Brazil: Fortaleza

 Sunday, March 12, 2023 Fortaleza, Brazil

The ship arrived about 9:30 am. We didn’t have a tour scheduled, so took the shuttle from the pier to a beach hotel. The route the bus took off the pier was a new experience. Ports are always a little weird—razor wire and tight security. This road out was a dirt/sand road winding through buildings that looked almost post-apocalyptic, especially the building at the entry with guards. We later found out a huge storm had recently washed out the road and likely damaged the buildings we were seeing. 

Forteleza is big—2.7 million people. When the shuttle bus arrived at the beach hotel, we were told by the representative on the bus that the hotel did not want us to enter the hotel at all. There was a beach across the street. 

We were allowed to sit on a nice bench in the shade outside the hotel. We were trying to access wi-fi, but that didn’t happen either. The representative told us where the grocery store was. We wanted some snacks for our room. Maybe they had wi-fi. To our surprise, the grocery store was full of people from the cruise ship, pushing grocery carts. Something normal we had all missed, I guess. I found it very funny to see everyone earnestly scouring the shelves for food when all our meals were provided on the ship. All ingredients in Portuguese, of course.

Me on the hotel bench trying to find some place to go.

Once we were done buying some crackers, the tapioca flatbread Charlie liked so much, cashews, and some treats for our room stewards we decided our best bet for a taxi was back at the hotel. We got one, and directed him to a restaurant we found on HappyCow.com. It was on the best beach in town. He knew the restaurant and took us there.

Street scene on our way to the beach

It was Sunday and seemed like the local beautiful people were here. The restaurant had a DJ with giant speakers outside playing non-stop groove/disco music—in very good taste. You could hear it several hotels away. We had a good view of the dozens of umbrellas and lounge chairs on the beach, the bouncer, and the bartender who was entertaining us by balancing fifths of alcohol on his elbow, etc. Lunch was excellent and people were friendly.

Entertaining bartender.

After lunch we went down to the water. It did not look pristine like the travel articles said. The water looked kind of brown. We waded a little. A Brazilian man appeared to be telling us to be careful of the water. We later found out it was part of the brown crud we’d been seeing floating in the North Atlantic.  A massive blob of it is also headed for Florida, but some was coming to shore here in Brazil.

People were friendly—he was warning us about the water.

One of the alarming brown blobs we had been seeing from the ship in the North Atlantic

We decided to take a walk on the beach instead of swimming, and headed in the direction of the ship, thinking we would catch a taxi when we got tired of walking. Hotels lined the beach here. Families were having an outing. Parasailers were overhead, lawnmower motors keeping them aloft. People playing volley ball on the beach, kicking soccer balls. People with lounge chairs and a cooler in the water. 

Paraglides with noisy motors

Note soccer ball up in the air!

We apparently walked a little too far up the beach. Suddenly military police appeared, letting us know it wasn’t safe to continue the direction we were going. We turned back and cut through a hotel to the road, looking for a taxi.

Turned back by armed military

On the sidewalk, some guys were sitting on chairs next to the sidewalk outside a restaurant, drinking beer. They were trying to figure out who we were and eventually helped us spot a taxi. They were fun.

These guys were hilarious and helped us spot a taxi.

We negotiated with the taxi driver and he drove us back to the port. However, he didn’t know exactly where to drop us. The place he stopped was not familiar to us. He got out and talked to the guard, then drove us along a dirt road that became familiar when we got to the bombed-out-looking shack where we had to show the card keys from the ship to the armed guard to get through.

The post-apocalyptic port road back to the ship

When the ship left port, we took one last photo of the Americas. Our next stop is Africa.

Our last ghostly look at the Americas on our way to Africa