Loading Dave's Bike in the Truck
Just Go Dave... Just Go
Bye Dave! Good Luck Fixing Your Bike!
Nian and I hit the road towards Acaraju.We road maybe an hour and the road turned in to cobblestone and then... a river. I guess we had to take a couple ferries that i didnt know about. As the ferry arrived Nian and I dug though all we had and scrounged up R$ 3.50. We had spent/given dave all the money we had and now we didnt have enough to cross the river. I somehow managed to get us on the boat and the lady on the boat was cool enough to let us get off. We raced the 45kms across this island (with a minor pit to pump up my flattening front tire) to catch the ferry on the other side back to the mainland before dark. We made it there with seconds to spare and the lady let us cross for our 3.50 but wasnt happy about it. We rode up the coast to Acaraju where we got money and kicked it for a bit. After some deep convincing I talked Nian into keeping on the track towards Natal. Well somehow I took a wrong turn and which put us into some really ghetto small beach town. It was actually kinda creepy and we didnt have dave there to scare everyone off by riding around shirtless with the chain around his neck. As we looked for the road out of town my tire blew completely. I asked like 30 people and finally found someone that changed/fixed tires in his garage. We were there for a good two hours shooting the breeze and changing tires... As we were leaving, the mother of the whole group piped up and said that we should check out the beach Lagoa Redonda. I guess it had been on t and stuff? So Nian and I once again rolled out and were quickly side tracked when i saw the Lagoa Redonda sign about 30 miles outta town. We took the road to it which quickly became dirt and then lead us aimlessly like 50 kms to nowhere. at the very end of the road there was a small river and a small lunch shack with was strangely open at midnight. The lady said that if we crossed the river we would be able to ride straight down to the beach and there we would find a campsite easily. She assured us that the river bottom was hard but Nian still make me go first to find out.
Plunging into and unknown dark river
After we both make it through safe and sound we road sand dunes though some palm groves (which almost blew up our bikes as the dont do so well in the sand). The end of the dunes put us right on the beach. I took off to the north along the water looking for some palms close to the water where we could hand up our hammocks. Well needless to say after like 45 mins of going as fast as we could on hard packed sand and running over crabs (which Nian Loved) we were both almost completely out of gas. We had gone almost 30 kms up the beach, were running on fumes, and were pretty lost so we found our Closest Palm trees, hung our hammocks up, and had another Terrific nights rest in Gods great outdoors.
Our Beach Camp.. Miles from everywhere
This Deadly swarm of bees was in the Palm Tree Directly over my head When I woke up in the Morning... Awesome haha
We woke up aound 4:45 a.m. (cause thats when it starts getting light here) and HIT the road QUICK! When i got out of my hammock this morning i saw a with post buried right next to my bike that said Tamar Project site number 336. or something like that. Turns out we had been joyriding and camping all night in a Giant sea turtle nature preserve!! We both felt it was best to get a move on so we found a trail which lead to a soccer field and then to another endless dirt road. By this time we're super close to bone dry outta gas! After what seemed like forever we puttered into another super small, really ghetto, river/beach fishing town. I asked around for like 20 mins for a gas station but everyone's directions were bad because we could not find this place! Finally, we had a kid walk us over there. It was some dude selling gas out of his living room! He had a bunch of 2 liter bottles filled up and stacked in his house
This Guy's gasing up Nians Bike
After getting gas we asked around to get ourselves out of town and everyone said that we had to get another ferry across the river to get to Maceo. We seriously drove circles forever until we found the port. these people speak a portugese that I have a hard time understanding or something. Anyway, at the port I found out that the ferry only comes and goes a couple times a day unless you want to special request for it which is kind of expensive. I'll let the pictures explain what happened next
BIKES IN CANOES!
Instead of paying like 30 bucks for a chartered ferry we gave these fellas $4 to risk their lives and our bikes!
This Was easily one of my top 5 most intense boat rides of my life! we may have only gone 30 mins with a 3 horsepower outboard motor, but my super heavy butt and super heavy bike had this little canoe pushed to the limits! every little wave we hit i thought we were going to the bottom! Way Nuts!
Nian, Calm as a summers day
Would anyone care for some baby shark head?
Now Nian's going to harmonize you with his words..... JIM
Well after our awesome journey across the river our day only got more exciting. So jim says to me; “nian lets cruise the beach again.” And I wasn´t too pumped because I wanted to find some food and plus I knew the crabs wouldn´t be out for us to run over again so it wouldn´t be as much fun. But due to jims convincing moves I was pressured into doing it. So we start flying down this beautiful beach as fast as we can go (Jim broke 100 kph haha) when all the sudden jim finds a huge dead sea turtle.
We checked it out and it was still kinda fresh with bugs eatin it and stuff. Jim was really disappointed that he couldn´t keep the shell and become one of the newest members of the ninja turtles. But his frown soon turned upside down when he found a huge awesome turtle skull right next to the shell.
Soon after he found another smaller turtle skull and that’s when i decided the name of our biker crew. THE TURTLE SKULLS!!!
All we needed was one more skull for dave. We´d be the tuffest guys around with turtle skulls tied to the front of our handle bars.
Needless to say the big skull fell off my bag somewhere along the way so now we´re down to one skull. I think jim is going to make a neckless out of it. But for now just call us the turtle skulls.
After beach cruising and turtle hunting jim and I hit the road hard to Macieo. Jim Hated Macieo Cause his bike fell over right when we got there, and after more convincing he talked me into continuing another 250kms to Recife. Arriving in recife jim came up with another genius idea to stay at the holiest hostel in town.
The temple! Yep, the church has hotel thing built right behind the temple for members to stay at when they are in town going to sessions. one of the cleanest places yet and super cheap. Costed us like 5 bucks each. The only bummer was they kicked us out today since the temple is closed for Sunday. But it was nice to wake up and look at the beautiful temple right out side the window. Jim was really lucky and got to do a session.
Well I guess we're going to spend the night here in Recife, Get in a good church sesh, (turns out the guy that works at our new hostel served a mission in Sao Paulo so hes helping us find church) and hit the road for Joao Pessoa or Natal tomorrow. WE were going to stay here and wait for dave as staying at the temple is super awesome and cheap. Needless to say, now were in this hostel where we talked em into letting us sleep on the ground for $10. Not the greatest but it will do. We really want to get some surfing in but cant because There are these huge signs everywhere along the beach!
Or.. Maybe we'll stay and surf with the sharks? who knows? Tonight we decided it was time to splurge again so we went out to the most amazing Tucanos type churrasco restaurant for cheap and ate until we were sick! Filet Mignon anyone?haha
Miss you Dave... COME BACK SOON!
