Vacation city Natal

We stayed with a friend who has an apartment in Pirangi du Norte just by the beach.  Breakfast was a homemade tapioca pancake with cheese and some fruit.  We~ve never eaten tapioca this way and we never knew that it is a traditional food of south american countries as well.  Anyhow, anything with tapioca is bound to taste good.  After a morning stroll along the beach which we pretty much had it all for ourselves becuz people who have houses along the beach don~t usually come in the winter.  It~s one of the most beautiful beaches we~ve been to.  Yves learned to surf in the crystal clear beach in the middle of the day and we visited the world~s largest cashew (caju) tree in the world.  By the way, caju fruit tastes a bit like jackfruit which Yves loves very much.  Never knew cashew is from a fruit like this... i~ll add picture later (camera cable lost...) then we head to a fancy per kilo restaurant for lunch.  We had goat gut wrapped in goat intestine for the first time in our lives... it~s alright but i don~t fancy eating it again.

Went home for a shower and the guys took a nap while i read on the hammock which the family hang in the solarium that faces the beach.  A relaxing day like this is just too rare for the 2 of us... but all the same we treasure our time here.  This is even better than going to a resort in Cancun!!

Dinner @ a restaurant called Casa de Taipa located in a downtown area where the hippest bars and clubs are opened recently.  My tapioca pancake with cinnamon and banana and Yves~ which has cheese and hame etc are both very soft and tasty.  After dinner we bought a beer from a guy on the street and our friend ran into one of the girls he met a few days ago so we chatted for a bit.  A lot of men, especially Italian men come to Natal to find beautiful Brazilian girls as companion and many Brazilian girls are here to be picked hoping they~ll be lucky enough to find an European man to marry.

Day 2 we went for buggy ride.  It~s sooooo much fun!  Yves and I sat at the back and all we had was a bar for us to hold on to.  We have a very experienced and safe driver though.  He stopped once in a while at different spots -- a beautiful clear natural pond, an oasis, a hill top overlooking a pond, sand boarding playground where you slide into a pool, ziplines that goes from hill top to a lake (not to mention that ziplines are just regular ropes... but we don~t care anymore since it~s the best game of the day), a nice small beach, t he golden dune... all of these became tourist traps when locals begin to sell you anything they can think of... a drink of beer, coconut, kids holding diff kinds of lizards and stuff, donkey ride, camel ride.

Lunch was at this restaurant by a fishing village where you pick a fish or lobster or shrimp and theyd grill it for you.  Ours was big enough that 3 of us can barely finish (Yves ate half of it).

We got back at around 4pm and went home for a rest.  Then we had dinner at our friend~s family friend~s restaurant called Con Xin China.  It~s the closest thing to Chinese food you can find in Natal.  And the Bife we had was really like Chinese stir fried vermicilli with meat and veggie.  A lot better than some in Toronto too.  Went back to the night club area again for a quick beer before we headed to the airport.