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). . . .