First Impressions of Fortaleza

The place I was staying in Fortaleza was only five minutes away from the beach. I am not much of a beach person, but I was excited to see the ocean. It had been too long. I don't really bgetting into the water but I love to sit at the beach and look at the water and read. The ocean is so powerful but at the same time calming. I was therefore extremely excited about being so close to the ocean.

After getting settled, meaning getting to my room taking a shower and changing, I made my way to the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. The beach itself was nothing compared to the beaches in Jamaica but just being near the water and having the ocean breeze was great. The breeze from the ocean was so strong, I am sure it could knock a small child down. Even though I was excited to be by the beach, I was also sort of homesick. I began to start thinking about Jamaica and how I had not been there in over 3 years and had not seen my parents for that long also.

To push the homesick feeling to back of my mind I decided to do what I do best. Explore! By the beach there was walking strip, called Beira Mar, parallel to the beach. There were also many restaurants and coconut water vendors. At the end of the walking path was a large fish market. Fish is one of the main foods here in Fortaleza. Most restaurants in Fortaleza will have several fish dishes. That is definitely a treat for me because I love eating fish.

Another treat along the way was a nightly craft market and vendors selling a lot different foods I love! They were selling: milho verde or corn not sweet corn regular salty corn which I prefer; popcorn, both sweet and salty; ice-cream; popsicles; tapioca (local bread-like thing made from cassava flour); nuts especially cashews, because Ceara is one of the main producers of cashew in the world; and a whole lot other foods.

Beside the obvious difference of being by the ocean, I noticed several difference between Fortaleza and many of the places I have been in Brazil. Even though Fortaleza is a tourist city and I was in the tourist area I could see that Fortaleza and possible the state of Ceara is poorer than the states in Central and South Brazil. There were much more people begging and more people and children living on the streets than in other cities. What I found interesting was the fact that these people didn´t really sleep on the pavement they had mattresses and sheets, which would appear at night. In the morning when I would do my exercise along the beach I would see several people sleeping on mattresses along Beira Mar.

The infrastructures were also poorer. Outside of the touristy places there were many dilapidated houses and buildings. The roads were also very poor condition. The drivers have to play hop-scotch to avoid falling into the many potholes. Another thing was the garbage, several city roads had a lot of trash on the sidewalks.

Even though Ceara´s infrastructure is not as good as that of the states in the south, I am glad I had the opportunity to visit the state. I am getting a better picture of Brazil. I am getting to see ethnic the diversity in people and the disparity between the north and south of the country, which is so often spoken about.