Blogs from Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, South America

Morro Branco is a tiny beach town 80km east along the coast from Fortaleza; however, our journey there was beginning 250 km WEST of Fortaleza, and the road for the first hour was hardly worthy of the title. We bounced along from Jericoacoara on a huge 4x4 truck, passing through small villages on our way to meet a proper bus to take us as far as Fortaleza. Bizarrely, this bus took us to the city's airport so we had to take a taxi to the bus station, before getting on another bus to Beberibe, a small town near Morro Branco. Another taxi helped us complete the journey, arriving at 4pm on May 10th. We quickly arranged a place to stay (which wasn't hard - this being low season we were swamped with pousada owners offering their ... read more

Natal doesn't get much of a mention in the guidebooks but it's a pretty good place. Yesterday (Sunday) the place was lively, the beach was full of Brazilians, the restaurants busy, it was a nice place to be, probably nicer than the places the guidebooks do mention which are often full of the same people we've seen in other places. Today we've had a great fun day in a beach buggy on the beaches and in the dunes around Natal. The driver was excellent speeding up and down the faces of the dunes, spinning the back end around, pointing out interesting things and playing some excellent music on the cd. Atsuko and I were both like children at the fairground - whooping, hollering and yee hahing like a couple of American golf spectators :-))))) There were ... read more

Die warmherzige Gastfreundschaft meiner "2. Familie" hier in Recife hat mich wieder aufgebaut, gestaerkt und erholt und neue Reiselust in mir geweckt. Ein gluecklicher Zufall hat mir dann noch einen Reisekumpel beschert, der nach verzweifelten Kommunikationsversuchen in meinem gebrochenen "Portugnol" hier in den ersten Tagen Licht in die finstere Nacht brachte: Er ist Deutscher!! Es tut gut, nach so lager Zeit wieder mal in seiner eigenen Sprache zu sprechen. Der Zufall brachte uns mit den gleichen Ideen im Flieger zusammen, und so machten wir uns von Recife per Bus auf in den Norden, um zu surfen und die etwas weniger erschlossenen Straende und Fischerdoerfer zu erkunden. Der Nordosten ist besonders fuer Fisch- und Prawn-Liebhaber ein Paradies auf Erden. Beides liefert dort den Hauptertrag und ist so frisch wie nirgendwo sonst. Erster Halt war Joao Pessoa, ein ... read more

So wednesday Jules and I got up and were driven around the sand dunes in a buggy. I know it´s not very environmental but it was heaps fun!! He drove really fast up, down and around corners. I tried to make some movies but they are really shaky and you can´t really see how steep it is because it´s all just sand against sand.. We stoped on the way and these kids were holding some lizards and monkey (to show tourists in the hope of some money) man the monkey was so small, he di´n´t stay still for a moment running up and down peoples arms. Jules wouldn´t go near the lizard but I held it. It was so green. We also stoped at the top of a dune. Jules got really thirsty and drank a ... read more

On Monday we went snorkling at Maracajau. I was a bit disappointed at first because it was a cloudy morning.. but it soon cleared up!! We cought a jet boat kind of thing to the middle of the bay out to the raft that was waiting for us. we all listened to the safety talk which I didn´t really understand, then we got our snorkle set and jumped into the blue water. The corral was brown and the snorkle let water in but it was still a really good day.. we got to test our camera out under water which was fun, but you can´t see the screan very well so we didn´t know if we even got photos of what we wanted. The fish move fast too. there was this really blue fish that I ... read more