Beaches: Fortaleza, Ceará

I've delayed in writing about Fortaleza because it's hard to construct a narrative or theme. Of perhaps all the cities I've visited this trip, Fortaleza has the least personality. This is not to say that it`s the worst town I've visited. São Luís had plenty of personality, but I'm not itching to go back there anytime soon. Personality often costs money. And it's certainly a nicer town to stay in than were others.

Fortaleza has beautiful beaches. Famous beaches. Long beaches. As I once noted, having observed tourist t-shirts around Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza is where Cariocas go when they really want to go to the beach. (They also go to Natal, Maceió, and surrounding beaches.)

It's also a town founded by the Dutch, but the founders didn't stay long and there aren't many traces of them. The region is famous for exporting humorists to the rest of Brazil, but my ability to "get" Brazilian humor is still limited.

In any case, I came to Fortaleza to run the 10km race listed below. I finished in a time five minutes slower than my time at the Strawberry Stampede in Arroyo Grande in 2007. I blame the weather, aging, lack of training, the weather again, and my diet. But no matter. I still have three weeks until another 10km run in Porto Alegre.

(Come to think of it, Porto Alegre doesn't have a terribly pronounced personality, besides the perception that "wow, this feels almost Argentine." And I like Porto Alegre.)

So every other morning or afternoon, I headed out to run along Meireles and Iracema beaches, pictured below. The first photos are of Meireles, which has a marked waterfront strand approximately 3km long, from a shipwreck at one end to a fish market at the other. In between, the curving beach and the high-rise apartments and hotels recall Copacabana in Rio.

(Can anyone name beaches more famous than Ipanema and Copacabana, identifiable worldwide just by one name (and two famous songs, interpreted by Barry Manilow and Frank Sinatra)? I can only think of Waikiki as a candidate beach that is equally as famous.)





The other photos are of Praia da Iracema, which I knew from Caetano Veloso's "Tropicalia", which I've probably linked before because it's one of my favorite songs. "Viva Iracema ma ma ... Viva Ipanema ma ma ma..."

Iracema has seen better times. According to multiple locals, it was once the hot nightclub location in the city, with bars and restaurants galore. Then an increase in prostitution drove the nightlife elsewhere, and the area is still recovering. When I ran by, the federal government was working on projects to redo the pier (The English Pier) and rebuild the rock seawall.





The middle photo notes that the federal government owns the beach because it's a piece of national heritage, and... I dunno... it says something else too. Hard to read.

The last photo is some bum in front of the statue of Iracema, an Indian princess after whom the beach and several other spots in the Northeast are named.

Aside from running on the beach and the waterfront, I had tremendous luck in scheduling interviews (twelve letters sent to Fortaleza, and eleven interviews). It was the most successful city of the road trip, in terms of work. And Fortaleza has the same convenient bus system integrated by terminals that São Luís had, which made getting to interviews a snap. (I was lucky to leave São Luís a week before the bus drivers went on strike.) Salvador could use the same system.

Oh, and I finally got to eat sapoti fruit. I first tasted it in the Sunday market in Gloria back in Rio in December. It was rather pricey there, but the lady called it "sapoti baiana" and I was sure I would find it in the northeast.

I did, and I bought the lot of three pictured below for less than two reais. I put them in the fridge to eat the next day.

I consumed them all in less than five minutes. Imagine the sweetest pear you've ever tasted, a pear that tastes almost like straight sugar. Oh my goodness. I had a stomachache for a day afterward, and never bought another. But, oh, my goodness.



Oh, and one hint from Fortaleza: when looking for a bar/restaurant with live music, it's important to make sure that the place has wi-fi.



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At the end of the road trip, I came back to Salvador for a week, to indulge in access to a washing machine, reliable internet, a stove for making pasta, visits with the Vieiras, and all the amenities of apartment living. The week was not terribly eventful, though I did enjoy passing the time with the Vieiras. Got to go swimming and see the fish at Porto da Barra again.

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And now I'm back on the road. I just arrived in Brasília, the loathed and loved capital.

Brief story:
I arrived and pulled the usual routine of going upstairs to the departures floor to catch a cab. This technique works to guarantee a cheaper cab at most large Brazilian airports, as you're hiring someone from a post in the city and not from the airport post. Being not of the airport post, that cabbie usually has to go back without a fare. Thus fares are much more negotiable.

Lesson #1: taxis in Brasília only stop at the lower level. No matter.

So I get in a cab with a grumpy mineiro driver, and he drives me to where I think my pousada is. He tells me along the way that the city government is cracking down on unlicensed pousadas. (This is complete bullshit, as regular business hotels in this city are terribly expensive.) He asks me if I've talked to someone there. I mumble something, and we continue. (I made an email reservation.) We arrive at the pousada, and it's abandoned. The driver gets slightly more grumpy upon discovering that I didn't talk to anyone.

We go to the next pousada, where he's dropped a fare off recently. When we arrive, we note that the sign on the door says that the pousada has been closed for non-compliance with the city law. Damn.

We stand there talking for about five minutes about possible hotels in the business hotel area of the city. (In Niemeyer and co.'s design for the capital, there's a specific section set aside for hotels.)

Suddenly, thankfully, the door to the pousada slides open and two guys emerge. They confirm that the pousada is operating, and we arrange a room for the night.

So here I am, typing away. I have a fan-cooled room, which is okay because the city is cool and the air is so remarkably dry.

I panicked for a good hour in looking online for a new hotel, before noting that I perhaps got the address of the first pousada wrong. I wrote down the address, walked down the street, and pressed a buzzer.

An elderly lady came around the side, asked if I was Adam, and mentioned that, although my reservation was good, the pousada had moved since Lonely Planet writer visited.

And yes, despite the availability of a room and a nice innkeeper, there was a sign on the door reading "Closed by the Governo do Distrito Federal." So it goes.

Postscript: As I noted to many people, the combination of grid-like streets, a mix of high-rises and low-rises, palm trees, and a beachfront made Fortaleza remind me of south Florida. It was perhaps the most American-looking city to date. By coincidence, perhaps, Fortaleza is a sister city to Miami Beach.

Post-Postscript: One of the reasons I stopped in Fortaleza was to see a friend, and had a great time at lunch with him, twice. So shout-out to Alceu, and thanks to his family and him for the hospitality.

Buffalo in the Amazon Basin: Ilha de Marajó, Pará

Leaving Salvador, mono, lethargy, and Easter behind, I arrived in Belém late Monday night. My plan to connect through São Paulo and thereby pick up a Vivo SIM Card with the Sáo Paulo area code (11) failed. TAM Airlines's computer system crashed nationwide, which made all planes late and shortened my connection time. And Guarulhos terminals are still, well, Guarulhos terminals. They have a pub, a magazine shop, a duty-free shop, and that's about it. (Guarulhos, for the uninitiated, is the busiest airport in the country, located in an adjacent suburb of São Paulo. The city has another domestic-only airport - the second-busiest in the country - in the south end of the megacity.)

So I arrived in Belém at 2 AM on Tuesday, and paid through the nose (R$90) for an okay hotel with a wireless connection only in the lobby and a generous breakfast spread.

I'm as far north as I'll be for the entire trip. Belém sits at about 1 degree of latitude south of the equator.

It was a low-quality first week, in terms of work. Due to the Easter holiday, my letter requests for interviews hadn't arrived and so peole didn~t expect me to call. I ended up sending multiple follow-up emails, which set back the days in which I could make requests. My late arrival didn't help.

Despite the work troubles, I've been quite taken with Belém. It's my kinda town. There are trees along the sidewalk for shade, a grid-like layout (though not as straight and orderly as Campo Grande), public plazas and parks, and enough compactness to put most sites - both touristy and work-related - in walking distance. Were Belém in the US, it would receive a high walkability score.

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I decided to use my first weekend in town to, er, leave town. Belém sits on the southern part of the Amazon River delta. The delta (drainage basin) is immense. It's difficult to overstate just how much fresh water is coming out of the rainforest.

Anyway, in the middle of the Basin is the Ilha (Island) of Marajó, the largest littoral island in the world, and a landmass approximately the size of Switzerland. The island's main attractions are water buffalo, their meat and cheese, and isolated beaches. (Belém, a city with a working port, has no beaches and some not insubstantial water pollution.)

So I arrived at the River Terminal early at 6 AM on Saturday to catch the 6:30 AM ferry to Camará. I had three objectives for the weekend: see buffalo, eat buffalo, and go swimming.

The ferry ride took three hours and was pretty boring. You can see the sights below. I left my computer and all books back in luggage storage in Belém, and thus had nothing to entertain me. Well, that's not entirely accurate. My phone has Sudoku puzzles as its only free game. I don't really see the attraction of Sudoku. I play it when I'm waiting in line for things like vaccinations and grocery check-out. It's a pretty formulaic, repetitive game.


Early morning crew in Belém


The Belém skyline behind us.


The view of the riverbank, once we left Belém, looked pretty similar.


At certain points, there were no islands to pass and nothing but fresh river water to the horizon.


Our ferry boat line, going the other way. The blue tarps keep out the intense sun.

Two days before I left, I had an interview with a former Secretary of Transport, who proposed that one could get rich (and should get rich) building a hovercraft/hydrofoil factory in Brazil. Most rivers are large, but not all of them are navigable. The river depth varies, preventing the movement of large (cargo) ships. My interviewee has been part of a group that's trying to dredge the rivers and thus create a northern outlet for the crops of the Center-West (read: soy, wheat, and cotton from Mato Grosso). If they could manage to move cargo ships from the interior through Belém - and the rivers do extend that far - they could drastically cut costs. Belém is far closer to US, European, and Asian markets than are the ports of São Paulo and Paraná.

He didn't really know much about the environmental impacts of such a project. He probably thought they were exaggerated.

In any case, we arrived in Camará on the island about 10 AM, and were herded loudly onto buses going to various destinations. I was headed to Salvaterra, the middle city (only three cities are open to independent tourists; most of the island's interior is preserve or swamp) with stingray-free beaches and a few hotel options.

It's unfair to say that Salvaterra is a one-horse town. There were multiple horses. And multiple buffalo. And multiple really hideous black birds.




One of the horses. And note the ongoing football game behind him.




After arrival, I took a walk to find Praia Grande, the beach of some note and the place, according to Lonely Planet, where one could eat lunch cheaply. (The buffet at my hotel looked rather unappetizing, sitting there for a while in the heat.) I did find the beach, and found some buffalo cooling themselves in the confluence of a small creek and the (fresh water) bay (pictured above).

For lunch, I ordered buffalo carne asada. It came with rice, beans, farofa, buttered spaghetti, and mayonnaise-based potato salad. My hypothesis is that fresh fruit and vegetables (besides mangoes) are costly to import from the mainland, thus the dearth of them. My later visit to the town supermarket, which lacked a produce section, supported this hypothesis. Lunch was, unfortunately, pretty bad. The buffalo was close to carne de sol, and so was pretty salty. The rice, beans, and farofa were standard, but I didn't take a second bite of the spaghetti or the potato salad.

However, it was reasonably priced for a touristy place. It's also not the first time I've ordered a dish meant for two while eating alone.

On the walk back to the hotel, I passed the same buffalo grazing just off the beachfront road. I hoped they would stay there while I went to retrieve my camera.

Of course they did not. I had to wander down the long beach to take pictures from afar. I won't say that they're disappointing, because they can't choose their appearance or species. I will say that they look (and pretty much taste) like cattle.


The aforementioned ugly birds.







I did get a chance to go swimming in the fresh water. The river washes down, as you can imagine, tons of debris from the rainforest. Not all of it rots or is consumed before it reaches the ocean. As a result, a swimmer moving through the water will encounter seeds, leaves, twigs, and even large branches floating on the surface. I have a splinter in my right index finger from my attempt to throw a rough piece of wood out of my way.

The water is also choppy in the afternoon, when the wind picks up. It was much more tranquil when I went swimming the next morning.

I ordered a veggie pizza (with very thinly-sliced vegetables) for dinner and had a vegetarian prato feito (beans, rice, vinagrette, and farofa) for lunch the next day. The hotel breakfast was fruit-less, which is a first for me in Brazil.


An attempt at still life.




"The years you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when there was a water buffalo."

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In the end, however, despite the bad food and the fact that there was nothing much to do, I accomplished all my goals. I most likely won't go back to the island, except perhaps as part of a pampered package tour or if I happen to be stationed in Belém for an extended period of time and want to swim.

I can, however, say that I went swimming in the delta/basin/mouth of the Amazon, which is something.

No, there were no piranhas.

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I`m back in Belém for another week, and my luck in getting interviewees has (slightly) turned. I might have a chance to see more tourist sites here in Belém, and I've found a cheaper hotel.

Next Monday, I have an overnight bus trip to São Luís, the capital of the neighboring (corrupt, underdeveloped) state of Maranhão. I've already had two email responses from Maranhão to my letters, which portends good things.

So it goes. Or, as the Portuguese version of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five translates that phrase, "Coisas da vida" or "E assim por diante."

Oferta e demanda (supply and demand)

Short story:

I went running today, with the aim of reaching Praia Vermelha at the foot of Sugarloaf in the Urca neighborhood. That's about eight or nine miles round-trip.

In addition to my filled water bottle, I carried a one real coin and a 50 cents coin. I hoped that I could stop to get some chilled coconut water, as I had previously returned to the apartment very thirsty after a run to Urca.

At nine this morning, the weather was 24 degrees with 94% humidity. The forecast called for a 20% chance of rain. The news on Friday night had predicted a gloomy weekend, and stated that anyone who wanted to go to the beach should head for the North or Northeast. By the time I reached the end of Botafogo, it was 33 degrees and cloudless. It was hot, and the beaches were full. Weather forecasts here are useless.

Today was also Independence Day, the day that Dom Pedro I refused to return to Lisbon and declared Brazil independent, "from the banks of the Ipiranga...." Save the crowds at the beach and the military cadets marching, the city was closed.

I did reach Praia Vermelha, which looks like this from above.

On the return from Botafogo, south of Flamengo, I stopped to ask for coco water in um copozinho (a little cup). The vendor apologized that the only bottles he had were bem gelado (well-chilled), and I assured him that this was just fine by giving him the American "a-okay" hand gesture. In Brazil, this hand gesture translates to "you a--hole." My mistake.

Then he named the price: 2,50. I declined.

As I walked down Praia do Flamengo, very dehydrated, I kept seeing "Coco 2,00" signs. I questioned my memory that there are multiple R$1,50 stands in Flamengo. I don't think I was wrong; I was just wrong to ignore the laws of supply and demand.