Fortaleza 11/5 to 11/7

The trip to Fortaleza by bus went smoothly. The geography was much different than the Recife to Natal trip. Where the first trip was agricultural and green, between Natal and Fortaleza, the terrain is all desert. If I didn't know I was in Brazil, I would have thought I would have been traveling through southern Nevada and Arizona; it was almost identical.

Around 7:30pm we arrived in Fortaleza. What a pleasant suprise. Frankly, Natal was a bit to tourist and "hustling" for me. After Natal I wasn't really looking forward to "just another beach town in Brazil". But Fortaleza quickly dispelled any concerns; it was very clean, very modern and quite upscale. Fortaleza is also a tourist city, but taylors to more high end clientele from southern Brazil, other South American cities and Europe. Beaches are clean, streets are clean, modern infrastructure, professional people etc. Also, for the last few nights in Brazil I wanted to stay in a nice hotel. We asked the taxi driver for a recommendation and he was more interested in taking us to places he obviously had "connections" to. After a brief moment of "discussion" he took us to the main water front where he asked another taxi drive to recommend a place. Mind you most of these were 5 start hotels and I began to wonder if I was asking for the right thing. As luck was with us (as it was on most of the trip), the "local guys" sent us to one of the 5 star hotel where "locals" stay. The hotel was on the waterfront, impeccable views, near all the activities, I couldn't have been happier, and better yet it was only about $95 dollars US. Since my objective was to purely relax in Fortaleza, we did not do a lot. We walked a lot around the city the next day. Visited a local shopping bazar, saw a big church --like what you see in europe. Then we had to do something to satisfy my "real estate curiosity". A new apartment highrise had an open house. We toured the penthouse suite and some of the lower floor apartments. The penthouse was selling for $1.4million Reais = $750k usd. While it wasn't a kind of place I'd be interested in, the views were absolutely stunning.

The next day we decided we'd leave for Recife that night. Since it was going to be a 12 hr bus ride, we spent the day relaxing on the beach waiting for the bus time. I took this photo of one of the fisherman. These guys are on their little boats from sun up to sun down fishing; what a hard life. After a quiet afternoon we headed to the Rodaviaria and took a "red eye" sleeper bus back to Recife. Oh My Gosh, was the bus PLUSH!! each of the seats made into sleeper beds. The bus was manufactured by Mercedes and it's obvious it was engineered specifically for comfort and sleeping. There was hardly any sound (lots of sound proofing and deadening), the suspension was tuned to be soft and non-jarring even on the roughest roads. The only complaint was the had the AC on and it was freezing. Thank goodness they handed out blankets!!

I slept well and we arrived back in Recife at 8:00 the next morning