The river winds inland for 15 miles or so through ideal and peaceful scenery.

 

Apart from near the entrance!

 

Tiny hamlets abound, each with its own pirogue landing, and there are the occasional farmsteads with cattle. But mostly it’s mangroves.

 

As one nears the town of Maragogipe there is an old fort which the Portuguese built to defend against raiders, Spanish or English probably, but maybe just pirates.

 

There is a striking difference between this and the near identical view printed in our pilot book: in that one it’s smartly painted and very trim.

 

This is not an isolated case; generally we see significant decay compared to photos taken in 2008 or so and the book tells of many a ‘restoration underway’ yet every such building we’ve been to has crumbled further.

 

But there’s lots of traffic on the river, not all of it motorised.

 

Maragogipe turned out to be a bit of a disappointment: a report from 2012 says that it’s absolutely thriving and the place for yachts to go and buy provisions, but then on the same web-site (Noonsite) reports from 2014 talk of gang wars and drug related shoot-outs and businesses closing.

 

Two years later in 2016 the crowds on market day, mid morning.

 

We then went a bit up the other branch of the river to the village of São Francisco do Iguape where there  is a ruined monastery / convent (we don’t quite know which because while it’s called ‘Convento de São Francisco do Iguape’ Balette in the pilot book calls it a monastery: it’s entirely possible that the use of ‘convent’ solely for where nuns go is an English-ism. It would be more likely  I’d have thought to have had a monastery here in the midst of rich farmland and thus absolutely in the midst of the most brutal of slave driving. Darwin describes it with disgust).

 

Monastery from Awelina

 

 

Awelina from the monastery.

 

And Awelina from the bar with the uncommunicative barman. Beer comes in 600 ml bottles and always in an insulated jacket. It’s rather a good way to serve it.

 

Around this part of the river there are a lot of floating water bottles. At first we took them for rubbish, but actually each has a gill tangle net suspended from it and drifting in the current. They are rather a hazard to navigation,

 

especially in the half light of dawn: we set off back down river at around 5:30 to make use of the tide.

 

All in all it’s rather idyllic provided you like tropical river margin. There are waterside properties are sale: this one has a beach, a fine stone landing stage, room for several moorings and a house hidden in the trees, yet as close to Salvador as Beaulieu is to Southampton.