Day 27 – Fortaleza, Brazil

Fortaleza is a coastal city in North East Brazil and is its fourth largest city with a population of 2.5 million people. It has a tropical climate with high humidity in the rainy season. The temperature at midday today was 35 degrees 🥵 but this was significantly relieved by the onshore breeze.

Unfortunately Fortaleza has a high rate of poverty and also a very high rate of violence and gang and drug related crime. There is certainly a very obvious divide between the poor and wealthy areas and we certainly would not fancy wandering down the wrong street or walking about a night. We were warned by the ship not to take any valuables on shore or carry much cash. I kept my bank card in my bra! That said, we did enjoy having a good mooch around the Mercado Central (central market) and the cathedral next door. It was all a bit of a rush due to the ship being 4 hours late docking, but we still managed to come home laden down with bargains and we did have fun bartering with the enthusiastic stallholders. We knew we had been taken advantage of when we noticed the two chaps at one stall ‘high-fiving’ each other as we walked away, but we didn’t mind in the least because we were happy with our new shoes and the transaction was conducted in the utmost good humour, even though nobody could understand what the others were saying. 🤓