Spot the Tranny

Only a city at 3 degrees latitude can produce the fierce sort of early morning heat that greeted us in Fortaleza.  Ironically, the overnight bus was freezing and, in our Xanax induced haze, we couldn’t figure out how to shut off the vents.   In his shorts and flip-flops, it was inevitable that Juan got sick.  When we arrived at our hostel, Juan promptly fell back asleep for another five hours and I took advantage of a fast internet connection to plan more of our trip, work on our photo album and download Lie to Me episodes to watch on future long journeys (great recommendation, Pete and Amy).  We went to dinner that evening at Cemoara, another Lonely Planet pick.  The food was delicious, the wine not so much, and the waiter was the sort that mulishly refused to understand a foreigner’s attempt to speak in his language.  We ended up walking back to our hostel along the yellow-lit streets dotted with nightclubs, hookers, and trannies.  Evidently, the city is waging a (losing) war against its reputation as the sex trade capital of Brazil.^fn

One evening of playing Spot the Tranny being enough, we took advice from Danielle and others who insisted that the 14 hours of travel time to get to and from Jericoacoara would be worth it even for a single day.  “Jeri” is a small town reached by crossing through a national park of sand dunes and palm trees on a cramped open-sided bus that might have been a cattle truck in a previous life.  We arrived around sunset and it was immediately apparent why it came so highly recommended.  Jericoacoara is a lazy beach town with a distinctly international feel and streets of sand where people spend their days kitesurfing, lounging, and drinking caipirinhas on the beach.  It’s lucky that we’d already booked a bus to Belem the next day otherwise chances are good we’d still be there, among the beautiful people, drunk as fish.  We only had time for a quick horse ride to Pedra Furada – a natural rock arch just outside of town described as emblematic of Jeri.  It was a lovely ride (although we don’t recommend riding horses in bathing suits and flip-flops…) but the arch itself was a tad underwhelming, especially when compared to Utah’s arches.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but we can say with certainty that spending only 20 hours in Jericoacoara was a mistake.  So was spending any time in Fortaleza…

More pictures here:

Jericoacoara

Fn.  Juan might have made that up.