2013 start update! [by Anna]

It's been reeeeally long now since we posted anything! Obviously, it is not because nothing has been happening. It is because there has been happening a lot :-)

First of all, in 2012 we have finally finished all the paper work! It included picking up our permanent residence permit in Moscow and changing the type of company, which downgraded our taxation scheme and now we will pay less taxes! All this was of course a very long and painful process with delays and time and money wasted - both in Russia and in Brazil. At least that these two countries have in common - their love for bureaucracy!

Also in October we went through a construction process - we built a new, seventh room. The decision to do so was a bit spontaneous and was taken one Friday night in front of Na Casa Della restaurant and immediately cheered for with beer cans we had in our hands at the moment.

The construction process was smooth, delayed only by one month exactly as we had expected (100% of the time predicted by the foreman) and 50% more expensive than predicted by the foreman, also exactly as we had planned, so no surprises there. It was not SO smart of us to have the construction in the middle of high season, but since we had started, it was important to have it ready by the New Year's eve, and it was. So we are now well on the way in making the investment pay off.

We closed 2012 with satisfactory result and 68% average occupancy rate and also found that we re-invested over 80% of the profit. Since June 2012 we are Number One B&B in Jericoacoara and we've been working hard to maintain this position. In 2013 we plan to ripe the results of this reinvestment and work less and relax more! No big plans expect changing two last old ACs to new models and doing some general maintenance during the low season. Although of course you never know what kind of new inspiration we may get all of a sudden!

I have also decided that my 50% of the business are now up for grabs at the initial price of €200.000 and any takers are welcome to contact me for more info!

Here are some photos on the Room 7 development:

the beginning

the washing area that has been moved into the house

one week into the construction

three weeks into the construction

the result (we paved the outside area with big flat stones now)

the inside (we still want to paint two of the walls pink)

the draft of the shells

the result

check more details about our pousada at www.atlantis-jericoacoara.com

end of winter/summer updates [by Anna]

we are good way into the high season now and since we more or less finalized some upgrades to our territory, everything is business as usual now. check-ins, check-out and everything that comes in between. since the standard amount of employees in hotel business is one for each five rooms, and we have actually six rooms, everything in betweens also includes now helping serve the breakfast and cleaning up afterwards, loading the washing machine and hanging the bedlinen afterward etc. and since we fired the night-guard, it also now includes watering every day cleaning the territory in front.

we have been in Jeri for almost a year now. i am finally considering taking a kite-surfing class. since people from all over the world come here to surf, i thought it was silly i didn't. our surfer friends from last season have started coming back and the village is busy.

both Marina and i have finally bought our tickets to Moscow, which we will visit in October. it's been a while since we left Jeri and i'm really looking forward to seeing family and friends, and inhaling some cool air.

meanwhile, here are a couple of things we did - we finally took care of the territory outside the fence. we put yuccas all along the east side, replaced the missing palms and moved the ones that were not in the line. now there is only one big one left, but it has to wait until rainy season. for those who is wondering - fences and nets around the small palms are meant to protect them from donkeys and cows that eat them.

then we got rid of the messy plants in front of the entrance:

before

after

and finally, we solved the problem with the neighbour pousada's windows going out to our territory. technically, it is not allowed, and since according to the local legislation all the constructions should be at least 1,5 meter away from the fence, we thought the owner would be willing to collaborate and close the windows.

before

he refused to do it though, motivating it with the fact that he cannot have rooms without windows. well, we thought we couldn't have someone else's windows going out straight to the passage in front of one of the rooms, so we had to think creatively. so basically this is how it looks now. the neighbour still have the windows in the rooms, although the view is questionable, and we have spared our guests the necessity to remember that there are other people close to them!

after

check more details about our pousada at www.atlantis-jericoacoara.com

before and after - continued - back and front yard [by Marina]

As mentioned before by Anna, we got sucked into a never ending list of little improvements all around our pousada. Hopefully, we are going to finish all works by next week. 

This post is dedicated to the back and front yard.

The backyard, or the passage behind our kitchen leading to the storage room and room nr.6 has always been looking kind of untidy, so we tried to do our best without involving ourselves into major construction changes. Just some make-up - cleaning&painting...

Backyard - before, with the ugly roof for the gas bottle, dirty walls and electric cable in the middle

Backyard - after, with the new cabinet for the gas bottle, painted walls, new grass, plants in pots and decorated cable

Yes, in an old house like ours we've got to be creative sometimes when trying to make things look nicer. After some pondering we decided not to mess with the fragile walls of the old fisherman house because of the electric cable that takes electricity out to the front yard and left it at the same place, however, gave it a new look. Within just a couple of hours it was covered with the decorative rustic rope and then we hanged the polished shells from an old necklace on it. This necklace by the way I bought a few years ago in Moscow at Izmailovskiy Market for RUB25 and used it maybe once ever since.

The decorated electric cable with the shells from an old necklace

Backyard - before. Different angle.

Backyard - after. Different angle.

  The top of the parasol in the front was renewed a few months ago, now the table was polished, the chairs repaired and painted red, and the Bougainville tree cut and pushed to grow on top of the hotel sign, the old moldy bench removed and stone walls washed.

Pousada Atlantis entrance - before. The way it looked when we first saw it.

Pousada Atlantis entrance - 7 months after.

  Actually, when you live here and see things every day, you don't notice all the changes. So, we got very impressed ourselves when compared the actual situation with the old pictures :-)
check more details about our pousada at www.atlantis-jericoacoara.com

before and after continued - room no. 6 [by Anna]

as we say in Russia, renovation cannot be completed, it can only be terminated. Marina and I found ourselves trapped in this rule - we just cannot stop trying to make the things look prettier. the past couple of days we were working on room number 6. this is by far my favourite room! it is the smallest, but it is the only room situated on the right side of the main house, therefore nobody passes by and it is very private.

before from last year

before painting

it all started by us wanting to treat the bricks of the fence to stop them from getting dirty by the water, but as this solution turned out to be quite expensive, we decide to use it rather in room 6, that has three brick walls that constantly lose the loose cement particles and make the room feel dirty. then we decided also to paint the fourth wall as it was only painted once and not too nicely. then we fixed the bath-room door (it wasn't possible to close it), removed the ugly and rusty door-handle and lock, polished and painted and put the hand-made door-handle. we also painted the door frames, as suddenly with the new paint-work, they started looking really untidy. then I also polished the surfaces of the furniture.

a while ago Marina fixed the electric socket. the top of it was missing, we couldn't buy a new cover as this model is not produced anymore, and it was not possible to change the socket itself, as the way the wiring was made, it would require rewiring of the whole room. so we had to think outside the box!

before from last year

after from now

also, before it was possible to walk to the washing area from this room. we have closed the passage and removed the stones of the path, put plants there and instead enlarged the area in front of the room. now we only need to get a small table and some chairs. hook for a hammock was added yesterday :-)

after from now

before and after (mostly after) photo report [by Anna]

it's been a while since we posted anything, so maybe it is time to do some updates!

so we are half way through the rainy season now. people say, it is the driest rainy season in years. indeed, we are a bit disappointed with the amount and frequency of rain. believe it or not, the sun and the heat do start getting tiresome at some point! every day we hope for some rain and every day it's sunny and hot. so far it rained maybe every 3rd-5th day and the longest it rained was 15 minutes at a time. it seams though that for the nature it is quite a lot of ready, and everything is green. the serrote hills are green and the desert around the village turned green. it makes me nostalgic as I think of summer in Europe. the landscape is even more beautiful than before now!

as for the occupancy, we closed March and April with 44% and 62% respectively, which is higher than we had projected originally, but still not quite enough to make up good numbers. oh well, luckily the low season does not last that long here! now in May most of the places close and it is the lowest of the low. however we seem to be ok for now. today Marina picked up four Russian tourists from jardineira, so we are happy! the last week of May we will close to go for one week field-trip to Lennçois Maranhenses.

meanwhile, our team has expanded with yet another female member - it is Zhuzha. her mother is a Doberman and the father is supposedly pit-bull. well, we doubt the latter, although it seems as her character is the one of a pitt-bull. Zhuzha is a very active puppy and it is pretty much impossible to take a picture of her sitting still. however, it appears that she learns fast, as I already managed to teach her to sit. and she is not even 2 months old yet!

since we are not super busy these days, we've been using this opportunity to do some maintenance. amongst other things it includes polishing up the look of the hotel - adding the numbers to the rooms (after some clients managed to mixed up the rooms and walk in on the neighbours in the middle of the night), painting more things red, making a new storage for the gas container and taking care of the garden.

the old solution for the gas container

the project

the result

Marina and I have rather different ideas about the garden (to put in mildly) and since Marina's ideas are much more dramatic and involve a lot of cutting down and taking out, she always makes sure to invite the gardener the day I am away. I am not completely agreeing with that approach, but I'm sure I will get even with her on another occasion :-) meanwhile I have been spreading some grass and cutting some plants to make them look more neat. also we finally found out that our papaya tree is a she, since it started having baby-papayas!

new grass

before cutting

after cutting

as a bonus - a shot with some sort of strange seaweed that invaded the beach a couple of days ago.

the strange seagrass

Daily life - new hammocks and fridge [by Anna]

i don't really know how often it rains here during the rainy season, but past couple of days have been hot, sunny and windy just as during the other months. i am almost looking forward to the rain starting again. it will be nice with some freshness again!

today is a big day - the fridge that we ordered one month ago has finally made it's way to our hotel! it's our second positive experience with shopping online at Walmart, that delivers to the door and before the dead-line. it was really about the time we changed the fridge - the pictures of our old one speak for themselves.

unpacking the new fridge!

old freezer with permanently frozen bottle of Smirnoff in it

the old Consul

Marina also bought five new hammocks in Camocim today. neither of us really like the frills on the sides, so Marina used a couple of hours to cut them off.

Marina cutting of the frills

as a bonus comes another picture of a sunset. Marina thinks it's kitsch, but i like it!

Moon-walking - photo-report [by Anna]

Marina has been a bit stressed today as our occupancy rates can still be better and we still have to do a lot of maintenance around. I’ve been trying to keep the spirits up. Then in the evening our Slovak friend Daniel, whom we like to call Martin (he just looks more like Martin!) passed by. He’s the manager of the kite-surfing school that we work with and Martin (Daniel) came to bring us the commission for the people we referred to his school. Two of them were the Swiss guys we captured from the jardineira and two other were a Swedish couple that I also met at jardineria, and although they stayed with our neighbours, we helped them arrange a course as at their hotel no one spoke too much English and they found it cumbersome to arrange it with them. That has lifted up our mood and Martin was happy to get some borsch that Marina had made earlier today.

Meanwhile it’s full Moon these days and everyone talks about some special cosmic energy now. For some reason it is quite common to talk about the cosmic energy here, I even heard someone say that some American scientists did some measurements and confirmed that it is so. In the meantime I’m just trying to enjoy the beauty of this period!



Moon rising over Preá



On Saturday we went to the kite-surfing base in Preá. Originally we were supposed to go horse-riding, but due to some problems of communication we were late for that so we only took part in the dinner. Preá is only 15 km of the coast from Jeri and the kite-surfing base is about 1 km away from the “center”. Basically, it’s in the middle of nowhere, there is just nothing but the beach around. The base is really big, with a restaurant, hammocks, showers, chill-out area etc., everything is very well done - like quality design and quality products around, so uncommon for this area… It felt like we were so far away from Jericoacoara, nice short getaway! The dinner was very good too, but needless to say, it was expensive. Well, someone has to pay for all that beauty, right? Still, in terms of Norwegian prices I guess it was not too bad, but I was quite shocked to have to pay BRL8 (3,3EUR/25NOK/138RUB) for freshly-made mango-pineapple juice. But then again, watching the Moon rise above the Atlantis was absolutely priceless! 

Moon light over Malhada



Last night my friend Lily and I went to the Malhada beach to take some pictures. The Moon was high and it was really bright. The light was amazing, it felt like we were on another planet, there was just such a surreal feel about it all! The ambience made me think of one of my favourite movies – The Wristcutters. We stayed a while and wondered off. Neither of us really knew the area and we randomly stumbled into this bar where four people were playing some kind of laid-back jazzy bossanova. There was no one else there but us and a lady who looked a lot like Susana Vieira who turned out to be a friend of one of the musicians. The musicians were all local except for one American girl. That girl had come to our hotel some days prior and she seemed to be totally lost, almost looney-kind-of-lost, as being lost in our village of five streets is not very common. She had had some water and went off looking for the main street again. That girl, the music, the lights, the place – the whole ambiance made me think of the Wristcutters again.  



the Wristcutter style bossanova place

My friend Lily is leaving for the US on Wednesday so today we finally made our long awaited hike to the Pedra Furada (the Pierced Rock). We made sure in advance that the tide was low, so that we would be able to go by the beach and wouldn’t have to climb the hills around in this heat. There were a lot of curious rock formations on the way and the whole journey took us almost two hours I guess. The best part of it was the pools of water in the rocks left by the high tide, and thanks to Silvana we discovered a really deep one tucked in a rock by the water. The difference in the water levels was quite astonishing, it was quite deep and the water was refreshing, so we hung out there like in a nature-made Jacuzzi for quite a while. We would have stayed longer, but we noticed that the water really started coming up, so we had to hurry back before it was too late, and to be on the safe side we walked the hills the rest of the way. The climbing was not very pleasant, but the route took less time and I made it home just in time for my muay thai training.

Silvana by the Chuck Norris style wet-bar

dead (?) coral (?)

pool of water left after the high tide

fishes in the pool

funny looking animal (it was moving!) about a size of a fist

Lily in the "Jacuzzi"