Belem has a lot of nice parks where streetvendors sell their goods.
At the port is a huge market where you can eat and get drunk like the locals so passionatly do. There is also an old fortress which is their prime turist attraction. The buildings in the old part of town, and more or less also in the new part, are in a very bad shape.
I hung around with Declan and Sam most of the time. They are the youngest people I travelled with so far. They worked in separate jungle villages in Guyana for their whole gap year as English and math teachers. So they always had good stories to tell.
Declan turned 19 while staying in Belem. So we baked a surprisingly good cake in a cooking pan - the oven didn't work. With candles and everything.
The next day we went to see a zoo, which was amazingly quite in the middle of this noisy city. Afterwards we checked out the botanic garden, which also had crocodiles and other exotic animals.
At the last day we decided to go on our own to the "Parque Ambient de Belem" which is in the north of the peninsula. Since we only had a basic map of the city which was drawn in a perspective, we didn't really know how far the distances will be.
So we ended up walking for a long time. People started to tell us that it wouldn't be secure to walk around there. A 15 year old girl had the half hour time and patience to walk us to the entrance of the park. The guy at the entrance didn't really care. So we walked along a wide road without cars for another hour until we came to a turist information center. Police and military welcomed us and told us not to go any further because the park is not safe. So we chilled at the lake and played cards. Than an other guy from the military arrived and told us, that also the road we took to get there was unsafe. He suggested that we should wear military clothes so the thives wouldn't attack us. The british boys liked the idea more than I did. After a while a private citizen came who claimed to be the boss of the military - hmmm. But he had a car and the weather had changed to rain. So we drove of with him. He even showed us some nice spots of Belem, such as the university. Then he drove us home to the hostel and afterwards me to the terminial. I think this guy is just a genuinly a nice guy.
At the port is a huge market where you can eat and get drunk like the locals so passionatly do. There is also an old fortress which is their prime turist attraction. The buildings in the old part of town, and more or less also in the new part, are in a very bad shape.I hung around with Declan and Sam most of the time. They are the youngest people I travelled with so far. They worked in separate jungle villages in Guyana for their whole gap year as English and math teachers. So they always had good stories to tell.
Declan turned 19 while staying in Belem. So we baked a surprisingly good cake in a cooking pan - the oven didn't work. With candles and everything.
The next day we went to see a zoo, which was amazingly quite in the middle of this noisy city. Afterwards we checked out the botanic garden, which also had crocodiles and other exotic animals.
At the last day we decided to go on our own to the "Parque Ambient de Belem" which is in the north of the peninsula. Since we only had a basic map of the city which was drawn in a perspective, we didn't really know how far the distances will be.
So we ended up walking for a long time. People started to tell us that it wouldn't be secure to walk around there. A 15 year old girl had the half hour time and patience to walk us to the entrance of the park. The guy at the entrance didn't really care. So we walked along a wide road without cars for another hour until we came to a turist information center. Police and military welcomed us and told us not to go any further because the park is not safe. So we chilled at the lake and played cards. Than an other guy from the military arrived and told us, that also the road we took to get there was unsafe. He suggested that we should wear military clothes so the thives wouldn't attack us. The british boys liked the idea more than I did. After a while a private citizen came who claimed to be the boss of the military - hmmm. But he had a car and the weather had changed to rain. So we drove of with him. He even showed us some nice spots of Belem, such as the university. Then he drove us home to the hostel and afterwards me to the terminial. I think this guy is just a genuinly a nice guy.
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