Rio Cairucu

ratCATcher
Andre and Alison Stroebel
Sat 16 Apr 2011 10:17

23:15.726S  044:37.379W

13th April 2011

Saco de Mamangua

The Village Mamangua lives at an old fashioned pace, the men go fishing and the women look after the home; the children and do crafts.

It’s a tiny village with a school, a clinic, a church and a restaurant in addition to the houses.The school building doubles as the A.M.A.M.  “Associação de Maradores e Amigos do Mananguá (The association of Inhabitants and friends of Mananguá). If one visits the village often enough you are invited to become a member.

We strolled around the village it took about 5 mins then settled down to a brunch at the restaurant. Wow, the food was outstanding! We ordered a portion of fish fillets and one of chips. The fish, we believe a Carvelho was delicious. The proprietor; a friendly lady full of smiles was delighted at our enjoyment. (See photo)

We then motored further into the valley (Manangua is a flooded valley) and anchored again, then took the duck up the river. You pass through shallow mangrove water and eventually it becomes jungle around you. There is supposed to be a trail to the waterfall at the end of the mangrove, but we didn’t find it. We are hoping the weather is conducive to leaving the boat again to go and try. The anchorage here is dreadful.

Last night we anchored off of the village of Mamangua; at about midnight I was awakened with shout from André “Alison we dragging”. Luckily I was wearing pyjama’s. J

Well we may as well have been anchored to our floating rubber duck for all the use our anchor was to us! We were “flying” backwards, driven by the wind onto the rocks and beach of the nearby home.  Quite amusing had they and we woke in the morning to find us stuck on their rocks! Captain was quite rightfully un-amused!

We had to up anchor and made our way back to Ilha da Cotia. The rest of the night was uneventful.

Back at our safe haven of Ilha de Cotia tonight!

More tomorrow…

14th April 2011

We set off at about 0900hrs as high tide was at 1100hrs and we wanted to be going up the river at high tide. Anchored we once again took the duck and set off. Wow! Quite amazing! It looks as if you have come to a dead end then the river appears from behind the bushes and twists and turns. We finally reached the point where we could go no further and set off on the path into the jungle to find the waterfall. I love walking through the jungle. It’s so lush and green and the light is amazing.

The “waterfall” was tiny but the point was the natural pool and we made full use swimming and cooling off. Then back to the duck to get off the river before the tide went out.

We then lifted the anchor and started on our way back to Parati.

Up the river: