Canoa Quebrada

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Canoa Quebrada is a beach located in Ceara, about a two hour drive from the city of Fortaleza. The city itself isn't so much a city, but more like a conglomeration of settlements. There's the main settlement, and then there are a few small housing developments a mile or two away in any direction, and it's like that.

Everybody arrived at the apartment of one of the AFS volunteers at 9:00AM (what? 9:00? On a Saturday? That's so early!) for our 10:00 departure. We actually left at 10:15, but this is basically 10:00.

Just a small part of the AFS Family

 It was during this time that I learned that we were actually receiving four exchange students instead of two, and that AFS was starting a new chapter in Caucaia (go to another language for more information...English Wiki is seriously lacking the goods this time) and placing two of the students there, one from Germany and the other from Thailand. Unfortunately, one of those students arrived by 9:00 but hadn't paid in advance (because his host parents didn't tell him about the trip, or something...?) and couldn't go. But he was the only one. We other seven went. Poor guy. Next time, I'll drag him by the ear.

Yes, we actually went to Broadway. Who knew?

We stayed in a pousada (hostel) owned by a guy who lived in Italy. Laura, our resident Italian, was delighted.  Not everybody had arrived, but we went to our respective rooms. Boys and girls. In total, we were 15, 8 boys and 7 girls. Five of the boys were arriving later, so it was just three of us to start.

And here it is. Pousada.

Well, we did some quick math and figured that the girl's room was bigger, so we needed to switch. But no. You know how girls can be with these things (no offense). So instead, we guys were going to vote somebody off the island, so to speak, to sleep in the girls' room, or we were gonna half to break out the hammocks and sleep on top of each other. Almost literally.

Just before lunch.

We went down to lunch, which was actually too much food. I think my stomach has shrunk. I am definitely not eating as much as I would be eating in the US, and I don't feel any hungrier. 

After lunch, we took a ride to the beach. I'm not actually sure how the transportation system works, since we never once paid these guys anything. But...

Sitting on the back. Don't try this at home.

It was pretty crazy. Almost crashed with tourists that didn't understand the road signs a couple of times (which was really scary, considering that there were no doors or windows and four of us weren't even in the car) but then we arrived at the beach. I think these drivers just like to show off, because we inclined it on the sand at a pretty solid 45-degree angle. Don't let go, don't let go...

But the beach! I was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

But then, so are we. :)

There was only one buggy (that's what I'm calling it), so we had to wait for the second group to get here. That called for a dance party.

See? I didn't even make that one up. 

One of the volunteers taught me and Elif two traditional dances, which I may or may not have already forgotten. And no, it's not all just salsa. And yes, it is much harder to dance on the wet sand. But I think we covered it pretty well.

But then they arrived and we set off towards our real destination: the symbol of Canoa Quebrada, a certain point in the sand formation.

This, and between the pass. But mostly this.

And then we took so many pictures it's taking too long for me to look through them all. But here's a favorite:

What am I doing? What is Elif doing? Why are we up there?
How did we even get up there? Why didn't I take a picture
of that?

As it turns out, the symbol of Canoa Quebrada is the same symbol that is on the flag of Turkey. So weird. Yet so awesome. Welcome to AFS. 

It's actually really, really, really tall.

 And then, y'know, shenanigans galore. What else?

This kid's name is Kiki. She's awesome.

And then, while everybody else was having fun and shouting like
"massive surprise inheritance", I was actually working on something.

We decided to go swimming.

To Africa.

To Africa!

Sadly, we did not reach Africa. The conversation went something like this:

Elif: Guys, we have to go deeper! *goes farther out*

Alex: Elif, you're so small! Don't get swept away!

Elif: *rolls eyes*

Me: Deeper! Whoo!

Elif: Whoo!

Laura: No! Guys, there's nothing there but Africa! *dramatic pose* Africa, I say! *she pauses* No, wait, is it really Africa?
Me: It's Africa.
Alex: Africa?
Laura: AFRICA!

It's what we do.

The others arrived, so we went to dinner! Comedaaaaaa!

In this new group were the other two from Thailand, Int and Puri (who we called Juni), two other volunteers from AFS, and this guy that just knew all of them from school. Sitting in that restaurant, we had the United States, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Thailand, and Brazil. 

How often do you get to do that?

After dinner (and after the digestive process had settled a bit), we went to a luau. Or, rather, a "luau". A Brazilian luau, not a Hawaiian luau. There was a hut on the beach that swayed back and forth, and there was a small fire in the sand. Had it not been for the deadly combination of Reggae and Forro, I may not have actually started to get tired. Should have drunken more coffee.

Speaking of which, Brazilian coffee is absolutely wonderful. Do drink it. 

But I made it through and we went to the streets, in front of a bar, where people were dancing. Two dance parties, in one day? You're kidding me, right? (Okay, so the first wasn't actually a dance party. Now shut up.) AFS showed us some Brazilian dances, and I, in all of my foresight (read: somebody said it would be a good idea), had already learned most of the lyrics to the more popular Brazilian dance songs (this generally isn't my style), which made such a difference! Because, y'know, that just makes the whole thing so much better. 

We finally arrived back at the hostel around 3:00. 

Then I got voted into the girls' room. D: Just kidding. It wasn't that bad. Just had to wait a long, long time to shower. It was near 4:30 by the time I finally get to bed. 

The next day, we took a boat trip. Or, rather, we got on a boat, got swamped by waves, and then went back to the beach. :)

We were on a boat, and I was sitting at the bow with Laura. I sang Come Sail Away. Because I could. (Read: Because everybody was like, 'Jake, sing something!' And the only other thing I could think of was 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean'. They might have tossed me overboard.) Being at the bow in a boat like that is a great idea, because the waves were merciless. Absolutely merciless. This one huge wave came and knocked me and Laura towards the mast. I dunno if anything has ever been so much fun. We were laughing and coughing up water, which was pretty hilarious. I almost fell overboard a couple of times. 

Then we went on top of the sand and took weird pictures. You must do this every chance you get. And just fyi, it's a long way down...

Weird pictures: 

Charlie's Angels...again

I was meditating. It's a pretty big deal.

Celebrate good times ~ 

The beach. To the right you can see the shack that served food.

Wuz here. Just in case you were unclear on that bit.

Afterwards, we went for a BUGGY RIDE! I have videos. I have not yet checked them to make sure we didn't say/do anything blog-inappropriate (just kidding. AFS kids are always professional) before I post them. The buggy trip led us to some interesting places, and most of the following photos are from there. Elif still hasn't uploaded her photos, and she has a lot of good ones, so I might just, y'know, steal from her...

I was pretty impressed.

I thought there was a bench, so I sat down with
everybody else...
There was no bench. 

Posing with Elif.

What is the only thing that could possibly attract that amount of people?
And if you guessed ice cream, please try again. Soccer.

Dinner!

Afterwards, we went dancing again. :D I almost pulled an all-nighter, but the coffee crash plus the dangerous combination of forro and reggae finally got to me. After discovering that I had, in fact, tanned (Brazil is magic), I took several trips along Broadway to look at merchandise (read: eat ice cream) and score some last photos...which are all on Elif's camera. Once she uploads them...

AFS Fortaleza 2012. 

Note: Not all of these pictures are mine. Julia, an AFS volunteer who was with us, put them on Facebook ie publin domain, and so I borrowed exactly 20. And then I probably deleted about 5-7 in Blogger angst. Big thanks to Julia. : D

I'll post/link to videos later.