Fortaleza, Day 24

Woke up to a subtle yellow dawn on our dune. During the night we were only bothered by two guys asking what we were doing, and a horse fighting a dog. I think they were just checking we were ok (the two guys, not the animals), you can do what you want here. Picked up our bads and bade farewell to Jamie at the hostel. Definitely going to take up his offer of a room in Rio. We were all pretty much coated in sand so it was a relief, seven boring hours later, to get to Fortaleza, find the girls hostel and clean up a bit.

Munched down a few salgados and walked around for a few hours. Fortaleza, at a glance, lacks the colonial charm of Sao Luis, and is too big to be as quietly beautiful as Jeri, but I think we'll have a good few nights here. Renaud has told us that the best night in the Americas is here on Monday, hope he is right.

Missed dinner cause Rob and I needed to get a few hours kip before the carnival we went to. Just about managed to rouse ourselves and bus over there. Outside were lines of taxis and groups of mainly young Brazilians milling about, a lot of them nailing suspicious looking bottle of coke. Found out why when we got in and it was R$3 for a beer, and a lot more for anything else. When we first got in, though, some people couldn't even stand up. Even so this kind of party works in Brazil when it could never happen in England. We only had cheap tickets so couldn't walk in the cordoned off area next to the circling trucks. There were thousands of people everywhere though, all just going wild the whole time, so it didn't really matter.

Everyone was dancing and into it, none of the self-conscious posteuring that would hamper a similar event at home. I think the bands who played live and loud on top of the trucks were quite famous, but to be honest they were pretty bad: cheesey Brazilian 'forro'. Funny night, though, capped off when it started to rain quite torrentially, which meant the end for about half the people but everyone left just went even more insane, splashing around. Can't imagine what the Rio carnival is like; much bigger, lnonger and busier at least. Crammed onto typically unsafe buses to get home. Almost felt like we didn't quite make the most of the night, not being able to afford more than one beer. This is almost like going to Tiger Tiger sobre, just with a lot more character (*edit this comparison is way too harsh, nothing is like going to Tiger Tiger sobre or drunk). There was still the sense, though, that everone else was having a lot more fun than you.