Natal

I got in Natal late evening and booked a buggy tour for next day. The tour, to the north coast, was arranged with a young couple from Pernambuco (another state in the northeast of Brazil). They, Juliana and Leonardo, had been in honeymoon in Natal for a week.

The guide, Jean, took us to the white sand dunes of Genipabu. It was like a roller coaster; we drove up and down really fast on the walls of sand. It seems that any time we would overturn. Here they always ask if people want the tour with emotion or without. The difference is that, with emotion, they drive faster and higher, activating your adrenaline. The other one is a bit more behaved, but also a little scary.

We stopped on the top of some dunes in Genipabu to enjoy the view of the lagoon and the beach. Leonardo decided to hide a dromedary for some minutes. From there we went north, always driving on the sand. We stopped for a sea bath and continued to Pitangui Lake. It is a good place to bath, take out the salt from the sea and rest under the shade. Next stop it was the aero-bunda (air-butt). A string cord is used to go down from the top of a dune to the water. The height is large and the place seams to be a little precarious. Since everybody that I saw went ok, I thought there was no problem and I went down too. The way up it is a bit scary: a small cart pulled by an engine that I thought it would break down at any time. Another activity was the ski-bunda (ski-butt), where one goes down the dune on a board ending in the water. Fun!

The lunch was in a restaurant on the sand in Jacumã beach. We ate all kinds of seafood, fish, salad… In the way back we stopped in a small waterfall and by the end of the afternoon we returned to Natal. I liked the sort of raft that take only one buggy at a time to cross the river. They are, according to the guide, “balsas movidas a feijão e rapadura” (rafts powered by black beans and sugar cane sweets), a human engine. In places like that we can see that 21st century hasn’t arrived yet.

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