On a trip to Natal, Brazil’s northeast beach capit
We reach a gas station that sells cold drinks. We buy three bottles of fruit cocktail and the round-faced cashier follows us to the door. She stands blinking in the sunlight stretching her limbs like she has just woken from a long coma – I expect to see cobwebs in her hair – she looks as surprised as us to find herself in a gas station miles from anywhere.
We walk, mile after mile of deserted beaches. We talk about how clean Natal is compared to Fortaleza. We discuss the lack of graffiti and how few churches there are in Natal. More kilometres pass. We decide that, logically speaking, it must therefore be the religious people of Fortaleza who are responsible for all the graffiti. This makes sense to us on the deserted road. I try to sing some Evita – the notes hang dead in the air.
We talk about Bruce Chatwin, who once said that if man walks far enough he doesn’t need a God. We wonder if this was a typo and what he actually said was that if man walks far enough he doesn’t need a dog. This seems more logical as we bake under the afternoon’s sun.
I start to fantasise about a brewery. A few kilometres later one appears. At first, I am sceptical. I kick it, prod it and walk round it examining every brick. I convince myself that it is indeed real. Typically, it’s closed.
We stand on the side of the road gently burning and a taxi cruises us three of four times. We pretend to be interested in the wire fence behind us. Another taxi pulls up, it’s battered and dented and looks like it might fall apart at any second.
“Where are you going?”
“We don’t know,”
“Let me take you there, only 2R$ per person.”
How could we refuse such charm?
Claudio is a man of passion and integrity. He wants compulsory English lessons for all taxi drivers though he himself speaks not a word, he wants all tourist taxis to be registered and the quality of service to be monitored; his car is held together by bits of string and chewing gum.
Porto Negre
He drops us at a bar in Porto Negre. It’s a sad little beach town, no more than a strip of sunshades on the beach, some places to eat and some pousadas. A 50m high sand dune, fenced off less anyone should try to have some fun and climb it, looms over the far end of town. It feels like a border town. Claudio arranges to pick us up in ninety minutes, which is about the time we think we can have fun here.
We sit in a bar, cold beer, crunchy prawn soup. The androgynous owner holds court with an accordion in the far corner. Beer never tasted so good. Claudio arrives early for us, but tells us to take our time, like everyone we meet here he is good natured, friendly and in no hurry.
The brewery
We arrive back at the brewery. It looks like the Lass In Manchester, all gleaming copper pipes and stainless steel vats. At 5pm on a Friday night its empty and we are the only customers. The staff fight to serve us, turn on some music and bring us a menu. They look happy to have something to do and bring us two special beers. After several hours a red-faced man with a cellular phone glued to his ear wanders in. He sits and plays with his beer. It is obvious that he hasn’t got anywhere better to be.
We hitch back to the centre of Natal. It is totally deserted, nothing is open. A group of skate boarders rush out of the night and shoot down a side alley. When they are gone the city breathes a sigh of relief. It reminds me of all the reasons I left small town England behind and why I can never go back.
Our hotel has a restaurant. The room is dark with heavy stained wood, badly hung prints of French scenes and some atrocious tapestries. In a side room is a noisy card school where a group of purple-rinsed pensioners are sitting over a poker game and flicking ash over the green baize.
The waiter, who looks terribly ill, brings us over a menu. We order soup and salad, not because we are hungry, just because it is too early to sleep. There is no soup; there is no salad, the waiter thinks that perhaps he might be able to find us some bread left over from breakfast. We leave him to his illness and return once more to the streets. The streets are as the grave and we return, defeated, to our room.
The beds are hard and the sheets remind me of an institution. I am kept awake all night by a slow tapping sound. I wonder if the guy next door is indulging in a little late night self crucifixion to pass the time amongst the religious tapestries.
Read all four parts!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four