Screaming Across Northern Brazil

Having toured the dunes at Parque Nacional Dos Lencois, it was time to head east. It would have been nice to see Fortaleza, but sand wrecked that plan. It came down to failing to span the 43 miles from Barreirinhas (where I had taken a tour of the dunes) to the next town along the coast, Tutóia. I rode to the eastern edge of Barreirinhas, turned the corner to find the paved road had turned into deep sand. Far too deep to ride with a large motorcycle, with lots of luggage and less than huge knobby tires. Only at 4 wheel drive vehicle could pass that stretch of road. Taking a hard look at my GPS maps, it was apparent that any road that would keep me near the coast while traveling east would require a four wheel drive vehicle or a completely different motorcycle. All the roads that would provide a “short” detour to Tutóia were secondary roads at best, more likely dirt tracks and at worst sandy routes to hell. Forget traveling on a coastal route, I now would have to back track in a long curving detour…

Leaving Barreirinhas in the late afternoon I had to head west for three and a half hours before slowly turning south, then east. In total I would clocking 550 miles over the next ten hours, riding into the early morning hours before stopping east of Teresina. In the late evening a country fair appeared on the side of the road. Most of the festivities were over, the band had packed up and many of the booths were closed. The rodeo continued, featuring a cow roping contests.

Brazilian Rodeo

The next morning I checked out of the hotel somewhere near noon. To my surprise, the landscape started to changed. Lush forest turned arid fields and as the miles rolled under my tires the green countryside became desert.

I was transported to west Texas, complete with mesa plateaus, cactus and dry scrubby bushes.

The Amazon jungle was now far, far away… Passing a truck loaded down with bananas.