Jericoacoara...A Little Piece of Paradise

Sometimes the sixth time is the charm...

I've been wanting to go to Jericoacoara since the first time I came to Fortaleza.  It's a little resort town/fishing village 300 kilometers away from Fortaleza.  It's famous for its beautiful beaches, scenery, warm sandy-beached lakes, rock formations, and tranquility.  

I finally persuaded my mom to go with me.  It took a lot of work.  She wasn't too excited about the five hour bus/truck-jeep ride to Jericoacoara.  But I asked everyone I knew here in Fortaleza whether or not it was worth going and everyone (except for one slightly paranoid guy) said to definitely go.  The paranoid guy said not to go because we'd certainly be jumped, robbed, and killed.  Boy was he wrong.  Jericoacoara was the quietest little peaceful place you could imagine.  I'd feel comfortable sleeping outside in a hammock with a sign saying "steal my ipod and kill me," pinned to my shirt.  Really, I would.  

Unfortunately my dad couldn't join us.  The first year of my parents' mission Jericoacoara was within their mission boundaries, but after their mission split in July of 2009, Jericoacoara became part of the Brazil Teresina Mission.  Mission presidents don't leave their missions (other than for training meetings) but luckily they're a little more flexible with mission moms.  

So, off we went.  We took a nice bus for four hours from Fortaleza to Jijoca, where the paved road ends, and then a truck-jeep thing (as seen below) for an hour until we arrived in Jericoacoara.  

This is the view of Jericoacoara from the beach when the tides were really low. The beach doesn't drop off very fast at all.  You can walk out super far and still touch the bottom.  So, it's a really nice place for swimming, not to mention the 81 degree water year round.  Fantastic!  

My mom, with the little town of Jericoacoara in the distance.  

There are sand dunes and palm trees everywhere you look...

and cool rock formations...

as well as hotties, like Fabio here.

For 90 dollars you can hire your own little dune buggy and driver for the day.  We were lucky enough to get "Tattoo" as our driver.  He was super cool and did a really great job of driving sideways on the dunes and making me think we were going to flip over.  It was fun!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we took a couple of our friends from Fortaleza with us to Jericoacoara, Kimberly and Caroline Cabral.  It's more fun traveling with a bigger group and plus we decided it might be nice to have a couple of locals with us in case our paranoid friend was right about the jumping, robbing, and killing that was sure to befall us in Jericoacoara.  Not that Kimberly and Caroline could have really stopped the jumping, robbing, and killing, but at least they could have yelled at our attackers in proper Portuguese.  

Approximately 96.4% of all modes of transport in Jericoacoara are dune buggies.  Motorcycles get 3.5 % of the people around, and the other 0.1% of vehicles in Jericoacoara are cars.  All of the roads are sand, so dune buggies make the most sense.  And they're more fun and probably less expensive than cars.  

A typical road in Jericoacoara

My cute mom in a dorky hat at the beach.  Don't worry, she knows the hat is dorky.  In fact, she abandoned it at our hotel.  

As part of the dune buggy tour they take you to three lakes near Jericoacoara. We went to Blue Lake, Paradise Lake, and Heart Lake.  When I first heard that we'd be going swimming in lakes I wasn't too excited.  For a girl from Idaho, lake swimming means freezing cold muddy water, leeches (and you all know how much I despise leeches of any kind), moss, snakes, and possibly dead floating bodies.  

But, Blue Lake and Paradise Lake were fantastic and gave me a new view of lake swimming.  The water was warm and clear, there were no leeches, not a bit of moss, no serpents, and, if there were any dead floating bodies you'd see them before they bumped into you because the water is so crystal clear.  The bottom of the lake is just sand, with no yucky plants, moss, or rocks to get in your way.  I loved it!  

Here's my mom chilling in one of the hammocks they set up in the lake.  

And may I just pause here to say how much I love hammocks and how we need to give them a more prominent position in American culture.  Hammocks can be a bed, a chair, and a swing...all in one.  What other piece of furniture has so much to offer?  They're inexpensive, mobile, and comfortable.  


And, as if hammocks aren't wonderful enough already, Brazilians put hammocks into lakes, which makes them even more enjoyable.  


Oh, and it was a little overcast so my pictures don't show how amazingly clear and blue the water was in Jericoacoara, but it was, I promise.  




Here are a couple of people kite surfing in one of the lakes.  The beaches in Ceará (the state that both Fortaleza and Jericoacoara are in) are world famous for kite surfing.  If I'd have realized that you could kite surf in a lake and not just the ocean, and that the lakes were so clear and warm, I would have tried kite surfing.  But, I guess that will have to wait until next time.  It looks so fun though and is definitely on my bucket list now.  

Just a gorgeous view from the buggy ride.  

On the buggy ride we got to a place where you have to drive through a little river.  There was a truck stuck in the riverbed and so a bunch of the buggy drivers stopped to help.  While we were sitting there watching them try to pull the truck out, all of a sudden out of nowhere, a little kid wearing a red cape, ran towards the scene of the accident.  It looked like Superman was flying in to save the day.  Minutes later the truck was unstuck.  I think it had very much to do with Superman's presence.  As we drove off I waved to the kid and said, "Chau Superman," and we all had a good laugh.  I don't know what a kid was doing out in The Middle of Nowhere, Brazil wearing a red cape and blue tank-top, but he couldn't have shown up with more perfect timing.  

Jericoacoara is just a fantastic little tranquil town.  It's the kind of place where you stop by while riding your horse to watch your friends play soccer...

whether or not you're fully dressed.  

It's the type of place where you can dine in elegance while wearing your swimming suit and flip-flops with your skin still greasy from tanning oil and sunscreen.  

It's the type of place where you could spend days and days just sitting at the pool...

This is one of the pools at our hotel.

breathing in the scent of tropical flowers and sipping water from a coconut, and nobody would think less of you for it.    

We had a great time in Jericoacoara.  I think my mom would say it was definitely worth the five hour ride each way.  

I think that the five hour bus/truck-jeep ride is the reason why Jericoacoara is such a wonderful little place to visit.  Because there isn't an airport there.  And, unless you are Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and/or Oprah, and can afford the 50 minute helicopter ride from Fortaleza, you have no other option other than that five hour drive.  

And, since there aren't too many disgustingly rich people in the world, and most people don't want to take a five hour bus/truck-jeep combo ride to paradise, but would rather fly directly there, I think Jericoacoara is safe from over-development and ruin (and Señor Frog’s) for a little longer.