Back in Pipa for Christmas eve and who better to spend it with than another of my Brazil-dwelling expat friends, part of my adopted family of global misfits. He's a wonderful chap from Spain, and I meet him and his friend at Pousada da Praia - we have a beautiful room with views across the beach and it would be extremely romantic were we not three straight blokes. I try to spice things up by picking up 3 argie and italian girls on the beach earlier, but I lose them to a dope-smoking surfer. The same one who got high the week before and forgot to drive my Russian friends back from the beach after a surf lesson. At least he forgot to charge as well.
Room with a view
Christmas eve in Pipa, we eat some of the best fresh tuna I have ever tasted. Later we celebrate at the only bar which is open, which belongs to a local friend so I feel a little more at home. There's no scenery, so being with Spaniards I get pretty drunk, and lose at table football. An uncountable number of caipirinhas later the Spaniards pretend we’re doing a runner without paying. I’m gullible and wonder if that’s true, but it’s not anyway I didn’t stop to say goodbye and merry xmas to my bar-owning friend so I feel guilty. But drunken guilty isn’t half as bad.
Christmas day
Hangover and several hours driving to be done, which we share. First hour over countless speed bumps that threaten to bring back the capirinhas and more, but we make it safely to the main highway, now smooth and pleasant - a great job by the Brazilian military who don't have anyone to fight so they build instead.
Stop-over in Canoa Quebrada before heading on up to Jericoacoara the next day, passing Fortaleza to pick up some hammocks at the central market.
What's your view?
Jericoacoara (Jeri)
This is my first time north of Natal - my Spanish friend invited me to join him and his friend to travel up to Jericoacoara where he used to live for a few years. I had no expectations but imagined it must have something special for him to want to live there. I was not disappointed, but my first impression was of the hotel owner whom I thought must be a robot from the awful film "AI". Any moment I expected his face to open up and a memory card would pop out labelled "pro kite-surfer v1.450".
Jeri (see above for full unpronounceable name) used to be just a fishing village now a mecca for tourists, but it retains it's charm because you can only get there by 4x4 and only registered vehicles can drive within the village itself. It has loads of touristy shops and restaurants, but the quality all-round is excellent. As usual in Brazil, and probably anywhere, the food is pretty repetitive unless you come to a very small but popular village, or a very large and cosmopolitan city.
Beach party
The next 8 days is a bit of a blur. I slept at night for a total of about 2 hours, and probably longer on sand dunes or beach. One night I woke up in the middle of a beach party, so I just stood up and carried on. Amazingly I never got a hangover. The capeta (alcaline) + capirinha (acid) + mid-fiesta siesta (base) combo seemed to work a treat.
New Year seemed to blur itself with all the other days, as anyway there wasn't much sense of time in this village. There were plenty of girls though - they came in clusters of 6 to 8 whereas blokes came in 3 or 4 packs at most, so overall the situation was what is described only in Brazil as "mulherada"
Rocking the boat
So the scene was ripe for breaking my longest period of abstinence since losing my virginity. It wasn't a great moment, but at least a beached fishing boat provided a novelty. Apart from the incoming tide, the scene was dampened by the Brazilian 2-day rule (planning ahead is not a turn-on for me, but necessary for many Brazilians to prove that they're not prostitutes)
Birthday treat
New Year's day things were to quieten down, but on the way back from the beach, I stopped for some bbq prawns next to a couple of lovely ladies, and suddenly remembered it's my birthday. This combination triggered some kind of automatic switch to flick in my unconscious, because as if by auto-pilot I found myself playing the game until the inevitable disappointing end. Technically successful (not Brazilian therefore no 2-day rule), but the effort involved left me short-changed and empty of course. I clawed some of that back the next day when she was a like a delightfully sweet strawberry I could have nibbled on her forever, but damned time got in the way, 3rd January arrived, and she was leaving. And no longer was it my birthday.
Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me... :-)
Fortaleza, 4 January 2013
Still, I had to chase the illusion, so I followed her to Fortaleza and saw her off at the airport a couple days later. There she mentioned how she'd never done such a thing before (a one-night stand), while I feigned a look of never having heard such a story before. What an arse I am. Never mind.
