Natal

As we sailed into the harbour of Natal - which means Christmas in Portuguese - this morning, we quickly discovered that there is no harbour here, but rather the River Potengi where we found ourselves to be the only cruise ship at dock.

Natal is another large Brazilian city, slightly under one million people. If we have learned nothing else on this trip, it’s that Brazilians love their beaches and I would have to say that Natal may have the best beaches yet – no sharks here. The natural coral reefs also provide a nice shelter from the Trade Winds and the pounding surf.

Today, we rode at the front of a modern bus with all seats on the second floor. The views were excellent from our vantage point, but this was not an easy vehicle to maneuver the narrow streets and I’m glad I wasn’t doing the driving.

The Trade winds I mentioned earlier do a nice job of moving the sand around, as we experienced sand covered roads and sidewalks. There are also kilometers of dunes surrounding the city.

One prominent landmark is the large suspension bridge we sailed under coming up the river. Our bus crossed it a couple of times just to allow us to appreciate the view.

One of our photo stops included some refreshing coconut water. Dawn’s kind of starting to like these things, but we’ll never find them this fresh at home.

Our last stop today was at a tourism shop set up in a former prison that still sported its bars and cell numbers. The quality of shopping was pretty good here with the dominant item for sale being lace table clothes and dresses and pottery ladies in traditional dress.

We left port at 3:00 p.m. today and headed towards Africa. The sundeck was a happening place as most guests gathered for the last look at land for the next three days. There were lots of boats along the shore of the river, some operational shrimp boats and others derelict.

With a last look at the fort protecting the entrance to the river, we sailed back under the Newton Navarro suspension bridge and out into the ocean.

Whether or not I blog for the next three days will be determined by what’s going on onboard. We are crossing the equator at noon tomorrow, so that’s noteworthy, but I think I’ll be a little light on photos.