Category: travel

Downtown MaracajauOriginally uploaded by mgharris

This is Main Street, Maracajau, where the town’s three beachside restaurants and small stores, as well as a rowdy-sounding English language school can be found. The entire town seems to exist from servicing the few busloads of tourists from Natal who roll up for a spot of diving/snorkeling on the nearby coral reef.

We stayed several nights in this tiny beachside haven, watching scorchio alternate with rainstorm. I fell asleep under a palm tree and now have the outline of three palm fronds burned onto my tummy…

Now we’re leaving, going somewhere even quieter…!

Who knows whether there will be BlackBerry access. Prepare for blog silence. Meanwhile, wishing you a fun weekend, wherever you may be!

Xxx
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Dengue, Flood and RainOriginally uploaded by mgharris

I woke this morning to hear what sounded like a political message being sent out over a loudspeaker in a passing van. Listening closely I realised that the announcer was warning residents of Maracajau that there’d been an outbreak of dengue fever and that there was beginning a program to eradicate the larvae.

Suddenly the mosquito bites we were all covered with took on a new significance. There have been 20 recent cases of dengue just in Maracajau, which is pretty much a one-street town…

It’s the rain and floods that have made it worse. Today is the second fully rainy day we’ve had. But it has rained every day, as well as the blazing sunshine.

I don’t much fancy getting dengue. It’s supposed to be like full-on influenza but worse. After two weeks you think you might die and after three you don’t care if you do.

(But you usually don’t.)

We are now covered with the strongest insect repellent the pharmacist would sell us.

I like the tropics in the rain. This is going to be a great place to set a Josh novel. Great fun for me to write, I mean. Let’s hope that translates to the reader!

This entry brought to you via a very lazy author sitting in a hammock, watching rain falling into the pool.
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Fishermen in Maracajau, BrazilOriginally uploaded by mgharris

Or depending on your perspective, bunch of mass murderers pulling innocent sea creatures out of their home…

One of our six-year olds was upset by the sight, whilst the other crouched to watch the men sort the fishies and pack them into ice.

She was hoping to pick one up for ‘making a potion’.

A student of the dark arts in the making? Or just a biochemist like her Ma?

This was blogged in situ as I wait for the diving boat to take us out to the reef…
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