ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

WEDNESDAY 20th JULY

  Yet another quiet day in Fortaleza.  I decided to get some work done for Charly in the morning and so stayed in my room.  About midday the phoned tinkled very quietly so much so that I wasn't sure if I had imagined it.  I lifted the receiver and said "hello" and a voice gabbled at me in Portugese.  I said I didn't speak Portugese only English but this failed to stem the flow.  Eventually the caller hung up.  An hour or so later the same thing happened.  I said emphatically "No comprendo Portugese" - this time the message got through.  However seconds later there was a woman at my door gabbling away at me.  I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.  However the presence of the cleaning lady with her trolley in the background gave me a clue.  "You want to clean my room?" - I mimed sweeping the floor.  This met with approval all round.  "OK I'll be off in a minute".  Effectively I was turfed out of my own room!

  I strolled down to the beach, there was hazy cloud overhead so I didn't bother with sun block, not that I would have had time to put it on before I was turfed out.  I called in at the travel agents and inquired about the city tours and booked myself in for Saturday.  They will collect me from the hotel at 8.20.  I'm contemplating other tours on offer.  I eventually got to the beach, lay on the sand a while, paddled in the sea and came back.

  I came across an odd bit of sculpture, basically a block of concrete with a hole in it.  Are you supposed to look through it, a sort of porthole on the sea.  See what you think.

  I was again struck by the incongruitity of the various buildings around.  This shop, located in the middle of a residential area without any other shops in the vicinity, struck me as a prime example of this South American eccentricty.

  I have to say that the old Cane Spirit and Coke do go pretty well together, I'm just having one as a nightcap before retiring.