On a trip to Natal, Brazil’s northeast beach capit
The next day I wake up covered in mosquito bites, Saskia is looking radiant and ready to hit the streets again. She has memorised the guidebook and we are soon on the winding coast road to Porto Negre. This time we take a bus instead of inflicting further damage on our feet. As we roll towards the coast it seems that Natal has been built solely from the outskirts of other towns, it is the ultimate suburban nightmare. A fat woman falls onto my lap as we take a corner at speed, we pass some shopping centres, some dusty football pitches – urban sprawl under an unforgiving sky. The guidebooks tout Natal as one of the beach capitals of the northeast.
After an hour we arrive at a small square in the middle of nowhere. The bus terminates here. There is a long low white building, which may or may not be a church, and some crinkle faced, toothless women are milling around purposefully. We ask the conductor how to get to Pirangi and he speaks in a low whisper. It is like he is imparting terrible religious truths to us or perhaps he is ashamed to admit that this scrub of land actually has a name. He organises us a free ride (something which happened time and time again in Natal) for us with a passing bus which twists and turns down narrow cobbled streets. I tell Saskia it reminds me of Sicily and she reminds me that I wasn’t there with her.
The ride to Pirangi is sheer poetry. Off the main highway we bump along dusty roads, mud and red brick houses huddled close to the road and we continually stop to let weary donkeys, loaded with sacks of corn, pass. In one town there is a market and as the bus arrives it blows up clouds of dust. The stallholders must spend hours each day wiping the dust from their fruit. Each stall has bananas, pineapples and some graviolas. Hung on hooks as they are they look like a sculpture in fruit of the Brazilian flag.
The Caju Tree
When we arrive at Pirangi we walk around the world’s largest caju tree. It has a circumference of some 500m and is still growing. I ask the bored looking guide, who has attached himself to us, if he thinks that the tree is just trying to go somewhere a little more lively. He is most definitely not impressed.
Once our pilgrimage is over we sit in a bar and watch a tourist boat bob along the coast. The waiter tries to sell us a trip but when we ask him if it is a worthwhile trip he looks hesitant and tells us that the special of the day is lobster, and that is definitely very good.
Later that night we are back in our hotel. I am enthusing about caju trees and the bus trip, Saskia is reading the guidebook. She is reading aloud about Pria das Artistas and its ‘vibrant nightlife’. She tells me that, according to the guidebook, it can get a little sleazy at night. She doesn’t know this word and after I explain it she declares that we are going to go downtown and watch the action unfold.
The strip is coming alive a little and a small market is beginning to set itself up, a few restaurants have waiters out on the street trying to entice customers in. They all look like they have just found out that their wife’s have just left them and taken the fridge full of beer as well. One in particular looks like someone has just shot his dog. Business, they assure me, is not good, and they spend the night making lewd comments to any girls unfortunate to fall into their sphere of existence.
The craft market is a little better and is a jumble of 70 stalls and shops selling touristy things – like hammocks, ceramic caju (of which I buy a significant number), roasted caju nuts and cheap t-shirts. Again business is not good and the owner of one cashew nut stall chases us around with a kilo bag of nuts pleading with us to try them. People seem both genuinely surprised and happy when we buy things. They don’t, however, bargain.
We stop at a juice stand whose sign proclaims 50 different juices. I am keen to try fig juice as I am a new convert to the fruit and want now to experience it in all forms. Saskia orders some exotic fruit neither of us have heard of. Unfortunately, none of these are available and the owner looks surprised we even imagined they would be. What he does eventually serve us with are sublime and we sit happily on the seat front waiting for some sleaze to happen. Saskia is happy that she has learnt a new word.
We walk back to the pizza restaurant and browse the menu. I order a beer, being English it is a cultural reflex and I can no more sit in a bar on the beach eating pizza without beer than I can fly. The waitress chews her lip and looks at me with dark eyes. I repeat my order thinking that she hasn’t understood.
I take one long swallow of beer and suddenly police surround us. Two police beach buggies skid to a halt and two fresh faced recruits come running over. They have their hands on their hip holsters. The waitress rushes over to intercept them before they reach our table and a frantic conversation takes place. The older officer is pointing a short stubby finger at us and the two young recruits look ready for trouble. Saskia leans across the table and asks me accusingly if I have been here before. She knows that I am no stranger to this kind of thing. After some tense moments the police leave, but not before throwing us a few more hard looks.
Read all four parts!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four