At 9am we met Juan who was to be our tour guide for our trop around the city. We spent about three hours walking around, admiring the buildings and learning about the history of São Luís. Basically, the French arrived and spent four years trying to build a fort, then the Portuguese came along and took over. The Dutch moved in for about three yeras but then the Portuguese took over once more.

There are some beautiful colonial buildings but the most impressive sight is the two and three storey buildings with azulejos - coloured tiles - covoering the façades. They all came over from Portugal and were used as ballast on the ships. The original ones were blue and white but as they were influenced by other countries they began to use other colours. The Brazilian influenced ones use more yellow and green, and the ones influenced by England have roses in the.

We visited one home that is in desperate need of restoration but has many original features like the floors and the tiled walls. It also has the original senzala which is the basement where the slaves lived. We went inside and I was shocked by the conditions. The roof was very low so I could only just stand up and there was a small porthole in the wall which was used for ventilation and food. In one corner was the original hook where the slaves were chained. The area was quite small so it was incredible to hear that at least thirty slaves would have had to live there. It is hard to imagine how the "noble" family could have lived in their luxurious casa grande, with all that suffering in their basement.

Our tour ended in the surprisingly good museum of a "nozinho" who I understood to be a landowner from the state. The museum was filled with ceramics, baskets, Indian headdresses, recycled toys and figures representing the characters in the Bumba meu Boi festival which is really important in this region. The story goes that Catrina was pregnant and craved the tongue of the most beautiful bull to eat so sent her husband off to get it. Her husband did this but the owner of the bull was very upset and wanted his bullback. So, they called on all the Gods - Christian, pagan, Orishas - and managed to bring the bull back to life.

After our look around the museum we bade farewell to Juan, had a look around the shops, then I had a tasty lunch which was a sample of many dishes from Maranhão. It was delicious - washed down with a final Guaraná Jesus. Sadly it was then time to go back to our hotel, gather our belongings and return to Rio.