Stu

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5 Nov 2009

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We spent a couple of weeks with Emma in Belize; staying in the Belizean jungle; snorkeling with stingrays, sharks and manatees; and swimming through caves to reach sacred Mayan sites.

Click on the photos if you want to see details such as title and description. To see larger slide shows and those from previous pages click on the numbers - earliest - 1-2-3-4-5 - latest.

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We arrived in the amazonian city of Manaus yesterday. Tomorrow we head out on a jungle tour for four days. Hopefully we will spot some river dolphins, monkeys and caimans (caimen?)...we were told not to expect jaguars but of course that just raises my expectations...and likely disappointment :-) All going well apart from the seering heat, rock hard bed and dodgey and/or drunk touts.

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If this page has been updated then it probably means that Antje and I are waiting for a bus. In a couple of hours we will be sitting on the bus to Belem, our second last major city to visit in Brazil. So far the travelling has been wonderful. The mosquitoes have not appeared in squadrons, nobody has mugged us, our 4.5kg bag of medicines has barely been opened, we are slowly browning in the sun and we are still in love, despite my numerous bad hair days :-)

Thanks to everybody who sent their birthday wishes to me...the years are ticking by, but at the moment every day is so packed whilst travelling that the grains in the hourglass are hardly falling, and perhaps even flying upwards like the shifting sands of the dunes. hmmmm... enough with ungainly metaphors. My left ear has been partially blocked after repeated dunking from an aggressive kite. For the last 10 days Brazillian Portuguese sounds like Spanish and English sounds like German, if I hear it at all. Luckily Antje is pretty much fluent in Portuguese after only a month in the country - I can ask for bus timetables but have no idea what they say to me. Sao Luis - Brazil

A city that had it's heyday centuries ago, St Luis has a decrepit old centre that was almost totally empty on the weekend we arrived. It's Monday now and the town is bustling again. The old buildings are covered with azulejos (tiles), and the modern traffic lights are also spruced up with not-so-convincing plastic look-a-likes...

Parque Nacional dos Lencois Maranhenses

Wonderful white sand dunes and clear blue and green lakes.

Parnaiba & Barreirinhas

Brazil has the hugest avocados I have ever encountered; the specimen Antje is holding nourished us for a number of days. The ubiquitous vultures, not being fond of avocados, preferred to snack on dead sea turtles washed up on the beach.

Camocim - Brazil

The trip in the 4WD taxi took us across beaches, over sand dunes, through mangrove swamps and onto river barges. We only got bogged once, after a river crossing to get to Camocim - luckily we broke down in practically the only place where helpers were at hand.

Jericoacoara - Brazil

We stayed in 'Jeri' for over a week, relaxing on the sand dunes, cooling off in the pool, kite-surfing on the lagoons, hiking along the beach and amusing ourselves with our nuts. I celebrated my 38th birthday here with cakes, candy, candles and coconuts. Antje treated me (and fifty other spectators) to a touching surprise, writing in the sand in front of the sunset dune. As a special birthday gift, Antje also warned me before I almost stepped on a snake that had just caught a lizard. Fantastic! We befriended Pekka and Ville, a couple of jujitsu-crazed fins who drank their caipirinhas without sugar and challenged the locals to bouts of sand wrestling.

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Honeymoons are not the preferred time to update webpages and maintain an online presence....unless you are at waiting at a bus station for nine hours for a connecting bus, it is 35C outside and the internet cafe has air-conditioning. Antje and I are in Feira de Santana on our way north to Fortaleza - a 20hr bus trip.

Our trip started in Paris where we spent three romantic days, we then put the honeymoon on hold and visited St Aignan where my family was holidaying after the wedding. Antje“s parents also paid a surprise visit.

We then flew to Brazil to continue the honeymoon :-) Lenēóis & Chapada Diamantina