Fortaleza

Fortaleza – think any Mexican industrial town and put an oil refinery and a container port beside it and you have pretty much got Fortaleza. They do have some beaches, but they have rusty looking sand and silty green water – not exactly five star. The highlight of the day was the drink of cashew pod juice we had at the H Stern jewelry store during a shopping stop on the bus tour. The temperature in town was probably in the low 90s with a nice breeze from the east.

Fortaleza is located just 3° 35' below the Equator. The word fortaleza is Portuguese for fortress. The city is one of Brazil's largest cities and is the state capitol of the state of Ceara. There are about 2,400,000 people.

We visited the Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown, the Dragao do Mar Cultural Center, the beach, Central Market, the English Bridge and H Stern jewelry store located in a high end hotel. It was a nice ride around town on a Sunday morning. Almost everything was closed and the traffic was light.

The main cathedral does not have candles because the poor people took them home to use as light, so they quit doing candles. The building was started in 1938 and it wasn't finished in the 1970s. The Pope announced that he was going to visit Fortaleza, so the city put a surcharge on the public water bills to pay for finishing the cathedral before the Pope arrived. I think they put it on the water bill because that is a bill everybody has to pay, like it or not. They can use candles for light and charcoal for cooking, but they do have to have the water.

At the central market I bought a mango slushie. It took a while for me to get it. One of the tour guides was passing orders for the folks on her bus to the guy on the machine and bypassing those of us in line. I told her I was in line, so she had me move in front of her, but then she was shouting her orders over my shoulder. She was going to be sure to take care of her bus passengers and to heck with the rest of us. Working for tips, I think. Fortunately I had a 5 Rial bill that Harriet Christenberry Hecock had given to Libby, so when he put down a mango slushie that the guide had ordered, I handed him the money and grabbed the drink. Now I have the 1 rial coin that I got in change. The mango slushie was very good and much needed at that moment. Thank you, Harriet.

The price for a beer on the English Bridge beach pier was 2.50 rials which is about 1 dollar. The mango slushie at 4 rials was about $1.75. These are real prices because this is not really a tourist town.

In Portugese, they do not pronounce the R like we do; it is more of a strong harsh H sound. The money is the Rial, which is pronounced “Hey Oh” with maybe just a little L sound on the end. We are now going to our next port stop in Recife, which they pronounce as “hesif” with maybe a little bit of an “ay” sound on the end.

The picture we picked for this port is Libby under a Golden Rain tree growing at the entrance to the English Bridge. We had Golden Rain trees growing at the front of our house when we bought it 25 years ago. They didn't look quite like this one. Ours were pencil thin and didn't bloom because they were in full shade. The Australian lady in our tour didn't want a picture of this tree because she has one in her yard at home.

Libby has a cold. She didn't want to go to dinner, so I brought her pizza from the 24 hour pizza server on the Lido Deck. Pizza Rustica it was with cheese and pepperoni.