The usual business followed after our tropical breakfast, board the bus dead-tired, plug in my headphones, turn on the iPod to my "Music to Sleep To" playlist, pass out, and wake up a few hours later at the next beach. Today's beach was going to be really awesome because the first
half of the day was going to be spent in buggies flying around the dunes next to the ocean. We paired up again and spent a good couple hours on the dunes, taking a few small breaks to take scenic pictures and do some swimming in the ocean with the rest of the group. Our driver wasn't as confidence inspiring as the one from a few days earlier, he was more mellow ("without emotion") and didn't push his dune buggies to the brink of blowing the motor like the one a few days earlier. I can't imagine why - I mean, he probably owns it himself and it's his sole livelihood , but 
that's no excuse, is it ;o) ? In addition, the dune buggies kept stalling at certain points when we were going downhill. I was just waiting for us to be stranded in the middle of the Saharan Desert of Brazil! Everytime we stopped, he would tinker with the motor to make it run better. Good old VW motors :o) !We went deeper inland and had some pretty nice views on this trip. I felt like I was in Iraq because there was a river running through the dunes and there was lush grass, bushes, and palm
trees around. Well, of course there weren't mortars floating overhead and blown up buildings courtesy of Napolean W. Bush, but that's what I always imagined something like the Fertile Crescent looking like - stark contrasts between the dessert sand and the fertile riverbeds. We had the option of sand surfing again, but we just drove down the hill instead since we had already experienced something similar on Tuesday.There was another lagoon back inland that we drove to and had the option of eating and drinking something and going swimming, but we declined this as well
and just took some nice pictures there before heading to the area that we would spend the rest of the day at. Unfortunately, the water activities were centered around pools rather than the beach. It was much more resort-like, which didn't feel as local and authentic as the other places that we'd been to, but we could still have fun there. They also had cafeteria-style eating where you picked what you wanted and you paid by weight. I thought it was 
mildly amusing that the American gringos (that would be me and Stefan) had loaded our plates up with food to the point of suffocation, while the Euros and South Americans had moderate portions. Talk about over-indulgence! No wonder us Americans are so fat! Oh well, I was starving :o).The "scenery" at this location was significantly better than at other beaches we'd been to, not that I could complain about the other beaches. There were fewer honeymooners (the percentage of honeymooners to singles was probably down to 75% or so) and there were definitely some girls who belonged in swimsuits laying out by the pool. It was strange that the population here was so different than the other beaches. Maybe it was just more consolidated here.
After lunch, we were entertained by a show that the local transvestite put on for the crowd
. He brought up five or six couples to the stage and played something like the game Newlyweds, only a bit more graphic ;o). Actually, I don't think it was like the game Newlyweds, judging by their actions (since we couldn't understand what they were saying). The first challenge was to have each girl run into the crowd and kiss as many boys as she could in a minute and then the boys did the same with girls in the crowd. One of the girls who was on stage first ran to another guy on the stage who was helping to run the show (or so it seemed) who was a flaming homosexual. He had been dancing to the music prior to the show and it was quite obvious that he wasn't h
iding anything. When the girl went up and kissed him, the tranny (who was counting each one out loud) said "he's a queer, he only counts as a 1/2 of a man!" and then as the tranny kept counting, he kept using the half "5 and a half, 6 and a half, seven and a half, ....." . It was pretty funny. The tranny was hilarious. The next game involved having the men make donkey ("asno!") sounds to their partners. It was pretty funny to us since "asno!" was one of the words of the week. They had a couple more little games that were funny, but the show was pretty short.After the show, it was time for Roland, Stefan, and Csilla's graphic show - in the kiddie pool, no less. It started innocently enough with Stefan acting his age by going down the kiddie water slide - which was actually pretty fun, I admit ;o) . The lifeguard then came and told Stefan that he had to pay 8 reais to use
it, so we stopped (until he left again). When Roland took a picture of Csilla laying on an above-water turtle's back, Stefan got his dirty mind in action and realized that it's mouth was his waist's height and of course he did some posing with the camera. I was so embarrased - and laughing hysterically - and thankful that there were only a handful of kids around to see this. Not to be outdone, R
oland spotted the cannon that was his waist's height and he and Csilla did some more posing for the camera. I almost fell off the chair I was laughing so hard at this point. Stefan and Roland I can definitely see doing these poses, but the fact that Csilla was in on it was just too funny.After eating some ice cream, it was time to go. We went to pay and found out that all of the food and drinks that we'd had that day ended up costing us just 25 or so reais each, by far our cheapest day yet. They clearly had missed someone's lunch or something, because there's no way it should have been that cheap. But we weren't complaining! Climbing aboard the bus, we noticed that a couple of the cute things from next to the pool were on our bus. How was it possible that we missed that?? We spent a good couple minutes discussing and debating whether that really was the hot girl in the yellow bikini from earlier in the day. I didn't think so, but I was clearly out-voted.
Oh well, it was time for me to pass out and catch up on my sleep anyway!For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to the place that Kelly had been to when she came to Fortaleza a few years back and was raving ab
out. Daniel said that this place was one of the reasons why they had come to Fortaleza in the first place. They picked our destination based on food - how appropriate! No complaints from me :o). The place specialized in flavored caiparinhas and crepes filled with some seriously tasty goods. I don't even remember what was in mine (argghhh...my memory is failing me!), but it was something like cheese, beef, and bolognese sauce or something like that. Stefan ordered his (cream cheese and....???) and Roland, who had ordered a pizza and spent several minutes detailing exactly what he wanted on it and how it was to be cooked, immediately changed his order, "I'll just have what he ordered too". Poor wait
er! We found that our kiwi caiparinhas weren't too kiwi-like (Stefan ordered a mandarine caiparinha and determined that, even with mandarine, these drinks were disgusting; I thought he woulda figured that out already!).We were pretty beat from the day, so we took it easy that night, i.e. another night of playing poker at the hotel with rum and cokes
and Vas's yuppy cognac :o) . This time, he got the real deal XO cognac, though it didn't bring him any additional luck as Stefan was the match winner for the night. Once again, I was out second-to-last (what happened to my horseshoe?), but I was almost thankful because I was so beat and needed to get some sleep. This time I didn't stick around, I headed upstairs and watched some soccer (on TV 24/7 it seemed) and passed out....Justinho, Why are the details foggy after just two weeks?
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