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Travessa Quintino Bocaiuva, 1645, Nazare, Belem, State of Para, 66035-190, Brazil
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Fishing harbour
Some locals row out to meet the boat
Inside restaurant
Portuguese buildings in the first Belém street
Tacacá is a kind of soup and is well loved and widely consumed. It is made with jambú (a native variety of paracress), and tucupi (a broth made with wild cassava), as well as dry shrimps and small yellow peppers. It must be served extremely hot in a gourd.
You find a lot of places for buying Tacacá, like República Square or Nazaré Av.
Delicious!
The name guarana comes from its intense use for centuries by the Guaraini Indians. Guarana is plant native of the Amazon. It has round fruits with an intense red colour in bunches. After being dried by the sun, its skin opens, exposing the round white and black seeds that resemble the human eye. When dry, they are toasted by the fire and grinded like cocoa.
It contains caffeine and because it obtains stimulating substances, it is consumed by millions of people as natural energy drink. Its powder is consumed mixed with fresh water and Guarana soft drink you can get all around the country.
Guarana da Amazonia is made by mixing different substances together. You can get it only on the northern part of Brazil. In Belem there are many street vendors offering this miraculous blend. The recipe can vary but the main ingredients are: guarana powder, guarana syrup, grinded peanuts and cashew nuts and water. To get even tastier and nutritious drink, different local fruits can be added, as acai, cupuacu, bananas, avocado... In one word: heavenly!!!
The entrance fee was reasonable (About a dollar) and the large trees provide shade for a relaxed walk in a garden-like setting in the middle of the city. Even on the Sunday I visited, it was not overcrowded. The animal presentations are a bit old fashioned and the signs in Portuguese, but overall I found this an unexpectedly pleasant off the street experience.
I took a full-day tour with this company, having booked it online before leaving California.
We left the hotel at 4:30 and reached Parrot Island about an hour later. I had a large boat, pictured right, all to myself (except for my guide, the pilot, and a crewman).
As the sky lightened, a bird identified as a 'tripot' began squawking. The noise grew and slowly woke up the parrots. Tens of thousands of them, screeching their little hearts out, darkened the sky as they left the island in search of breakfast. They would not return till dusk -- then only to perch, sleep, and wake up the next day.
And, no doubt, when the season was right, to make little parrots. An interesting feature of the birds' swarm was that -- as I could see through binoculars -- nearly all of the birds were flying in pairs.
After breakfast a New Zealand couple came aboard; we cruised around the bay, stopped at a landing and walked through the jungle for an hour or so, went on a motorboat at breathtaking speeds through narrow streams, had lunch, did some more cruising, and returned to Belem a little before 4:00 in the afternoon.
The price: R$310 (US$105). It would have been R$400 if I'd been alone all day and R$220 if the couple had booked both parts of the tour.
The only restaurant now open in the Hilton is just off the lobby. Named the Acai, for the berry that serves so many culinary purposes, it offers both a la carte service and a generous buffet.
One of Acai's best features is its hours: it's open for breakfast from 4:00 in the morning, and is still serving dinner (or supper) 20 hours later. The buffet typically features two or three kinds of meat, two or three of fish, a couple of pastas, several vegetables, many salad makings, and half-a-dozen or more desserts.
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