We hugged and had the obligatory kiss on each cheek (not that this was a problem seeing I had flown 3,000 miles to see Anne), and everything went well, except for the fact I didn’t speak any Portuguese and Anne didn’t speak any English. It was an interesting exercise getting things done with sign language and just assuming what the next steps would be.

How we squeezed all my luggage plus three people into Anne’s little Fiat is beyond me, but we managed. As we rode in from the airport, about a twenty-minute drive, I began to notice things about the area, like the heat…quite a bit different than San Diego, more heat and more humidity.

On that drive, you also get to feel one part of Fortaleza which, I’m told, separates it from cities in the south…the roads. They are a long way from what a person coming from North America would expect. They are very bumpy and there are lots of places that appeared to need repair pretty badly, and lots of holes! There was also a lot of graffiti!

First stop was the apartment that Anne had found for me.

It was on the 19th floor out of 23 in the building, just three blocks from the beach, as I found out when we got to the floor and I first enjoyed the view from my balcony. The apartment had two bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. There’ll be more about the bathrooms later.

The apartment was, I thought, furnished rather sparingly, but I understand from spending time in Barbados along with Cuba and the Dominican Republic, that carpet is not a good idea where there’s no air conditioning as mold is an enemy in the tropics. So I had tile floors throughout.

The kitchen was small, but certainly enough for one person, and probably two.

It did have a TV and a balcony, from which the view was super. I could see the South Atlantic three blocks in front of me, plus up and down the beach for quite a distance.

The whole waterfront area of Fortaleza, along with many other areas stretching back from the beaches, have been totally rebuilt in the last 20 years, with many beautiful condo towers surrounding my building, and the development of new condo towers continues at an incredible pace. One wonders where the city will find residents for these beautiful buildings, but one of the biggest shortages in the city is probably building cranes.

The city of Fortaleza has some kind of regulation as to the height of all their new condo towers. None seem to be more than 23 floors, which means that, as you move further back from the ocean you still have a good view because the land rises, and the buildings on the water are not tall enough to impede your view from the upper floors. My apartment building is 22 floors tall, and I am on the 19.

Because the balcony is open, even on the upper floors, there is almost always a breeze off the ocean. Many balconies, although not mine, have hooks planted in the walls for hammocks, or redes, which is pronounced almost like hedges, because the “r” is sounded like an “h” in Portuguese. Redes are used regularly for sleeping by many Brazilians.

From the balcony, I could see ships at the refueling dock in the harbor, as well as residents and tourists, strolling, walking, jogging, running or just socializing along the Beira Mar. Beira Mar is the avenida, which runs parallel to the ocean, in front of the many high-rise hotels and condo buildings along the waterfront.

After stopping at the apartment to drop off luggage and get washed up, it was off to a well-known local restaurant called Coco Bambu! Much of Coco Bambu is open air, as in limited walls. Many restaurants here are built with only a roof to shield patrons from the sun during the day, and occasional showers in the rainy season. Anne, Diogo, Rafaela and I had a great meal and I had my first chance to sample the tasty Brazilian Pilsen beer produced by Antarctica.

That first night was the warmest of the entire month I was in Fortaleza, but after that, at least it seemed cooler for sleeping. My apartment didn’t have air conditioning, but there were ceiling fans in the dining area and both bedrooms.  I found over time, that the fans were all you really needed in most cases, because there was great cross-ventilation.

After arranging for pickup in the morning, and not being able to fall asleep right away, I spent a couple of hours looking out over the ocean from my balcony on the 19th floor, three blocks from the beach. The evening had been a great introduction to Brazil and to Fortaleza, even though communication was definitely hampered by my lack of Portuguese.

The big event Sunday was a birthday party for a Brazilian couple, Alex and Ana Paulo, who actually lived on another floor in my building.  Alex is a great resource because he works as a guide for tourists visiting the Fortaleza area. I was picked up at noon for the party, at a rented house, used for gatherings like this, with a great pool and a BBQ area. It’s right next to a resort called Beach Park.  The park, which bills itself as the largest water resort in South America, is one of the highlights of any trip to Fortaleza. We spent much time in the pool, along with eating the BBQ’ed food and drinking caipirinhas, made with a kind of sugar brandy produced locally called cachaca.

Caipirinha is a very simple to prepare drink, made with cachaca, sugar and lime; there are several variations on the "correct" way of preparing it, but basically, it’s like this: slice a medium sized lime, put a few slices in a wide short glass; pour a few spoonfuls of sugar; using a wooden piece (specific for the job), crush the lime, to get its juice mixed with the sugar; pour cachaca and add ice.  A word of warning…Caipirinhas can be “harmful to your health”, particularly if you have more than two!!!  I mean health in terms of walking in a straight line!!! During the afternoon, there was a lot of horseplay in the pool and dancing to the local brand of music called “forro” produced by a small group of musicians hired for the afternoon.

All in all, it was the best party I had been to in years…pretty remarkable, considering I didn’t speak Portuguese! I got a full night’s sleep and didn’t find it uncomfortable at all.  I didn’t even need a sheet over me. The next day saw my first visit to a cyber café.  In this case, it’s a misnomer as no food is served, but it seems the name has become a generic, and applies to any establishment, which supplies Internet access for a price. There are many in the central and beachfront areas of Fortaleza so computer communication is not a problem for the many tourists here.

The cyber café is in one of several major shopping centers about a ten-minute walk from my apartment. From the Beira Mar beach area, almost everything you might need is within a short walking distance. The café charges R$3 for an hour of Internet time, but the rates in the city do vary quite a bit and depend on whether it’s “high” season, usually referred to as July and August, December, January and February.

The supermarket in a shopping center, one of three in the central area of Aldeota, called Center Um, or Center One, which was also home to a 24 hour banking machine handling most kinds of credit cards.  Access to one or more of these is a valuable resource for tourists from outside Brazil, as they cannot open bank accounts here without a CPF card, which is similar to a Social Security card in the US.  These can be obtained in fairly short order but it entails an application with documentation and most of the time really not worth the effort for tourists here for a couple of weeks. I found it was just as easy to use the bank machine as the many  “cash stores”, or money changing kiosks. You still should be aware of the charges for the various money changing services. While at the supermarket, Anne and I stocked up on some items that the apartment, although pretty well equipped, was missing.

At around midday, we met one of Anne’s close friends, Dhyana, at a restaurant, which specialized in salads.  I had decided before leaving for Brazil that if I wanted to find out what it would be like to live there, I had better just eat what was ordered by my friends and see if I liked it.  This turned out to be an unexpected surprise.  I’m not really an “adventurous eater”, but almost everything I tried in Brazil was great!  Unfortunately, not being a seafood lover, I couldn’t take advantage of the great choice in Brazilian seafood.

Dhyana speaks English fairly well, though he was born and raised near Sao Paulo thirty-five years ago. His knowledge was put to good use over the length of time I was in Fortaleza.

I spent much of the daytime over the next couple of weeks with Anne as she carried on with normal living in Fortaleza.

One of the highlights of that time was a weekend at a pousada in Guaramiranga, a small town in the hills about 100 Km inland from Fortaleza.  After lunch at a pink bistro on the main street, it was on to the pousada, very picturesque and quaint, with each pastel shaded chalet housing two couples.

The chalets were on a hillside, from where we see the outline of an old monastery, shaded by a couple of very tall palms, against the skyline in the distance.  A painter would have set up an easel right away!

Speaking of artists, Villa Lautrec, a restaurant featuring French cuisine, is located on the outskirts of Guaramiranga. It’s named, of course, for the famous French artist and is one of the most amazing eating-places I have ever seen. Built inside an old flour mill, with the exterior left intact, complete with water wheel and a huge pond covered with water lilies, it would be at home anywhere in the world. The view at night, with the pond surrounded by dim lighting only a few inches off the ground, is truly spectacular and I found it breathtaking.  The sound is of hundreds of frogs letting potential mates know their whereabouts. There are huge picture windows so patrons can enjoy the view. The food was truly world class, and inexpensive by North American or European standards.

Attached to the restaurant is a rather unique bar, with construction of dark wood, where I spotted some of the locals who own weekend homes in the area.  Apparently there is a very well heeled community surrounding Guaramiranga that “weekend” there as an escape from the beach heat of Fortaleza.  The restaurant has a decidedly European flavor, with one lady seated at the bar waving one of those foot long cigarette holders!

The town is also home to a famous jazz festival and has a well maintained arts community.

Anne and I also spent a weekend each at two other beaches, Mundau and Canoa Quebrada. Unfortunately, being the rainy season in January and February, it was a very wet weekend in Mundau (read mosquitoes…and no screens!), but the weather was great for Canoa Quebrada, which I enjoyed very much.

I have described Canoa Quebrada to friends as what one of the little towns along the southern California coast would have been like in the late sixties…like Ocean Beach or Pacific Beach…in other words, what I would call “funky little surf towns”!

In Canoa Quebrada, you get the immediate impression that hippies are alive and well!  The main street during a weekend in tourist season is alive with backpacks and bandanas, from all over Europe and other parts of Brazil and South America.

The beach itself at Canoa Quebrada, as is the case all along the northeast coast of this beautiful country, is incredible.  The surf can be high enough for mild surfing or it can be relatively calm, depending on whether a storm has passed by at sea.  In various shades of green, the South Atlantic is warm and wonderful.  The beach has a gradual slope, for the most part.

The main street of Canoa Quebrada, called Broadway, and mostly closed off to motor vehicle traffic, is truly a sight to behold on a Saturday night in high season, December to March and July and August.  It is jam packed with people on their way back to a pousada after a day at the beach, which is where Broadway ends, looking for a restaurant or one of the cyber cafes, or just people watching.

There are several hostels along Broadway, and they are home to many of the headband and backpack-wearing travelers.

The many local watering holes are full of a mix of tourists, mostly European, but with a sprinkling of English being heard.  They will probably be enjoying a cervaza, the Portuguese word for beer or ale.  You might even run across the odd North American although the United States and Canada have, for the most part, not discovered the secrets of Brazil.

One of the reasons for my desire to visit Canoa Quebrada had to do with the fact one of the people I had met on-line and contributed to my knowledge of Brazil lived near the town.

His name is also John and, while of Scots birth, he grew up and was educated in Canada. He and his Brazilian wife have lived in the Canoa Quebrada area for over five years.

Unfortunately, my efforts to make contact with him during this trip were doomed to failure and our first meeting had to wait until my second trip to Brazil.

After a month in Fortaleza, Brazil, I climbed back on a jet bound for Sao Paulo, Houston and then Toronto with the determination to be back in Brazil in six months or less.

It turned out to be two months, but the story of why, is for another time.

• Traveling Through Fortaleza Ceara ~ Adventure In Brazil ~ by John Mueller.