I started taking malaria tablets today. I don't like it hrrrrrr.... I am flying to Santarem (deep in the jungle, I mean in the Amazon Basin :)) next Wednesday and from there I will travel on a boat on the Amazon river to Manaus. Apprently it is not safe to travel on a boat, some of them did sink in the past (with the passengers on the board) but I am taking the risk for the sake of the experience. I met two people who did this trip from Belem to Manaus, five days on the boat, they told me that it was extremely boring and the mosquitos and heat are really bad but that I should do it. So I decided to cut this trip short and do only Santarem - Manaus (three days on the boat).
On the map you can see my route, so far on the coast only: Rio de Janeiro - Porto Seguro (between Rio and Salvador) - Salvador - Recife - Natal - Fortaleza - Santarem (before Manaus, on the river) - Manaus. I will finish my Brazilian adventure in Manaus, in two weeks time.
Yesterday I went dancing forro' to a very nice place called Mercado dos Pinhoes. It is a food market during the week but on Sunday they play forro' for older people. At the beginning I was asked for a dance by two 70-year old men.... then younger people started arriving, thanks god ! :) Although I have to say that older and very old people here are very fit, it is not the same what in Europe, and definitely not the same what in Poland, where most of the people get ready to die when they are 60...
Later on I met Heber in the market and then I went to a kind of dance studio where I was dancing a lot with some very good dancers and dance teachers. It works differently here than in London, back home we do just one dance all the night e.g. lambada or salsa. Here they do different dances a night so everyone knows how to dance salsa, bolero, bachata, samba de gafieira, zouk, forro' etc.