Fortaleza

From the outset of the trip I had a hunch that Rebecca and I would not move as fast as we needed to to to make it all of the way from Rio to Iquitos overland. It turns out that this hunch was right. Between the originally unplanned trip to Lencois, the five extra days in Pipa, and several extra days in other places we discovered that we were going to need to fly to make up the time.

After three trips to the travel agent in Pipa we booked onto a flight from Fortaleza to Manaus. This meant that there were two bus rides to make. One from Pipa to Natal: a mere 3.5 hour journey. The second was aboard a super nice double decker bus from Natal to Fortaleza that took about 9 hours. We were in Fortaleza the 24-25th of April.


Fortaleza is the capital of Ceara, one of the states with Brazil. This is of course SUPER cool because my little sister's name is Ceara.

Because "winter" was starting in Brazil, the touristy areas of Fortaleza were completely empty. Rebecca and I were the only tourists. The hotels were empty and the beach was deserted for the most part. It was sort of like a ghost town.

We did go and explore the big central market on the first afternoon that we were there. There was all of the usual stuff like clothes, hammocks, and cheesy touristy stuff for sale, but the coolest thing about the markets were the twisty ramps that ran across the middle of the building from one level to the next.

Our second day in Fortaleza we checked out of the hotel, stored our bags there and then walked down the waterfront to Madeira Beach. A few photos from the afternoon are included below.

Sunglasses salesman convention.

Goofin' around.

Lifeguard Stand