Final, final, final Post - Farewell All

Thanks for joining in with the feedback everyone. Its been a blast again. We fly out tomorrow afternoon (Thursday) arriving in the UK sometime Friday morning. Providing we get our jet lag sorted out we´ll probably make a run for the Leap (geddit?) Friday evening if anyone´s about. Not much more to add. We´ve now got a final evening wallowing in alcoholic pre-post-holiday depression and then we have to pay our bar bill. I am not looking forward to that either!

Bye Bye

Love

Dave and Linda

Final Post - An Ode to Reality

So we find ourselves in a different place

Another world in time and space

Endless day on the equatorial belt

Sun warmed skin constantly felt

Atlantic waves crash on a golden shore

Surfers and swimmers still want more

The living beach responds to your whim

Eat or drink, lie, sit, walk or swim

Bikinis abound, browned breasts and bottom

Adorn the bay, not soon forgotten

Red Mars ascends in the clear bright night

Where Sirius shines in actinic light

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But back in the land where the Englishmen dwell

Families prepare for their Christmas hell

Darkness prevails as they all go to work

To earn money to pay for this seasonal quirk

They swarm to the markets, their over-full trolley

Worships the Santa, that great demon folly

While they watch Cola ads on the idiot box

Under wind and rain their whole house rocks

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Ah! Life´s but a dream, the nightmares as well

Including the need to sing ¨Happy Noel¨

As we surface from this wonderful sleep

We scuttle in panic to the Salmon Leap

To drown the loss of all we´ve held dear

And wish you all a ¨Happy New Year¨.

Well, we´re still here

A moment to reflect on . . . food. Having mentioned the C Drink rather a lot I suppose one ought to give some typing space to the solid intake stuff. Okay, here goes . . . its very nice!

Okay, I suppose I´d better flesh it out a bit (ho ho). As you may imagine, this is not a vegetarian´s paradise, although, if you like beans (black, not the Heinz variety) you´ll be alright. Its carne all the way here. Last night we subscribed to a safer outing than those last reported - a meal and a show (yes, yes, I know, how terribly post-50s of us). Food in Brazil has consisted of some fairly expensive meals on the sea front up til now - filet mignon for two or one of the local moquecas (a sort of seafood casserole dish). Most of the menus are priced for two people so a decent meal with booze normally comes to around 60R$ (around£20). Of course, you can get smaller snacks like an oyster soup or a meat skewer for a couple of quid. Last night we finally got round to trying the Rodizio - an all you can eat meatfest. The premise is you pay a fixed sum (don´t ask) and you load up the plate from the buffet bar as many times as you like and waiters come round your table in a constant stream with large skewers of meat carving off as much as you like for as long as you like. I´m not sure what all the pieces of dead animal were but remember having my share of rare beef, pepper steak, filet mignon, rolled pork and cheese, chicken hearts, thick sausages, lamb thighs, spare ribs, fried cheese (!) and fish in papaya sauce. Ginge, me old mate, I needed help out there!

Okay, the show was interesting in a I´m-too-full-to-go-anywhere-else sorta way. Plenty of fit young things in colourful costumes rushing about energetically on stage against a backdrop of samba beat. Near the end most of the women stripped down to bare bikini level, which was nice. A bit like being by the pool bar except they were jiggling all their bits a bit more than the local sunbathers do. As a special treat to the ladies, the last act was a testosterone-filled martial arts cum fire swallowing act with lots of over-muscled youths in a very sweaty back flipping, high kicking, somersaulting display. As a casual observer I noticed a lot of screaming in the audience and all the women on the coach party seemed a little more flushed and wide eyed than they did when we arrived. So, I guess, a good night was had by all.

One piece of disappointing news yesterday. Just as we are about to return to Blighty recommending this holiday to all and sundry, we heard from the reps that Thompson had decided to pull out of this package tour. Despite having full planes every trip and despite a reasonably successful first three winters, they are not going to Brazil any more. As there are no other direct flights to Natal from the UK, we got in just in time. Sad, really.

Best make the most of our last few days then . . .

Out and about again

Not put off by our last adventures,we tried a coach cum boat trip this time. The destination was Pipa, a smaller resorty-type place south of Natal. The idea was to transfer to a boat when we got there so we could annoy some of the local dolphins. What they didn´t tell us was the method of transfer. First we had to climb down a vertical and rickety flight of wooden steps along the cliff face at which point we were met by an army of uniformed T-shirts who ordered us to put on life jackets. A bit much for a stroll along the beach, we thought. It soon transpired that our boat was only 100-or-so metres away.The catch was that we were separated by the Atlantic surf and a very narrow break in the rocky breakwater surrounding Pipa bay. Their answer to this minor obstacle was a shuttle that was essentially a raft with half a dozen benches nailed to the deck and an outboard motor in the back. The game was to pile on to the benches and hold on tight (to what I´m not sure) while the T-shirts pushed us through the breakers to our waiting vessel a dozen at a time.We did reasonably well.We only lost one tourist; a rather heavy lady on the front of the bus (yes,I was wise enough to sit right at the stern) got flung off when we hit an unfortunately large wave. Despite the T-shirts best efforts to get her back on the bus she spent the rest of the ride clinging on to the side of the raft, mostly underwater as each successive wave hit. Still, she survived the trip and her husband managed to retrieve her glasses while she was clinging on (¨Well, they cost ₤300¨, he explained later - a man after my own heart). Still, he too fell later, as did 50% of the rest of the passengers, as they succumbed to a nasty epidemic of sea sickness. The Atlantic swell didn´t stop with our embarkation onto the main vessel but stayed with us for th entire voyage. I suspect complaints were made to Thompsons afterwards but, Oh, how the dolphins laughed. (Yes,there were plenty of dolphins, so the day was technically a success!)

We were supposed to explore Pipa after being re-acquainted with dry land/wet beach (especially since Thompsons have a hotel there) but we squandered most of our 3 hours free time in the bar. Still, what we did see looked very nice, so much so that I would consider a stay there if we ever came back this way again. Our guide suggested that Pipa was quite a lively place; those party-loving Brazilians tend to flock to places like this at the drop of a hat. Certainly,there are plenty of places to eat and drink and the beaches go on for miles. In addition to the dolphins, there is an active eco-force hereabouts that supports the turtles that nest here and a protected forest where monkeys and such live (I´m not going to mention all the eagle-like creatures we´ve seen lest I upset Andy again). Still, that´s enough excitment for one day. Its back to the poolbar and the latest Dan Simmonds space opera for me.

Out and about

Just to prove there is life in Brazil outside the little pocket universe that is Ponta Negra we took a ¨Brazilian Buggy Tour¨to the region`s outback. Just me and The Caipirinha Queen in the back of a four wheeled dune buggy driven by a local lunatic who was in all probability stoned on something. The idea was to stop at places of interest in a sort of convoy of said buggys. However, our guide was obviously bored with the pedestrian approach and overtook his comrades at every opportunity (it didn`t matter what side of the road we were on). The only thing slowing him down was the speedbumps the Brazilian Government insisted on putting on their motorways every kilometer. (A fact that would have confused me had it not been for the buggy tour itself.)

Having grown bored with that our guide decided to leave the road altogether. I must admit, the race across miles and miles of empty sandy beach alongside the Atlantic surf was quite exilarating. The sight of our companion buggys in wide formation behind us prompted an attempt to get a picture but all I took, bouncing madly on the back seat, was sky. Our driver, ever bored with routine, tried to take off using a sand dune as a ramp but his poor little engine couldn´t take it. As one of our companion tourists said afterwards, ¨You disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke; I was sure the head gasket had gone!¨ I nodded sagely as I normally do when talking about cars and football to other males of the species.

The regional area outside Natal seems to consist of miles and miles of sand dunes and fresh water lakes. We stopped at one of the latter for an hour where we ordered the obligatory beers and strolled out ankle deep in the water to drink them and survey the peace and quiet. This was followed by a short visit to a local distillery at which point I was going to boor the pants off you about alcohol and caipirinhas but Mr Tompkins has done his homework and beaten me to it. ´Nuff to say that the Caipirinha Queen is happy with the chief product of the sugar cane industry over here. It would appear that some 40% of the alcohol produced ends up in cars (some 20% of cars run on alcohol rather than petrol) and 60% ends up in humans as described by Steve (some 100% of tourists run on caipirinhas). The big advantage is that it is cheap. The average price is around 4R$ (around£1.30); a bottle of local Bohemian or Skol beer is around 3R$/£1 (although it does get cheaper off the strip). In terms of vfm, you get more ¨bang for your bucks¨with a caipirinha than a beer, the downside being that the Caipirinha Queen has to go and have a lie down after four drinks.

Lunch was a frightening affair in a posh restaurant in an old railway siding. Our hosts presented some starters followed by what we thought was the main course (a sort of shepards pie of flavoured mince meet and mashed manioc). Then the food just kept coming, and coming. Great chunks of meat; spaghetti; vegetables; fried potatoes; beans; rice; chips - you name it. Then, for a laff, our lunatic driver took us over the sand dunes in an effort to dislodge the bloody lot. Racing across the sand wasn´t so much of a problem, it was the disappearing over the clefts between the dune tops only to find sheer drops the other side! It reminded me of some of my dodgier skiing holidays where, alone, I would get lost and find myself at the top of a black run I really didn´t want to do! Linda screamed a lot (I sorta growled in the back of my throat) and told the driver off for scaring her. He grinned and did it again.

Our last stop was at the world´s biggest cashew nut tree (well, someone´s got to have it!). Not much to say about that other than it was weird, as in ¨landed from outer space¨ weird. The branches (or roots, I´m not sure) just keep growing like the alien from The Little Shop Of Horrors.

And with that, we´d had enough. Too tired even for a beer (okay, just a couple) we had an early night. Tomorrow its back to the pool.

The Hotel

As Dave doesn`t do the mundane, the hotel falls to me. There`s something a little strange about it - at least it might be due to lack of money, I suppose. Let me explain. There are several floors with the building proper having 3 - the floor at which you enter, plus one above and one below. Apart from the the building there are lower levels over which the pools meander - yes pools - there are 3 of them, each with a little waterfall and one with a bridge !!! There is a lift - but that has buttons for seven different levels. We tried it out one day and to get to our floor which is the top floor (but the rooms begin with number 5 which in England usually means you`re on the 5th floor) we pressed "5" and lo and behold that`s our floor. So what`s on 6 and 7 ??? Conclusions ?! Perhaps the money ran out or ....... - perhaps I should pass this over to Dave to finish the spooky version !!

Anyway, never mind spooky. The hotel itself is great and the staff whilst not speaking much English are friendly and try to help. My Spanish has come in quite useful. There`s a swim-up poolbar - very useful for those hot days when you want to stay in the pool but require a beverage ! The bathroom doesn`t have a bath, but a big walk in shower, which really pleases Dave (he doesn`t bang his elbows !!) but a small hand basin which doesn`t please me, because it isn`t convenient for washing clothes through !!

(By the way, touch typing on a foreign keyboard can be quite frustrating when it comes to the punctuation marks - they`re all over the place !!)

The room is certainly big enough with plenty of hanging space, TV, minibar, etc. The balcony would be really nice to sit on, apart from the fact that there`s a huge hot-tub on it which takes up a lot of the front space. Why on earth would you want hot-tub in a country where the temperature is never below 22 degrees C ?!!!!!! Unless of course the strange creatures on the two floors which seem to have Romulan cloaking device need hot-tubs to keep warm !?

After the weekend

My awe of this place is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the area seemed to have calmed down after the weekend. Part of the reason for the intense insanity was a) it was the weekend so all the locals flock to the beaches just like they do at home (funny that) and b) a lot of people in the whole Region flocked to the Carnival (an what else are they going to do during the day . . . ). Having said that, this bay has a very organic feel to it. For example, at around five in the afternoon, just as those shadows creep across the sand, the beach sorta packs itself away. The sunbeds fold themselves up and make themselves invisible. The debris magically clears itself away. The turret-like huts on the promenade swallow up all the empty beer cans and bottles and board themselves up. The mobile vendors hang on for a bit longer, patrolling the surf`s edge for the last potential straggling customer, and then quietly fade away. By early evening, the floodlights paint a totally empty beach a pale yellow to illuminate carefree strolling couples, a few left-over teenage surfing dudes and the ever-present Atlantic surf. All quite wonderful, really. Presumably, in the same Gaian style, the beach unpacks itself in a similar way early in the morning. I`m never going to see that as this well before my rising time but the evidence is all around me as I stagger down for the free breakfast.

(OK, I paint a slightly untrue picture here. A lot of this is helped by a not-so-small army of municipal workers easily identified by their uniform of shocking orange - I kid you not - knee-length socks and matching ¨Foreign Legion¨ headgear and bermuda shorts . They beaver up and down the area all day and night pushing carts full of empty coconut husks (and attendant straws), palm tree leaves, the aforementioned bottles and cans, and all the other detritus left on the beach like manic munchikins on acid.)

CARNATAL

Following the ¨happy chaos¨principle, the weekend culminated in an offer to attend Natal`s annual Carnival which just happened to coincide with our first weekend in Brazil. Foolish not to, we thought. Unlike its big brother in Rio, this carnival has only been going since 1999. Also unlike Rio, this is not so much a carnival of floats but turned out to be a full-fledged mobile rock concert - you sit or stand still and a parade of rock groups and pop stars go by you in multi-storey juggernauts surrounded by a sea of writhing, grinding Natali youth (kept carefully away from the slowly turning wheels by a team of support staff dragging a long rope cordon). We found ourselves with several thousand excitable teenagers on a scaffolded stand watching the stars go by at third storey eye-level. To my left there were a couple of toddlers, scarcely 18 months old, sitting on their fathers shoulders, pumping their arms up and down in happy harmony to the bass beat, the subsonics of which was doing a perfectly efficient job of dislodging a two-month bout of bronchitis inside my rib cage. Either they are getting their kids into music young these days or I`m getting too old for short ranged sonic attack (Hawkwind in-joke). The music seemed to be an enthusiastic cross between Radio Ga Ga and The Ketchup Song; at each chorus both the armies on the scaffolding and the attendant massess below would throw their hands in the air and loudly sing along. It was very difficult not to join in the spirit of the thing and have a little carefully understated British bop to it all. Our only fear was that Brazilian workmanship would not hold up to the resultant harmonics and tumble us all down to the waiting pile of empty Skol cans and other refuse that had been accumilating under the scaffolding from the last few days (the other fear of a possible conflagration from a similarly disposed cigarette was mitigated somewhat by the faint smell of urine - the supposition being that the whole lot was too soggy to catch fire. Consequently, this had to be the soberest concert I had ever been to as getting rid of the beer the traditional way was not a realistic option - I`ll never moan about English portaloos again.). The second juggernaut seemed to be the personal transport for an obviously famous Brazilian diva in true Tina Turner mode (all legs and mini skirt in case the imagination didn`t automatically jump). During a hiatus in the decibel crash there was a hysterical exchange between her and the hosting national radio company followed by a very interesting thing she did with her knees and thighs. ¨She`s just won an award¨, she the chap behind me (who spoke partial Portugese and seemed to know what was going on). I wondered what a full-blown orgasm would be like for her. All in all, five different juggernaut acts strolled by and if anything my young Brazilian co-boppers were getting more numerous and frenetic. By nine o`clock, our little British coach party were given the signal to escape (guide waving a diminutive mutli-coloured umbrella that I was sure had escaped a few hours earlier into the seething mass of people below - I still don`t know how he got it back). Earlier on our guides suggested that to stay until midnight was ¨too dangerous¨(there had already been one death the night before) but, in any case, my poor old legs were giving out and the Caiporinha Queen was getting a bit claustrophobic, shorty that she is, so we didn`t mind a strategic withdrawel really.

Quite an experience! I would hope that, now the weekend is over maybe this place will quieten down a bit so I can catch my breath.

A word about beaches

As Andy alluded to - I am a victim of an over-controlled, process-driven, mindlessly robotic environment, now having to come to terms with a free and easier lifestyle in a completely different type of country. So, a word about . . . beaches. As predicted, this resort is a 4 km beach/bay. However. imagine most brochure beaches you have seen or experienced. Sunbeds marching in regimented linearity (two to a thatched parasol) across the white sands. It doesn`t matter where you go, uniformity is the order and the beaches have all the charm of a plastic dolls house. Not in Brazil! Our beach is a mass of happy chaos. Sunbeds are here, of course, but every half dozen owned by a different bloke on the beach. They have no order, no defining purpose. They are arranged slantwise, upside down, half in - half out of the ocean, around in party circles like protective wagon trains . . . This beach is busy. There is movement at every turn of the eyeball. Vendors with push carts plow backwards and forwards with little mobile barbeques, discos, and drinks carts. People wander backwards and forwards with trees of necklaces, sunglasses, T - shirts, plastic smily faces, CDs, DVDs, and well, you get the picture. And bottoms! There are more scantily clad bottoms on display, of every size and colour, than you can imagine. Bikini design is the king of diversity (despite applying very little material). And for every slim bikini there is a hunk (for the girls) in black trunks playing football (well, it is Brazil). The entire beach is circumnavigated by a well paved promenade, every hundred yards punctuated by a little hut selling all sorts of stuff (but mostly cervesa latas and their little manor of sunbeds). By the time 15 minutes have passed and we have arrived from the hotel to the main eating and drinking area, the street is littered with brightly coloured paintings (lots of yellows) on the beach side and open restaurants on the other, advertising unlimited amounts of meat for around $12 (lunch or dinner - take your choice). Add to that an external temperature of 33 degrees made bearable by a constant Atlantic breeze and the ever-present noise of the surf and you have somewhere that is, well, not boring. I might like it here (given the necessary time to be decommissioned from the control, process, robotic, etc). . . .

OK We`re Here (thanks O caustic Anonymous)

In the true tradition of a ten year old writing his essay `What I did on my Holidays`, I suppose I should describe the flight. Actually, not bad. Departure from Gatwick was infinitely better than departure from the UK`s very own Third World airport - Terminal 3 Heathrow!!! Add to that the fact that we paid around 10% more for an upgrade to the Charter flight`s equivalent to 1st class and the whole trip was relatively painless - hats off to Thompson in fact. We were first in the queue at the check in, first on board the aircraft and a free glass of Kir Royale (dunno what that is but it meant a lot to Linda) before we even left the terminal. In ¨1st class¨you get 7 seats across the plane instead of 8 (OK, not a big deal), 4¨more leg room (now its starts to make a difference), a five course lunch (it actually was quite tasty), a personal DVD player pre-loaded with around two dozen films and shows), staff who actually asked you if you wanted to drink more (what can I say?); the whole 9 hours going by rather nicely in fact (and if you know me at all you`ll know how much I normally hate travelling).



By 9 o`clock local time we were by the pool bar sipping caipirihnas and watching the Atlantic breakers between the palm trees - so far so good!

Nearly on our way

Here's a picture of Brazil. Big, isn't it? We are on our way to the pointy bit on the far eastern end.The nearest main town is Natal but we will be a little ways south of that in a bay called Ponta Negra (or something like that). The first website I came acroos describes Ponta Negra as " . . . about 4 km long. In the south end is Morro do Careca, the most famous landmark of Natal. Walking northwards, one first sees about 2km of av. Erivan Franca, crowded with bars, restaurants, hotels, party houses, small shopping galleries, etc; then, the avenue ends, and the next 2km have just a walk way, lined with hotels and some kioskes". Obviously a translation from Portugese but I am wondering what a "party house" might be . . . More worrying is the next bit on the Website "Climbing the hill is forbidden, but many people don't care; the gay guides repeatedly mention the lateral trails of the hill as a good meeting point". As with the traditional warning in the local pub on the edge of the moors "don't stray from the main road!" I will similarly not be "climbing the hills". Bags neary packed; more about the flight next.

Welcome to Blog # 2

Hi everyone. After the fun we had with the New Zealand Blog, Linda and I thought we'd try again. Since we are essentially sitting on a beach in Brazil for three weeks (as opposed to driving two-and-a-half thousand miles across sheep-infested countryside) be prepared for mind-numbing detail about food and drink, temperature and climate, and, oh yes, food and drink. We expect to astound you with all the different ways you can cook and present a prawn. How the shadows creep across the hotel pools in the afternoon. How many Caipirinhas we can drink in an average evening. How to say "two beers please", in Portugese. What page I am currently up to in the latest Dan Simmonds space opera. Yes folks, the fun never starts. As before, comments will be most welcome (unless they contain information about that four letter word beginning with "w"). Just click on the "comments" hyperlink at the bottom of each post, complete your words of wisdom, and select "other" under "Choose an identity" to bring up the field so you can put your name in. S'easy! We will start the relentless account of our travels (to the pool bar and back, probably) just as soon as we fly out in (count 'em) 11 days time . . .