MORRO BRANCO

  Morro Branco is a small village located on the Ceara coastline about 85Km from Fortaleza.  We spent a good hour and a half picking everybody up from various parts of Fortaleza, and then headed on out.  We stopped at a craft shop for half an hour, but quite honestly I was done within 10 minutes.  It was predominantly all clothes with a few souvenirs thrown in that I wasn't that impressed with.

There was also a rockin' little band playing outside, and I took a listen to their Brazilian styled music.

  We were then given the option of taking a 21/2 hour buggy ride at an extra cost of about £14 or staying on the coach and going to the beach.  As I still have a few hundred reails, I threw caution to the wind and opted to go with the buggy.  We were first taken through a local craft fair by a guide, and here there were some really nice things although most of them too heavy to think of bringing back, seeing as I'm near the weight limit (for internal flights at leat).  However I did buy a selection of small bottles filled with layers of different coloured sand, which I gather is something of a local speciality. I was allocated along with a bunch of three girls, who all spoke a bit of English and told me if I needed any help to just ask!  Our guide then led the way to the Morro Branco rocks.  Enroute there was a spectacular view of the beach, and a quaint little church.

   The girls kept snapping pictures of each other and also offered to take pictures of me with my camera.  It seemed churlish to refuse.

  We soon started approaching the red rocks, which I must admit presented a spectacular sight.

My buggy companies (two of them anyway).

Oops! how did she get it in the picture!

  We then came down to the beach where our buggies were waiting for us.  I sat in the front next to the driver whilst the girls sat at the back looking over the top of the roof and getting blown to pieces.

 We then whizzed off along the beach often going close to the in-coming waves which produced shreiks of horror from the girls.  Fortunately the sea was on the driver's side of the buggy!

 After a lengthy drive we turned right and proceeded inland over vast rolling sand dunes.  Our objective was

an inland lake.  We parked up there and had 10 minutes to look around.

                               The girls were still busy taking pictures of each other!

The driver then drove us down the beach to a point where you could access a cave by wading through the incoming waves.  The girls were all for it, but then they simply took their clothes off and underneath had bikinis on.  I had no such inner clothing, so I proceed as I was.  I promptly mis-judged an incoming wave and got completely drenched.  Well to be fair I think the people in front of me held me up so it may not have been a total mis-judgement, well that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I decided it was time to reciprocate and offered to take a photo of all three girls with their camera.  It was an offer that was accepted.  I'm glad to say I managed to get back to the buggy without getting anything else but my ankles wet.  From  three driver took us to a hotel where we rendezvoused with our guide and the coach.  However we had two hours to spend here so I decided to have my main meal early and went for a filet minion in Rocquefort cheese sauce with rice and mash.  And damn tasty it was too.  I wandered around for the last half hour taking some pictures of the surrounds.

 I won't like to fall foul of one of those, they look particularly vicious!

Just before 3.45pm I reported back to the coach.  People had moved around and taken different seats, so I too moved as mine was taken.  I was immediately accosted by the lady acoss the aisle from me.  Or rather more accurately, her daughter (who spoke some English) asked the questions that she posed. Then the lady in the row behind joined in, her English was very good, so she acted as interpreter.  They wanted to know where I was from, where I had been, what I thought of Brazil.  When the original woman heard of my travels she shook my hand and told me she thought I was very brave!  The guide came round and asked me if I would like to go on any more trips on Monday.  I said no, but I might do on Wednesday.  The good English speaker recommended one of the trips, she had been on it yesterday and thought it was excellent.  I put myself down for it for Wednesday.  The original woman with the daughter then started saying things in Portugese, much to her daughter's embarrassment, and nobody translated what she was saying!  I decided to close my eyes and feign sleep, but guess what I didn't need to feign it - the real think came along quickly enough.  I got off at the Cocal at 6.00pm after saying goodbye to everybody.

Adam phoned soon afterwards, and told me he had booked an apartment in Spain from 8th - 18th August and asked me if I would like to join him and Karen and Leia.  I replied in the affirmative, all I now need to do is to find a flight.