Forteleza - Welcome to Brazil.

There seems to be a pattern forming on this cruise.  In both Ft Lauderdale and then Trinidad we have had late departures due to stores needing to be loaded onto the ship.  

Like all delays, they have a knock-on effect.  This was prevalent as we entered the harbour of Fortaleza. The culmination of late departure, strong currents and a gangway installation that was used as the final excuse for our very late disembarkation.  

Due in at 8am and it was 10.30 before we docked.  To complicate matters more, passengers were not allowed to walk along the working pier, so for the very short distance a port shuttle had to be boarded to take us to the terminal.  Late arrivals will always guarantee bedlam when trying to leave the ship.  

To try and streamline the process, Princess had us all meet in different venues, under the category that we all fell under which were:  

1. Princess Tours

2. Paid Shuttle taking you down town
3. Port shuttle to the terminal building.

Not far from the terminal yet we still had to be shuttled.

You can imagine everyone’s frustrations when it was still another two hours before the first shuttle numbers were called for the terminal.  How many Irishman does it take to set up a gangway?  God knows, because I am sure any number would have been faster than they were today.  

Helder Silva from TourHQ was our guide today, and although our day was shortened by at least 4 hours he managed to fill the brief of our tour, with our visit times shortened to have us back in time.

Instead of staying in the city we headed straight out to municipality of Beberibe. Here some of the most beautiful coastline beaches can be found.  Once we arrived we swapped our comfortable air-conditioned van to specially built, open air dune buggies. OH & S! “what's that?” as we hung on for dear life to the roll bars that protected those sitting within the car.

 

Morro Branco is a beautiful beach known for its labyrinth of cliffs, coloured sands, dunes and caves.  Once we stepped off our buggy, no one could blame you for thinking that maybe in some alternate universe we had been transported back to Aqaba, Jordan.  Sand art is so popular here; if it can be filled with sand, then it is…  Designs made up from the natural colours of the sand blended with others artificially coloured, made up for some amazing works of art.

Helder guided us down towards the beach through the maze of multi coloured cliffs and rock formations that could only be described as “Wadi Rum light”, not as tall but just as dramatic with the beautiful blue ocean as it’s backdrop. 

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Once at the bottom we found our buggies waiting to pick us up again.  Next we were treated to an exhilarating ride along the long stretch of the wide sandy beaches, around narrow rocky outcrops.  Through the incoming tide as the waves rolled into the shore in front of us. 

The furthest point along the beach we travelled to was to a lagoon where the freshwater comes down to meet the ocean.  The brown water is enough to discourage, but it is only that colour from the silt and coloured sands, but that is deceiving, and the water is quite clean.  The water was very refreshing for those of us who decided to have a swim. 

Retracing our tracks along the beach we re-met the van to take us back to our ship but not before trying out the national drink of Brazil.  What Pisco is to Peru, Cachaça is to Brazil, made from sugar cane they are both very potent.  Cachaça is the main ingredient of Brazils national cocktail the “Caipirinha”.

One final stop on the way home was a factory that made a soft dark caramel type toffee sweet from Sugar Cane.  We watched as the workers boiled and stirred the sticky mixture which not only attracted onlookers but many flies and bees.  We are sure some of these creatures could not avoid being stirred into the mixture - I don’t think the lumpy bits were sultana’s.  

Punctuality is not the strongest point of this cruise or our Captain, and although we could make it back to the ship on time, the Princess tours couldn’t.  So once again we found ourselves sitting on deck waiting for a sailaway that wasn’t happening.