Jeri is a place like no other, it's hard to describe as well. Up until 10-15 years ago this was almost exclusively a hippie community.
The access is difficult as it requires driving through dunes for over an hour (that's on top of a 3 hour trip from Fortaleza), there are no roads instead you follow some dirt tracks through the dunes. They do have electricity, most of the time, and 20 years ago they didn't even use money, they used to trade instead. No TV, phones, newspapers etc
Nowadays things have changed, you can actually buy a newspaper and they have some pretty decent hotels where you can spend some luxurious time and in case you were wondering, they do use money nowadays, yes and they love the colour of yours!
The village is located on the north-eastern coast of Brazil, in the state of Ceara, 300kms West of Fortaleza. It is almost exactly on the equator.
The town has gained fame as being one of the most beautiful and lengthy beaches in the world, surrounded by sand dunes and freshwater lagoons.
The village is in such a place that allows visitors to admire views facing the east and west side of the ocean, making it possible for you to see both the sun rising and sun setting into the sea. This special geographic position is also what makes Jeri one of the windiest places in the world, hence very popular with wind-surfers and kite-surfers.
After the 4 day trip through the long Brazilian beaches we stopped in Fortaleza to spend the night and wait for the new addition to the group. Javier which would be joining us at Fortaleza and continue the trip with us all the way back to Europe.
For the trip to Jericoacoara (from now on Jeri) we hired a driver to take us there since there is no public transport and we were advised against renting a car on our own. He drove us to the airport, where we picked up Javier and without delay we drove off to Jeri. It was a very long trip and in one of the stops we did along the dunes, Javier's passport and money must have fallen out of the car and he didn't realise until we were at the hotel so one of the first things we did the following morning in Jeri was to go to the police station.
I must add that when I say "police station" I am using that term in a very loose way... since the station was closed and the "Jeri" police was at the local coffee shop so we went there talked to the guy and he took us to a neighbour who had a printer, logged on to some website and printed out the report.
Later in the afternoon, when we got back to our hotel the receptionist told us the police was asking for us and gave us an address where to go... so we went there and he told us that one of the villagers had found Javier's passport and money but that the villager in question wanted a reward and he even made a suggestion of what the reward should be... How dodgy is that!!! the police acting as an agent for a blackmailer!
At this point, getting the passport and the money back was good news indeed so after a little negotiation we managed to reduce the "reward" money a little and after payment the villager handed over the documents so not a bad ending.
As you can see from the pictures below the weather was very changeable and we had a couple of strong storms although we also managed to enjoy the sun. :-)
As you can see from the above picture, it's quite a small village and the streets have no pavement whatsoever, it's all sand.
Our hotel wasn't the most luxurious in the area but it wasn't bad at all, in fact we were quite please with the place
And we didn't have any complaints about the food either :-)
It's really a nice and quite place
It is a very windy area so the sky was changing all the time
The highlights of the day in Jeri are the sunrise and sunset, specially the sunset... there is a small party every night after the sunset but that's another story for another day... :-)
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