Date of Entry: July 9th 2016
Date of Writing: September 9th 2016, My Apartment, Sao Paulo.
I arrive to my Hostel in Fortaleza Dragao do Mar around 6:30 am after a quick and easy ten hour night bus from Natal. (74 Reals) and find a warm welcome from the lovely Brazilian couple who run the hostel. I agree to pay half the price of a night (20 reals or 7 CAD) in order to check in right then and enjoy breakfast and a comfortable bed in a room with A/C. I’m happy to have arrived and breakfast is delicious but after the night bus I find I’m missing Renata even more than usual, which is unfortunate.
Still after a rest and some time texting with her I decide to head out to explore a bit of the city, having been too tired for anything more than a day of wandering. I head out from the hostel in the mid afternoon and find it just absurdly hot, though the strong wind does help alleviate some of the sweating. I wander through the modern urban centre before eventually finding my way down to a series of windswept beaches backed by modern skyscrapers, the incredible blue of the atlantic in Brazil glistening under the dazzling sun.
Wandering along the ocean side of the actual beaches is somewhat difficult as the strong winds have whipped up a minor sandstorm but I do it anyway for a short while shielding my eyes and my camera lens carefully before abandoning the beach and heading out onto a long pier stretching out into the open atlantic.
The pier and the beach on the other side of the pier are both bustling with life. I’m called out to by a group of exuberant bikini clad brazilian teenagers and give a happy wave before moving on and pausing briefly to re apply sunscreen as the sun in the north east is beyond dangerous.
Out on the pier I find people from all walks of life, homeless children picking fruit from a tree, local fisherman casting off from the edge of the pier and the rocky wave breaks that surround it and other tourists like me posing for selfies. I can hardly blame them, the 360 degree view is incredibly impressive, though I find my favourite direction for photos is looking back towards the shore and the urban sprawl in such a paradise is still strange for me to see. When I come back here in October with Renata and her amazing family we’ll be staying in one of those ocean front apartments, something that outside of a short journey to the rich side of Cartagena Colombia I’ve only seen on Tv before. Cool no?
Eventually I head back in off the pier after singing out to the ocean for a while and take a different route back to my hostel, snapping some photos of some of the cooler buildings of Fortaleza, my hunger keeping me from making it the cathedral and market area unfortunately. Still the garlic prawns and barbecue ribs make a tasty if odd combination for my late lunch. I still can’t get over how Brazilians here cook shrimp, every dish save Moceca the the crustaceans cooked and serve with the heads and shell attached making the tasty experience a difficult one too.
Later that night after chatting with lots of the friendly hostel guests including two Brazilian women who are teachers and speak some rough french and a german guy who swears he knows my dopple ganger, I head out for my first Brazilian meat Rodizio (basically an all you can eat buffet where waiters bring you endless meat opens fresh off the grill skewered on swords) The food is awesome but no one mentions that desert is not included despite being with the other food and the meal ends on a sour note as I pay 70 reals instead of the 40 I’d been expecting. Oh well. Live and learn.
I return to the awesome Dragao do Mar where you should absolutely stay if you are ever in Fortaleza and enjoy some cheap coconut water straight out of the coconut and book a three beach tour for the next morning with the friendly owner. I’m just hanging out when my germans friend gets a picture of my dopple ganger and even I have to admit it’s scary close, especially since he has ancestors in Canada. Creepy,I hope one day I get to meet him.
