cool. We caught a bus to Ilheus and got there just in time to catch the bus to Itacare that came six minutes later. Itacare is SO cool! It is this tiny little beach town surrounded by chill beaches. The hostels all have hammocks hanging, and you can see little monkeys from out of your window because we are in the caribbean-like rain forest. The town is filled with people traveling (many israelis!) and surfers. Unfortunately we are here for the rainy season, but we will still get up every day to learn how to surf! Tonight J and I made dinner with an Israeli girl named Adi and a German girl named Anika that are both staying at our hostel. We heard from Adi that we should try to get out of Brazil earlier than planned so we can spend more time in Peru because supposedly Peru is just absolutely awesome. The saddest news of all is that I scratched my cornea at some point in my travels, and now I cant really open my eye in direct sunlight. Hopefully that will go away soon though, because the woman of our hostel brought me to a pharmacy and helped me get drops. Here is hopin!

I am having a GREAT time!!
I hope you all are too!

And sev, I called on your birthday but nobody picked up. I hope it was a great one!!

I LOVE YOU!!