Day 7 - Morro Branco and Praia das Fontes

Thanksgiving was upon us and we met up with the crew as usual for breakfast. Roland and Csilla told us about their terrible night with Csilla sick and we told them about our terrible night watching dancing, eating, and drinking rum and cokes :o\ . Thankfully, Csilla was feeling much better after she had some Brazilian medication (she's braver than me!)

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 hiding 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, Roland 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 about. 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 waiter! 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?

Day 6 - Canoa Quebrada

After out late night playing poker, it was back to bed and waking up a few hours later for another early morning trip (and nap) to a new beach - Canoa Quebrada. I was dead tired that morning and was not very pleased when the tour guide on the bus decided that everyone should wake up and do introductions while I was in the middle of a deep sleep. Apparently the things that some people were saying were pretty funny, because everyone was laughing quite a bit (and making me grumble every time). I decided that from that day on, I would bring my iPod every day to make sure that no one would disturb my beauty sleep from that day on (lord knows I need as much of that as I can get ;o). Daniel asked us if we wanted to introduce ourselves and for some reason (lack of sleep, probably), I agreed to go up there and make a fool of my self by trying to say a few things in Portuguese. So Daniel and Kelly made their introduction to themselves, told everyone they were on their honeymoon (like most of the other passengers on the bus) and that they had gringo friends from USA and Slovakia on the bus (I'm assuming that everyone had already figured this out because Stefan isn't exactly quiet when he talks) and that one of them (me!) was going to say hello and represent the rest of the gringos.

Then it was my turn. For some odd reason, I had spent the last 15 minutes of my semi-consciousness watching everyone introduce themselves (and not understanding them) and I hadn't even thought about what I was going to say when I got to the front of the bus in front of 50 Brazilians. So Daniel tells me to go up to the front and I walk in a trance, suddenly wondering what the hell I was doing and telling myself not to screw up. And then I started thinking about what to say when I was about five feet from the microphone. Not exactly enough time for me to go through my not-so-extensive Portuguese vocabulary and come up with something coherent. But, I was going to do it. So I stood there in front of the world and got terrible stage fright and got really nervous. I quickly said "I am Justin and I am from New York. I am with my friends Daniel and Kelly" (in accent-free Portuguese of course ;o) and I quickly gave the microphone back to the tour guide and headed back to my safety zone in the back of the bus with the other gringos. But, to my surprise, everyone started applauding and that was pretty special to me. But I was so nervous and embarrased that I didn't look at anyone while I walked. Of course, as I sat there afterwards (and over the next few days as well) I thought of a few things that I could say in Portuguese that would have added some humor, things like "I like Brazilian barbeque, Brazilian beer, and caiparinhas" and some more things. I would have been much more comfortable if I'd planned my thoughts instead of just sitting there half asleep!

Anyway, the introductions finished and then they started playing some game on the bus, but I was still tired so I passed out again and slept off and on while they laughed and yelled answers all over the bus!

The buses dropped us off in town and we got free trips down near the beach from some dune buggies that were nearby. This beach was different than any of the others because of the fact that it was surrounded by cliffs made from sandstone or some type of red clay that was severely impacted by erosion from the wind and the occassional rain. The terrain changed every year because the dirt was so easily shaped by the elements. It was terribly hot out, so I was pretty sure that we'd get fried that day while we wandered through the canyons from the tops of the cliffs down to the beach. We had a local boy who was our tour guide and he told us (well, really Daniel and Kelly ;o) about how the area had changed and and how it was now protected because of its fragility. The scenes from this beach were absolutely breath-taking, as the pictures show. While we were walking around with all the other tourists, we heard someone call it the Grand Canyon and us gringos laughed because it was pretty much the first English we'd heard for a while from someone other than Daniel :o).

Once we got to the bottom, we were at another beach restaurant where we could sit back, eat lobster and shrimp, and drink a few beers while taking sun breaks to go swimming. I don't think that there were many waves at this beach, however, so it was more relaxing. There were some of the usual trinket-peddlers, including a guy selling coconuts that were carved in the shape of monkeys. This guy was trying hard to sell them to our table and he and Stefan shared some laughs as Stefan bartered back and forth with the guy throughout the day, telling the guy that when the price got to 15 reais, he'd buy one. The guy responded with jokes like "all the money goes to charity - my kids" and other wisecracks. It was pretty funny and Stefan eventually got his price at the end of the day. Csilla was also heavily involved in the trinket-purchase business, and one minute she was asking Roland "why the hell do these guys always come up to me" and the next minute she was checking out all of the nut necklaces that they were selling :o) .

We headed back up to the buses early that day so that we could shop in the town's tourist shops. We bought a few postcards and a few other trinkets before packing it up and heading back. Apparently we were shopping a bit longer than we were supposed to and Daniel came running after us and said the whole bus was waiting for us so that we could leave. Great, now we were the loud AND annoyingly late gringos!

That night we were going to go see a show that had traditional Brazilian dances, and lord knows they have a lot of them so that was something we were definitely willing to pay $5 to go see. Unfortunately, Csilla wasn't feeling well that day and got really sick that night (possibly from something at the barbeque the day before) and her and Roland never made it. She ended up having to get medicine from the front desk and after that she felt better, but she was in bad shape that night we found out the next day.

But the dance show was amazing. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. They had various types of samba dances, some traditional Portuguese dances, some traditional African dances (from the slaves), some capoeira dancing, and about thirty more dances, all performed by the same cast of dancers who would dance, then run back and change and be out for the next dances. There was also a live band that was playing the music. The food at the restaurant was cafeteria/buffet style and was actually pretty decent. You paid for the food by weight and they had a nice variety of items to choose from. Here are some of the dance videos:
Capoeira
Samba from the 50s
Samba

Another important discovery was made that night that would alter our expenditures and experience for the rest of the week. Daniel, who works in the restaurant business himself, noticed that when you order a Cuba Libre (Rum, Coke, and Limes), they bring you a can of coke and a glass of rum and then they poor them together to make the tasty concoction. But then you're stuck with 2/3 of a coke left to drink. A Cuba Libre was 10 reais, but a rum over ice + a coke was about 7 reais. So, if you ordered three rums over ice and a coke, you were looking at paying about 15 reais vs. the 30 reais that three Cuba Libres would cost - my numbers are off a little, but it was a significant savings. We couldn't afford not to drink more since we were saving so much, so we drank quite a few more rum and cokes that night and the days that followed!

Justinho, Only two days left :o(

Day 5 - Cumbuco

After a late Monday night out on the town, we were certainly less than pleased to have to wake up bright and early on Tuesday at around 7:30am. Little did we know that this would become a trend all week - going to bed late, waking up early. Suffice to say that I quickly learned how to sleep on the bus, both to and from the beaches! Some of the beaches were as much as two hours away, so we had quite a bit of napping time.

Cumbuco was one such beach, several hours away in a remote area. The tour guide explained to everyone (while us non-Portuguese speakers slept ;o) that there were options on things we could do at the beach, such as renting dune buggy rides, sand surfing on the dunes, and going out on a boat. We signed up for a package that included all three options for 33 reais each, which is like $12 (talk about a steal). When Daniel was telling us about these things, he kept calling the buggys "boogies" and saying that each "boogie" fit four people on it and I was totally confused, probably because I was in a foggy state of mind after sleeping for a few hours on the bus. I equate "boogie" with boogie (or body) boards, you know, the things we rode on waves as kids with. So I was envisioning four people riding on a boogie board down some steep sand hills and it sounded kind of strange to me. I didn't realize that he was talking about buggies until a few minutes later, and then it was clear. Hey, I'm not a morning person - anymore!

So first up, we took a boat ride out into the ocean. It looked and sounded pretty fun, going sailing in the beautiful ocean where the water was nice and warm (it was probably around 75 degrees). My mind drifted back to sailing with catamarans on Lake Tahoe and stuff, so that sounded pretty cool to me. Then we saw the sailors and the boat and realized that this wasn't going to be a luxury trip on the boat. Very rustic boats with hardened, seasoned sailors on it. Unfortunately, since there was nowhere to store our things, we had to leave the cameras behind so we couldn't capture how rustic these things were.

When we finally got lined up on the boat (these things are TINY, couldn't hardly fit all six of us, especially with Stefan ;o), they had to wait for waves to come up so that we could push off. While we were riding out, Daniel was talking to the sailors and telling us their situation. These people were clearly very poor and we realized how the tour companies were taking advantage of them. But, they were happy just to have the opportunity to make some extra money. For every 10 reais that the tourists paid, the sailors got 0.30 reais of the money. The restaurant, tour company, and the agents took the remaining 9.70 reais. This wasn't even enough money for the sailors to live on, so every month they would go out for three or four times for three days on this tiny boat and catch fish to feed themselves. This isn't a canoe-like boat, it's basically got a flat deck on it and, like I said, we had to finagle and rearrange so that six of us could sit down. There isn't any kind of holding tank for the fish, so they would go on cages on the deck. In order to sleep, the sailors would have to sleep standing up, sort of like the comatose sleep I do on the subway. Except they're in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of km from land.

Anyway, they took us out to the ocean and we all go to go swimming for a few minutes and then climb back onboard and haul ass back to land. The wind was so strong everyday at the beach, it's no wonder windmills are popular ways to make energy out there. Once we got back, it was time for lunch (lobster, shrimp, fish, and veggies were our staples for the week's lunches) and afterwards, dune "boogie" time.

Stefan, Daniel, and Kelly hopped onto one buggy and Roland, Csilla, and I jumped on the other one with Vas and I sitting on the back in Csilla in the front seat. Daniel told us that the driver can take us "with emotion" (meaning driving like a maniac) or "without emotion". I know that these guys are professional drivers and all, but we had no idea how crazy they would be, so we developed a hand signal, thumbs up for driving more crazy and thumb down for chilling out a little bit. The drivers took us up into the dunes and, after driving off a cliff that scared the crap out of us, took us to the top of the hill so that we could go sand surfing.

There was a lagoon (probably more like a cesspool ;o) at the bottom of the steep hill and they had wooden boards that they waxed up for us to sit on and ride down the hill. You had to use your hands behind you to control your speed, balance, and steer. It sounded pretty easy, but was actually quite difficult. I finally made it to the cesspool on the third try after Daniel and Roland had each made it in at least once. Of course, the hardest part about the rides was having to climb back up the hill, lugging the board behind you. They had a snowboard-like device for the hill as well but I didn't dare push my luck with that. There was a Brazilian kid who was the son of one of the guys who rode it very well though. Funny to think that he's never seen snow before but he could snowboard very well....

After the sand surfing, it was back to the dune "boogies" for an awesome trip across the dunes, flying down sandy trails and tearing up the dunes and stopping for pictures. It was quite exhilirating and we only had to give the drive a thumbs up once for more "emotion" and high speed passing of the other dune buggies. It was totally awesome!

Afterwards, we hung out at the beach for a bit longer, body surfing as usual and soaking up the scenery and the sun. Honestly, I spent most of the trip under umbrellas which explains my lack of tan - and sunburn. The sun was vicious that close to the equator and I'd rather be a whitey than have a burn. There were some donkeys that were dressed up and available for rides. We didn't ride them, but since Daniel referred to them as jackasses (he was being serious when he said that word), Stefan immediately clung to the Portuguese word (asno) and used it whenever he could, even though you don't call someone an "asno" (like we call Stefan jackass). Asno became one of our top-10 terms of the trip, though, especially with Kelly and her imitation of one.

After lounging all day, it was back on the bus and nappy-nappy time for us. Once we got back, we cleaned up for the evening and were planning a mellow night after a busy couple of days. We decided that this would be the glutonous night, so we headed to Sal E Brasa, a traditional Brazilian churrascaria (barbeque restaurant). This basically involved gorging ourselves on as much meat and side items as humanly possible for the price of about $15. There's a full salad bar with various casseroles and salad items to munch on beforehand (including things like olives, cheese, hearts of palm, sushi, etc.) and once you finish that, it's meat time. You have a coaster that is red on one side and green on the other, and once you flip that thing to green, you are bombarded by waiters carrying skewers of different kinds of meat and asking you if you would like this meat or that meat. They come by one at a time the whole night and you can pick and choose if you want prime rib, chicken hearts, chicken marinated in champagne, filet mignon, lamb, etc. Yes please!

After fiilling our bellies with caiparinhas and pounds of meat, it was time to work off a few of those calories, so we went to the street markets to do some shopping. Well, the girls did some shopping anyway. Kelly apparently had been practicing and we found that she was very good with her new fulltime job - spending Daniel's money. Daniel, demonstrating his proficiency in using English cuss words, summed it up pretty well, "I'm f**ked" ;o) . It's hilarious hanging out with people like him and Roland who don't speak English as a first language because, despite having a few grammatical errors when they speak, they have absolutely no issues when it comes to using cuss words. They always use them grammatically correctly and at appropriate spots in their sentences. I think they hung out with Stefan too much ;o)

After walking around and shopping at the street markets, we tried to round everybody up to head back to the hotel but we couldn't find Roland and Csilla. But we weren't in any major hurry, so Stefan and I lacksidasically walked back to the hotel after looking for them, stopping to watch some crazy Brazilian soccer game being played on concrete and admiring people playing a mix of volleyball-soccer, which is like playing volleyball, except you can't use your hands. Feet, chest, legs, and head are used to block, bump, pass, and dink the ball over the net. These guys are amazing.

We arrived at the hotel to find everyone in the normal location at the hotel - the corner poker table that was baptized as our poker-playing spot. Vas had his chips out and stacked and ready to rumble. Daniel joined the party and we got our caiparinhas or Guarana (Brazilian soda) and Vas transformed into the yuppy that we all know and love by ordering a glass of cognac (yuck) and busting out his Cohiba Siglo III cigars from the duty free store for us to chew on and smoke. He recently became a fan of the expensive cognac and so he ordered the best stuff they had, supposedly something called XO cognac (I guess that's a ranking). He milked that glass that night, as cognac should be milked. We found out the next day that the stuff he got was actually the lowest "ranking" cognac (VS? VSOP? Something like that) that the hotel had since they were out of the XO stuff. No wonder it was only $8 a glass :o).

Roland ended up being poker champion that night, once we finished at around 2:00am. I was ready to pass out and ended up in fourth (out of five) place, pretty embarrasing. I stuck around and shuffled cards to see who would win. And, more importantly, I got to see Daniel fold a straight when the river was turned over. He had two 3's in hand and didn't notice the straight, so he showed his cards and folded to Roland, handing a sizable chunk of change over to the eventual winner and leading him to victory - for the night ;o)

Justinho, will I ever finish this week?

My Pictures
Stefan's Picture Archive (new pictures added!)

Day 4 - Beach Park & Pirata

Monday morning was just what we expected - bright and sunny outside, temperature somewhere in the 80's on 90's. We had purchased a tour package through Daniel that included, in addition to the 5-star hotel and flight to and from Sao Paulo, a trip to a beach outside of the city called Beach Park. We debated about whether or not to take the tour bus or to rent our own driver and not rush in the morning, but in the end we opted to take advantage of the bus since it wasn't arriving until 10:00am that day. And it was free :-D

So we met at the breakfast room at 9:00 and our eyes lit up when we saw the food they had waiting for us. They had tropical fruit galore, items like coconuts with holes and straws in them, mango, papaya, fruits I'd never seen or heard of (like peace-fruit and star fruit), a selection of about 8 fruit juices (like cashew!), cold cuts, fresh bread, little sausages with a spicy sauce and onions, eggs, custom omelettes (which required us to talk to the lady cooking them, which wasn't going to happen), waffles, cheeses, etc. etc. It was pretty cool trying all this food out. Daniel and Kelly got a kick out of Stefan when he came back with a plate of potatoes, fruit, and lunch meat because I guess it's not normal to mix such different items on your plate. I laughed at him as well (he's easy to laugh at ;o), but then a few minutes later I came back with a plate of sausages, cheese, and papaya and they laughed even harder because I outdid Stefan with my mix. Oops!

The ginormous tour bus pulled up to our hotel on time and we were ready for the beach. We were a bit disappointed that the beach in front of our hotel wasn't good for swimming because there was a large port nearby and the water was polluted, but there were other beaches nearby, so it wouldn't be a problem.

The beach we were going to was called Beach Park and it was pretty well-known because it also had a water park (like Raging Waters) that we could go to if we wanted to pay 75 reais (about $25). It was very resort-like there with a few small stores, restaurants, bungy jumping, and tables and chairs on the beach. On the way in, there were a set of gorilla statues and they even had a mascot who walked around and took pictures with the kids - and Stefan. True to their reputations, Stefan and Roland wasted no time in molesting the gorilla statues in front of the camera. Yes, there were women and children around and, yes, I was embarrased to know them but I was also laughing hysterically.

I was stoked to be at the beach and there were plenty of rough waves there, so most of us just hung out at the beach all day. Daniel and Kelly wanted to check out the water park, so they paid their dues but were really disappointed and came to the beach with us by lunch time. Being a beach city, Fortaleza was very well known for their seafood, so we started our lunchtime seafood binge eating with some breaded and fried crab. Roland and Csilla got a massive red snapper that was covered in some kind of garlic and parsley sauce (it was too strong for Vas's refined taste buds) and Stefan and I each got a bowl of crab risotto that had too many pieces of crab shell in it. Naturally it was washed down by some beers that were kept cold by these plastic thermos things, which was nice since it was easily over 90 degrees that day.

We spent plenty of time in the rough surf that day. There were some waves to be body-surfed and get destroyed by. Roland ended getting tossed and his leg almost touched his back. Stefan got pile-driven into the sand. I drank a few gallons of sea water and skinned up my back on the sand. Yet we weren't phased and repeatedly went back out for more!

I tried out my snorkel and goggles but the water was too rough and I couldn't even see the bottom of the ocean from the shallow water, so it wasn't worthwhile. I had watched a special on shark attacks in Florida right near the coast a few weeks back, so I was a bit paranoid for the first day or two about getting attacked. Which is funny because I've always lives next to the ocean and I never worry about it. Obviously it didn't deter me out of the water, but it was on my mind a lot.

Daniel and Kelly went back to the beach park waterslides to check them out one more time and they actually found some decent rides, so they were satisfied with the experience afterall. Roland went to the bungy-ride-jump thing and got his ass kicked while doing sommersaults on it. He came back and was dripping with sweat from jumping around on it. I've never done that thing before but I guess it takes quite a bit of muscle and strength to do it, so it probably wouldn't be worth it for me. I'd rather do something that takes no muscle at all, like bungy jump or sky dive....

The bus was going to take us back at 4:30, so Roland, Csilla, Stefan, and I headed to the buses at 4:15 or so, hoping to find Daniel and Kelly on their way back from the water park. We couldn't find them anywhere though and we were really worried about missing our bus since our translators weren't around and we didn't know which bus we were supposed to get on. We finally found a tour guide that spoke English (a rarity in these areas!) and he couldn't help us find our bus despite asking around. I was worried that it had already left without us, but I knew (or hoped ;o) that Daniel and Kelly wouldn't abandon us, no matter how annoying Stefan was. Finally the tour guide said that his boss would be there in 10 minutes and could tell us which bus it was. 10 minutes? It had to be at least 5:00 by now and we were supposed to leave at 4:30. Csilla, are you sure that you turned your watch back an hour since we were in a new time zone? Oh, whoops, that was the OTHER watch that she set. Nice one ;o) ! We walked back to the Beach Park and found Daniel and Kelly hanging out with our tour guide.

After our ride back to the hotel, we decided to pay 135 reais each (like $60) to get rides to a new beach every day on the bus. We toyed with the idea of getting our own van and driver but it wasn't worth it in the end because we'd had the same structured schedule that the tour buses had.

After showering and cleaning up, we were off to dinner and to check out a huge party at a place that was called Pirata (Pirate) that was only open on Monday nights. We ended up walking at least a mile to find a restaurant that we all agreed on (no BBQ, no Italian, no.....ooh, let's eat Seafood!). We had nice outdoor seating and had a caiparinha and some water and ordered lobster, shrimp, and some filet mignon medallions. Yummy! The non-Amis hadn't had lobster before, and it was plentiful and cheap down in Fortaleza so they tried it out and the boys were hooked. The girls stuck with safe things to eat, but we ended up ordering lobster at every lunch from then on.

Then we were off to Pirata, right down the street. This area of town was hopping and there were young folks everywhere. We found out as the week went by that this was the biggest party in Fortaleza and the reason why it was so busy in this area. Pirata used to be a big outdoor casino but they had converted it into a place to party with drinks, bands, and dancing. We had heard that Fortaleza was home to a style of Brazilian music called Forro (pronounced Fow-Hoa). Everyone had told us this so I was looking forward to getting private lessons from some cute Brazilian girls. We were a little timid at first with the other 3000+ people there and kinda hung out in the back having caiparinhas and beer. Kelly taught us some basic Forro steps and rhythm (I'm way to white to be able to do it). Then the band started playing music that was described as "Karnival Music". It was much easier to dance to, everyone just started jumping around. I did some derivative of swing dancing with Kelly to the delight of some ladies at a table nearby. They applauded us (or maybe my effort ;o) afterwards which was nice. Too bad they were old enough to be my parents ;o).

But with such fun music, there was nothing to do but head towards the stage and get in the middle of the massive crowd. Everyone was jumping around, sweating, and having fun with the Karnival tunes. It was one of those times of serious cultural authenticity that serious tourists thrive on, so we had a great time. Daniel kept telling us bachelors that he was jealous of us and that he should have gone there when he was single because there were young-20's girls all over the place.

A new band came up and they started playing Brazilian Axe (pronounced osh-eh) music, which is a more simple rhythm and everyone in the crowd moves their arms in sync, kinda like the Macarena dance. The girls were delighted when buff male dancers in boxers came up on the stage but I was busy looking at the girls in the crowd. Unfortunately, Axe music leaves no individuality so it wasn't as fun and Daniel, Kelly, Roland, and Csilla got bored and decided to go home at around 1:30 or 2:00. Stefan and I stuck around for a while though as the crowd thinned out a bit. Once they started playing Forro music again, I struck out when I asked a few girls to teach me to dance and resolved to just dance alone for the rest of the night, which was fine. I turned around and Stefan was freaking a tall, slender girl that had been dancing near us for a while. I thought she was very pretty and we both agreed that she had a nice set of...shoes.

He seemed pretty happy and danced with her for a while when a fight suddenly broke out in front of us. Out of nowhere, security guards rushed the brawlers and took them down. I had no idea that there was even security at this event, but they definitely took care of business and eventually wrestled the guys to the door and kicked them out. The crowd was definitely a bit unsettled by it and people were edgy for a while. The band played some mellow music to get people back in the groove, which worked in Stefan's favor. But, for some reason, he wanted to LEAVE! I don't know what his deal was but we left about 15 minutes later. We gave the girl our room number at the hotel and she was supposed to call Stefan that week, but we realized the next day that we had given her the wrong room. Oops! We finally left Pirata probably around 3:00 and Stefan had plenty of lipstick smeared all over his mouth :o) ...

We had to get up at around 7:15 the next morning, and thus began our string of getting little sleep in the hotel and sleeping to and from the beaches in the bus! A good recipe for getting sick, but definitely maximizing our time down in South America!

Justinho, Pirata was a highlight of the trip

My Pictures
Stefan's Pictures (lots of good ones)

Day 3 - Wedding Recovery

After we finally dragged ourselves off to bed at around 6:30 in the morning as the sun was rising, we fell into a deep slumber and I woke up at about 1:30. "Breakfast" was on the table waiting for us and everyone else was up and at it except me. So I joined up with everyone and ate some bread and cheese and lunch meats while Ricardo whipped up some fresh mango juice in the blender. Oh boy, did that ever hit the spot for me!

Daniel's youngest sister had her first communion that morning and, in addition to the fact that the extended family was in town for Daniel's wedding, what other reason do you need to have a huge family barbeque? The Calandrino clan all come come over on Sunday afternoons and eat about three cows worth of food every week. We got a call from Daniel as we were lounging around and talking about the wedding instructing us that we needed to get over to his house because the food was ready for us. Boy, was life rough.

Ricardo is quite a character. Soccer is a serious sport in Brazil, and some soccer rivalries are so serious that fans of one team are not friends with fans of another team. Daniel's family are all fans (as am I) of the Palmeiras team, but Ricardo is a fan of Sao Paulo. This rivalry is pretty tame, but neither of the teams like another local team, Corinthians, who are the equivalent of the Raiders in American football. Anita told us that her family was okay with her marrying someone who was a Sao Paulo fan, but would never let her marry someone who was a Corinthians fan. So, with Sunday being a big soccer day in Brazil, Ricardo was preparing to lounge around all day with his Sao Paulo jersey on. Stefan was telling him about the previous day and how he couldn't find a Sao Paulo shirt that could fit him (hmm...I wonder why ;o), so Ricardo went into his room and brought Stefan a Sao Paulo jersey with the Habib's sponsorship logo and everything. But, it was also autographed by the goalkeeper, so Stefan, humbly turned him down. Well, as humbly as Stefan can be. But since we were going over to Daniel's bastion of Palmeiras fans' house, he put on his old Sao Paulo jersey from the previous trip.

Then it was churrasco (Brazilian BBQ) time. We joined up with the family at around 3:00 in the afternoon and most of the people had already eaten, but there was still plenty of steak and sausages and eggplant dish remaining on the grill and table. There were kids running all over the house and people littering the ground of the Calandrino compound, which was fun because they all knew us now and we all talked about the wedding and our upcoming trip to Fortaleza. The leader of the youth gang, Daniel's little brother Luis Estevo (who was about 10), had become good buddies with Stefan (mentally, they are about the same age) and they traded English, Italian, and Portuguese curse words with each other while Stefan threatened to throw him in the pool :o) . Right before we left, there was a surprise for Roland as Daniel's mom had made a birthday cake. His birthday was yesterday, on the day of the wedding, so she made a big cake with "27" on the top of it for him. The whole crowd sang happy birthday to him in English and then did the happy birthday cheers for him in Portuguese as well. I could tell Roland was on the brink of tears with the event.

The driver and van that was taking us to the airport that day as coming at 5:00, so at 4:30 we went back to Anita and Ricardo's to pack up our stuff and get back over to Daniel's place. Ricardo enjoys having lazy Sundays and was still laying in bed with his boxers and soccer jersey on, watching soccer while we were over at the churrasco so Anita teased him and told him to get off his lazy butt and go visit the family. Begrudgingly, he put on some shorts and went over to the house with us once we were finished packing. Obviously he's been spoiled by too many barbeque and Calandrino house parties and didn't appreciate them anymore!

While we were waiting for the bus to pick us up at Daniel's, the whole family came out to wish us all goodbye. Naturally, we too lots of pictures with them and we had to take oaths, in Portuguese, that we would come back to visit the family someday soon. Of course, we had no idea what we were saying, but since Don Calandrino (said with a Marlon Brando accent) was the one making us take it, we trusted it was good. Ricardo then made us take another oath, in Portuguese, in which we promised to send him money every month. What a clown. Him and Stefan were so much alike that by the end of the weekend that Anita (Ricardo's wife) said that they should go spend some time in San Francisco together ;o). Of course we prefer to refer to Stefan as a jackass (asno in Portuguese) than as a clown :)

When the bus arrived to pick us up for our journey to the airport and further onto Fortaleza, we all said goodbye to everyone in the family and said that we'd come back soon to visit them. They all said that everytime we come to Brazil, we only spend a few days with the family and they wanted us to come spend more time with them next time. As we piled into the bus, the two out of all of the family that didn't speak English, Daniel's mom and grandma, got very emotional and started crying. We could tell that we were truly honorary members of the Calandrino family...

The ride in the bus to the airport was much quicker than when Daniel drove us a few days earlier. Most likely that was because we were talking the whole time about the wedding and what our plans were for Fortaleza. Daniel and Kelly were flying from a different airport and so we would be at the hotel by ourselves for an hour or two before they arrived. Daniel told us about what happened when he and Kelly went to the hotel the previous night after the wedding. Apparently, the room they were going to stay at didn't have hot water, which wasn't a big deal to Daniel but it was to Kelly. So they called up maintenance and found out the whole hotel didn't have hot water. Daniel, slightly intoxicated from the wedding party still, was worried that Kelly was going to get really pissed at the people at the hotel but instead it turned out that when they went downstairs to leave the hotel, HE was the one that got pissed off. He was cussing and swearing at the people at the receptionist desk and saying even though it wasn't their fault, he was pissed off and very angry. They nodded and agreed that this was unacceptable, but Daniel just kept yelling at them and said that if they don't agree with him, he was going to jump over the desk and kick their ass. They nodded and agreed with him, but he just kept yelling and screaming. It was pretty funny the way he told the story.

Since they had to find a new hotel, they were thinking about just going to their new apartment and sleeping there, especially since the hotel that they had initially wanted to stay at had been booked up for a long time. Or so they thought. Daniel was talking to his father about the situation at the no-hot-water hotel at some ungodly hour in the morning and it turns out that Don Calandrino (said with a Marlon Brando accent) had some connections - go figure. He apparently knew the owner of the hotel and made a quick call and they had a room at that hotel. It's good to be part of the Calandrino mafia!

Many people think it's weird that we were travelling with them on their honeymoon, and it certainly seemed weird to us as well. But Daniel insisted that we come with them, saying that they would have their whole life together and that they don't get to see us very often. They would be spending time hanging around strangers if they went by themselves, so it would be even better if they had friends like us around.

On the way to the airport, Daniel also told us some interesting things about fuel technology in Brazil. I don't really know much about Brazil, but apparently they are very advanced in the area of alternative, renewable fuel for automobiles. They developed a way to use alcohol made from sugar cane as a fuel. And, since Brazil is very well known for their sugar cane plantations, they have an abundance of it. The alcohol also burns much cleaner than oil and all new cars in Brazil now have the ability to use use this alcohol or gasoline. In fact, you can use both alcohol or gasoline in the tank, the car will seperate it automatically. Check out this article for more information. I guess that's what you get when your country doesn't have stocks of oil and natural gas, not to mention the fact that our country is run by people from the oil business!

We made it to the airport with some time to spare, so Daniel and Kelly dropped us off and then went on to their airport for their later flight. While we were waiting for our flight, there were some plasma TVs in the terminal showing the Palmeiras soccer game. We watched for a while then headed over to get something to drink. I then remembered that three years ago we had been introduced by Daniel to the tasty cheese bread, pao de quejo. Since we were buying something to drink, what better way to settle or stomachs than to eat some tasty cheese bread with a soft, gooey inside. I bought two of them and liked them so much that I went back and bought six more. My stomach wasn't exactly pleased with that decision on the flight, but I sure was!

The three hour flight was pretty standard, we were all exhausted from the previous night so I slept comfortably with my neck pillow in the middle seat between Stefan and some random guy. Roland and Csilla sat behind Stefan and I. When we finally landed in Fortaleza, Roland was livid about the screaming kids on our flight. After he was done cursing the kids, I questioned whether or not Csilla would want this guy as her children's father ;o) . Roland said when he becomes dictator of the world he will ban children from flying until they are like four.

When we got to the hotel, we checked in and got our rooms. The hotel didn't know if Csilla was a man or a woman, so Vas got a room with two double beds rather than a queen sized bed, so they weren't too pleased about that. In any case, after unloading our gear, we headed down to claim our spot in the hotel lobby for poker. We played cards there about three or four times that weeks, utilizing the new poker chips that I brought him from NYC. They were actually pretty nice to have.

Kelly and Daniel arrived about an hour and a half later and joined into the fun. Kelly hadn't played poker before so Daniel tried to explain it to her but she quickly lost interest in Texas Hold'M. We crashed a few hours later, planning on getting up early for our bus trip to the first beach of the week....

Justinho, tomorrow the beaches start