Day 26

Had to blearily travel for a few hours early this morning, but it was well worth it, even with the broken aircon freezing Rob and I most of the way. Morro Blanco is, at least in my experience, a really unique beach. We walked for a mile or so out of the tourist resort and the white sands were lined with intricate rock formations, which looked like old river beds. The colours were amazing; orange, red, white, green all marbling together or layering up these sediment cliffs. The rocks were incredibly fragile, breaking away when touched, it seemed like the whole mass was just hardened, dyed sand. I even crafted a couple of reading thrones into them with a stick.

We settled on a private little spot and I trekked off, only for twenty minutes or so, to scale a steep, high dune. Hard work but from the top a huge expanse opened up, a vista of beaches, thick forest, thin sandy-bedded trees, distant mountains and small lagoons. All this pierced by human mechanical innovations: transmitters, factories, windmills accompanying the small settlements. The sheer scale of it was breathtaking, I was at the highest point visible for miles and miles, its hard to judge a distance like that but it must have been fifty miles at least. A circling eagle perhaps warned me that I was near its nest so bounced back down the dune onto the beach.

For the next three or four hours we were completely alone, save one buggy which sped past. A white soft beach flanked by a wild sea and interesting landscape would be packed at home, I guess here its just one of many. So we whiled away the hours; the Europeans sunning themselves, Rob and I mainly keeping in the shade having been tickled pink in Fortaleza before. In the afternoon we saw a few more buggies but generally everwhere was quiet and serene.

Caught a bus back and hung around doing nothing for a few hours. Then we necked down a few more pastels as a base and started getting a few drinks down. At about midnight we headed down, minus Alex who had wandered off, to Pirata. The next seven or so hours were interesting, and would be memorable if I hadn't drunk a little bit too much. To be honest the club didn't live up to the impressive billing Renaud gave it. Met loads of funny people though, and a few questionable types as well, all through the night. There was even a member of 'Banana Chewing-Gum' (also played at the carnival) on stage. I must be lucky to have seen them twice.

I'm not sure if these big, set-piece parties are really my kind of thing here. Generally the ambience is better just sipping down a few beers in a busy bar district. The seedy undercurrent was exposed when we wandered around afterwards and ended up in a street full of whores mostly young and exploited. Tomorrow we're on the road again after a very little sleep. Alex turned up, having wandered off, got bad directions, got lost, not had enough money to get into the club and taxied back.