Fortress Brazil

Just when we thought Natal was scary, along came Fortaleza! The 5th largest city in Brazil, Fortaleza, or Fortress, is the state capital of Ceará. Surely the shiftiest place we have stayed so far! Rio had its homeless zombie-likes at Carnival time, Salvador had its shootings, Recife its pedophiles and Natal its dark tense streets. Fortaleza, however, was a wake-up call to the North of Brazil. Firstly, the bus station has guide book warnings about muggings and pickpockets, then we drove through it! The taxi locked its doors and shot off – the driver smelling of drink, and almost killing some lunatics who seemed to value their lives little on the mopeds they were driving. We passed mile after mile of shitty, graffiti-covered buildings, dirty streets and open-sewers. The colonial architecture and Imperial grandeur of the cities are long gone here – replaced by desperate poverty and run-down to ugliness. It reminded me of Northampton a lot.

We eventually arrived in Praia do Futuro II, which sounds a little Michael J. Fox, but believe me, was far from Hollywood! The area felt more like Baghdad might feel, which was confirmed in the coming days when a Brazilian guest was mugged in the area, and on an outing from the back of a taxi I saw two cops holding two young guys they had pulled over at gun point waiting for back-up. What. A. Toilet. However, with the territory comes cheaper prices. It had moved out of season up here in the North of Brazil, and so the guest houses were cheaper than in the South of the country. We stayed in Pousada Veraneio, which came to R$70 a night (about $US35). This includes the usual junk we look for in a midrange place – double room, hot shower, Wi-Fi, free breakfast – but Brazil is still much more expensive than Asia, so we are resolved to try and reduce accommodation costs somehow – watch this space. Again, as with most places we have stayed at, the staff were friendly, and the hostel was secure. I have been diligently reviewing all of the places we have been staying at online, either on booking.com, or hostelworld / hostel bookers, etc..

We only planned on staying one day in Fortaleza, but the pousada was offering a day trip we were really interested in so we ended up staying an extra day. Our first day in Fortaleza was spent looking around the city, soaking up some culture. The first stop was the Ponte dos Ingles (English Bridge). I was imagining a 1920’s style walk along a bustling fashionable boulevard, but instead, we found a half-finished port that had some very strange characters hanging around. You know it is shitty in Brazil when clumps of police are hanging around, armed, protecting prospective tourists. Most of the visitors to this beach were surfers, riding some small to medium waves. We did not stay long to look at the ‘bridge’ (it’s actually a pier) – it was long-since closed due to it falling apart. I think if you walked on it, you might be joining the surfers! Some nice views though, and everything in Fortaleza is within walking distance of the pier.

Next up, O Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura, The Dragon Of The Sea’s Art and Culture Center! At first glance this place is a massive disappointment. A few modern art galleries of the typically surreal and boringly ‘provocative’ Brazilian art we have come to expect and some closed exhibitions were all we saw in the first wing of the strange building. Named after a famous slavery abolitionist from the 19th Century, the center was founded in 1999 and contains a theatre (closed), library (closed), a cinema (closed) and a planetarium (closed). After these initial frustrations, however, we crossed into the Cultural Center itself which was firmly open. We almost missed the entrada to the floors below, as there are no signs in English and none of the guards speak it either.

We were certainly glad we did not miss the ground floors, as they made the whole experience worthwhile, especially as admission is free anyway! The first exhibition was a permanent display of old Brazilian toys – commercial and homemade. We spent awhile in here talking about toys which were similar to ones we owned, and which ones were our favorites, etc. Some of the toys were amazing in their simplicity and ingenuity.

The next floor down was the real prize, though – a permanent exhibition on the Vaquero, or Brazilian cowboy – a fascinating culture of people’s neither of us had any knowledge of before. For example, some philology – the Portuguese word which means relating to money comes from the word for cattle raising. The word for trade, ganho, comes from the word for cattle, gado. This emphasizes the importance of the cattle herder in the culture, and serves to explain how everyday Brazilians came to romanticize these cowboys - similar to the way this happened in the US. In fact, as we found to be the case in Florida, cattle ranching is now one of the top sources of income for Brazil now. For a county that had literally zero cattle before 1534, that is an astounding fact. It is also sadly the number one reason why we have lost so much of the virgin rainforest in Brazil.

Cattle farming actually started on the coast, but as the cotton and sugar industries took off (alongside the slave industry), cattle men were forced into the drier lands, where life is much harder. The bush out there is full of dry, thorny an tough bushes that is difficult to negotiate through. There is little rain, and, increasingly in modern times, often even drought so no crops or food will grow. Also with the lack of good wood there, leather itself became the norm for everyday usage in the making of utensils, clothing, and even furniture.

Cattle native to Portugal were used firstly, as they were already adapted to long periods of drought. Later on, however these cattle were bred with other species, including the Jersey, Holland and even humped Indian Ox. We have seen all of these species on farmland in Brazil whilst travelling on the bus, and it is funny to see them side by side.

Along with informative pieces on saddles, cattle, communication on the trail, taming wilder cattle, fencing land, and ranches, were numerous models, dioramas, and such that made this a great visit. The exhibition was completely translated to English, and I think it was one of the best exhibits we have seen so far in Brazil. We left feeling very grateful we had seen it – especially as it is not advertised anywhere in the building, or in the limited English language tourist information available at the time! Signing the tourist book confirmed the exhibit had few visitors. Northern Brazil still does not know how to do tourism, so we do feel lucky that we got to see it before it becomes an unaffordable hotspot.

We forged on for a sit down in the obligatory church stop – the Metropolitana Cathedral, the 3rd largest church in Brazil, was designed by a Frenchman, George Mounier. It took 40 years to complete. I liked this one as it had plenty of space and felt very comfortable to sit own in. Check out the cool ceiling too!

After some shopping around for some essentials (and some non-essentials), we came across the Theatro Jose de Alencar. This building is quite nice looking but I would recommend future English-only visitors to give it a miss. You can photograph the outside and the interesting theatre/garden from the street and save yourself a few dollars. Entry is not free and the staff here are not interested in you if you do not speak Portuguese. The only way I would recommend going inside is if you go to see something on stage.

The next (and last) day in Fortaleza we had booked onto a day tour that went to Morro Branco (White Mountain). A 90km bus journey that was pretty pleasant – we were picked up at the hotel and driven with a bunch of other Brazilian tourists to Beberibe, a coastal town back Eastward. Luckily the seats that were free were right up front behind the driver and the guide spoke a little English. After talking in Portuguese into his mic he then turned to us (the only English speakers on the bus) and repeated some of what he said in English – our own personal guide!

Once at Beberibe we were then made to form into groups of 4 and each group were shuffled into a dune buggy. We cruised to the middle of town where we could browse the artsy-crafty market stalls, etc., before walking out of town across the sand dunes. The dunes here are spectacular because there are 9 different colors of sand which make them up. Formed from different minerals in the rocks, and having eroded down over millions of years of coastal water and wind erosion, these dunes are a sight to see. Bring plenty of water if you come here though, it is exceedingly hot this time of year!

Once we had wondered through the dune formations we rejoined our assigned dune buggy driver and set off on a fairly smooth but very exciting beach journey the 5km along to the Praia das Fontas (Beach Of Waterfalls).

Speeding all along the coast for kilometer after kilometer was amazing fun – light-skinned folk like me should keep sunscreen handy! After about 45 minutes we then came to an inland natural freshwater lake. The lake had silt, dirty mud which I proceeded to rub all over me thinking it was like the mud bath stuff you get; until I noticed none of the Brazilian were doing this so I washed it off quick! The Wounded Knee still precluded Francesca from getting in the water unfortunately, but I can report it was a very refreshing bath. They served food here in the form of delicious sausages and cheeses barbecued on a stick. If anyone has the name of the cheese or sausage please add it to the comments – we had to rush off back tour dune buggies before we could ask!

Back on the bus and our next stop for lunch and the rest of the afternoon was another nice little beach with some good tourist facilities. We chickened out of eating stingray for lunch here – mainly because of limited time. After food we went down to swim in the sea, but it was way too rough so we just watched person after person brave the waves and get consistently wiped out and give up after a few minutes. One guy even broke his body board in the strong large waves. Needless to say, after almost drowning in Fernando do Neronho I decided against going in…

The next (and our last) day in Fortaleza was unremarkable, except for another visit to the hospital for suture removal. Francesca was pretty scared of this, poor girl, so we took it slow, and got them removed – pretty painlessly! Still, we had to pay for this private service – all to be claimed back on insurance of course. We definitely found the standard of care to be pretty high in Brazil. Now we just need to make sure the wound stays clean and dry. In the goddamn Amazon of all places!