Fortaleza

Brazil (Northeast)

Fortaleza

FORTALEZA is a sprawling city of over two million inhabitants, the centre literally bristling with offices and apartment blocks. It has, for well over a century, been the major commercial centre of the northern half of the Northeast. More recently it has poured resources into expanding its tourist trade, lining the fine city beaches with gleaming luxury hotels and developing the city centre.

Taken together, this means that little trace remains of the city’s eventful early history, the clue to which is in its name: Fortaleza means “fortress”. The first Portuguese settlers arrived in 1603 and were defeated initially by the Indians, who killed and ate the first bishop (a distinction the city shares with Belém), and then by the Dutch, who drove the Portuguese out of the area in 1637 and built the Forte Schoonenborch. In fact the Portuguese were restricted to precarious coastal settlements until well into the eighteenth century, when the Indians were finally overwhelmed by the determined blazing of cattle trails into the interior. Another fort – the Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora da Assunção – was built by the Portuguese in 1816 on the site of the earlier Dutch one.

It was in Fortaleza that the independence movement in northern Brazil was organized, and it was one of the few places where the Portuguese actually made a fight of it, massacring the local patriots in 1824 before being massacred themselves a few months later. The city did well in the nineteenth century, as the port city of a hinterland where ranching was expanding rapidly.

For decades, though, one of the city’s most important exports was the people of the state: shipping lines transported flagelados wholesale from Fortaleza during drought years to the rubber zones of the Amazon and the cities of southern Brazil. These days, Fortaleza has something of the same atmosphere as Rio, especially when it comes to the good things in life. It’s not a beautiful city but it has a safe, relaxed atmosphere, and the nightlife is superb.

The City

The only visible legacy of its crowded history in modern Fortaleza is the city’s name, and a gridded street pattern laid out in the nineteenth century by a French architect, Adolphe Herbster. He was contracted by the ambitious city fathers to turn Fortaleza into “the Paris of the North” – you can only hope they got their money back.

The layout of the city is easy to grasp, despite its size. The centre, laid out in blocks, forms the commercial, administrative and religious heart, with markets, shops, public buildings, squares and a forbiddingly ugly concrete cathedral; it’s quite possible to walk and take in most of the sights in one day, though you’d probably want to take longer. To the west of the centre, undistinguished urban sprawl finally gives way to the beaches of Barra do Ceará, but most of the action is to the east, where the main city beaches and the chic middle-class bairros of Praia de Iracema and Meireles are to be found, linked by the main seafront road, Avenida Presidente Kennedy, usually known as Avenida Beira Mar. These give way to the favelas and docks of the port area, Mucuripe, the gateway to the eastern beaches, notably Praia do Futuro, beyond which the city peters out.

While not the most visually attractive of Brazilian city centres, there is enough going on in the heart of Fortaleza to merit more attention than it usually gets from visitors. It certainly can’t be faulted for being boring: the streets are very crowded, with shops and hawkers colonizing large areas of pavement and squares, so that much of the centre often seems like a single large market. Fortaleza is an excellent place for shopping, and you should stock up here if you’re heading west, as you won’t get comparable choice until you hit Belém, 1500km away. Clothes are plentiful and cheap, there is also good artesanato to be had, notably lace and leather, and Fortaleza is the largest centre for the manufacture and sale of hammocks in Brazil.

Centro de Turismo and the Museu de Arte e Cultura Popular

Overlooking the sea at the bottom of Rua Senador Pompeu is the Centro de Turismo, housed in the city’s old prison – a perfect place to stop and have a beer in the bar in the one-time exercise yard, shaded by mango trees. The centre is also the location of the best museum in the city, the Museu de Arte e Cultura Popular (Mon–Fri 8am–6pm, Sat 8am–1pm). Well laid out in a single huge gallery on the first floor, this is a comprehensive collection of Cearense artesanato of all kinds, together with a sample of the painting and sculpture produced by the best of the state’s modern artists. What distinguishes the museum is the imaginative juxtaposition of more traditional popular art with modernism. Both collections are of very high quality: the modern art is often startlingly original, as in the sculptures of bolts, nuts and scrap metal of Zé Pinto, but in style and subject matter you can see how profoundly it is rooted in the tradition of popular art all around it. In the same building and included in the entry price you’ll find the smaller Museu de Mineralogia (same times), stuffed full of massive quartz crystals and a wide range of semi-precious stones.

Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura

The brand-new Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura, a couple of blocks east of the market, makes a striking contrast to the rest of the city. Architecturally it’s very modern, but its steel and glass curves blend sensitively with the attractive old terraced buildings over and around which it is built. The whole thing feels like a modern and stylish university campus and, importantly, serves as an ideal link between the beaches and the city centre, which essentially starts on the landward side of the complex on the small Praça Municipal. Within the complex, there’s a small shiny-domed planetarium, cinemas, an auditorium, a couple of museums – one dedicated to contemporary art – and a good coffee bar, the Torre do Café, located in the tower that supports the covered walkway between the two main sections of the Centro.

Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora da Assunção

Opposite the Mercado Central, the nineteenth-century Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora da Assunção – the city’s namesake – is easily identified by its thick, plain white walls and old black cannons. It belongs to the Tenth Military Regiment of the Brazilian army, but is open to visitors on request (Mon–Fri 9am–5pm; tel 085/255-1600); visits are best organized the day before.

Mercado Central

Set right next to the rather ugly cathedral on Rua Conde d’Eu, the striking new Mercado Central, a huge complex holding hundreds of small stores, dominates the skyline. The market, along with the nearby shops on the other side of the cathedral, is the best place to buy a hammock in the city: if you’re going to use one on your travels, purchase it with care. Cloth ones are the most comfortable, but are heavier, bulkier and take longer to dry out if they get wet. Less comfy in the heat, but more convenient, much lighter and more durable are nylon hammocks. Aesthetically, however, nylon hammocks are no match for cloth ones, which come in all colours and patterns. You ought to be able to get a perfectly adequate cloth hammock, which will stand up to a few weeks’ travelling, for around $10 for a single and $19 for a double; for a nylon hammock, add $5 to the price. If you want a more elaborate one – and some handwoven hammocks are very fine – you will pay more. Easing the path to slinging hammocks once you get home are metal armadores, which many hammock and most hardware shops sell: these are hooks mounted on hinges and a plate with bolts for sinking into walls. When buying a hammock you are going to use, make sure it takes your body lying horizontally across it: sleeping along the curve is uncomfortably bad for your back.

Passeio Público and Praça dos Mártires

Two blocks from the Centro de Turismo is a survivor of nineteenth-century Fortaleza: the old municipal boulevard, the Passeio Público, which sits beside the pleasant shady Praça dos Mártires. Both are popular with children and families – as well as prostitutes. The Passeio looks out over the waterfront, and stallholders set up chairs and tables under the trees, from where they sell cold drinks and simple food. It’s a good place to go in the late afternoon or early evening, when the workers stroll around after they get out of their offices watching the variety of street entertainers and hawkers. The municipality often lays something on: small fairs, dances – the ubiquitous forró pumped out by tannoy or thumped out by trios – or concerts. Even without entertainment, it has a relaxing feel, and is certainly the best place, away from the beaches, to watch the sunset.

Praça José de Alencar

Praça José de Alencar is four blocks inland from the train station at the heart of the commercial district. In the late afternoon and early evening, the crowds here attract capoeira groups, street sellers of all kinds and especially repentistas. Fortaleza seems to specialize in these street poets, who with great skill and wit gather an audience by improvising a verse or two about those standing around watching, passing round a hat for you to show your appreciation. If you refuse, or give what they consider too little, the stream of innuendo and insults, in a variety of complicated metres, is unmistakeable, even if you don’t understand a word.

On the square you’ll also find the one truly impressive building in the city, the beautiful Teatro José de Alencar, named after the great nineteenth-century novelist and poet, a native of the city. Built in the first decade of the twentieth century, the fine tropical Edwardian exterior is in fact only an elegant facade, which leads into an open courtyard and the main body of the theatre. It is built in ornate and beautifully worked cast-iron sections, which were brought over complete from Scotland and reassembled in 1910. Surprisingly, for a building made out of iron, it is extremely cool and pleasant to be in, even when the sun is at its height: the ironwork is open and lets in the air without trapping heat, a masterly example of Scottish design in the least Scottish setting imaginable. In 1991 it was superbly restored and is now a key venue for theatrical performances and concerts. The best time to see it is at night, when it opens for business, a favourite venue for Cearense music of all varieties and exhibitions in the courtyard. Friday and Saturday are the likeliest nights to find something on: the staff can let you know what’s happening, or try looking under the heading Lazer in the local papers.

Fortaleza’s beaches

The main city beaches are the Praia de Iracema and the adjacent Praia do Meireles, the main focus for Fortaleza’s nightlife. The water is not as clean as it could be, due to the proximity of docks both east and west: the further away from the centre, the better for swimming. That said, both beaches are good for sunset watching, the seafront boulevard is well laid out, punctuated by clumps of palm trees, and there is no shortage of watering holes. By day there are surfers on the waves and beach parties at the barracas, and in the early evening it seems everyone in the city turns out to stroll or rollerblade down the boulevard, which has replaced the city’s squares as the favoured meeting place.

If you’re a beach devotee, cleaner water, higher rollers and better seafood are to be had further out past Mucuripe at Praia do Futuro: take buses marked “Caça e Pesca” or “P. Futuro” from Rua Castro e Silva in the centre. The beach barracas here are very good: the fried fish is fresh and comes in enormous portions. The ultimate surfing beaches, however, are 6km beyond the Praia do Futuro, at Porto das Dunas and Prainha, 11km in combined length. Porto das Dunas also has an aquatic theme park called Beach Park (daily 9am–5pm; tel 085/360-1150), the largest of its kind in Latin America.

Around Fortaleza: beaches and more

The beaches of Ceará are what attracts most visitors, and both east and west of Fortaleza they stretch unbroken for hundreds of kilometres. They are invariably superb, a mixture of mountainous sand dunes, palm trees and Atlantic breakers, wilder than the sheltered reef beaches of the southern states of the Northeast. Even some of the most remote beaches have been “discovered” by tourists, but there is no need to scorn them on that account: the coastline is more than big enough to swallow large numbers of property developers and visitors without getting crowded. It’s easy to bewail the passing of the simple life in the fishing villages, but talk to their inhabitants and you’ll find they are still functioning communities, making money from tourists on the side. What travellers see as an idyllic, rustic existence seems more like poverty to those who live it.

Any description of the beaches becomes repetitive: they are all stunning. Travelling along the coast, while often leisurely, is not difficult. To reach the beaches, as a rule, you will need to get off at a town and catch a connection to the nearby coast, and the local bus network covers most places: at the better-known beaches, shoals of pick-ups and beach buggies meet the buses from Fortaleza.

East to Aracati and Canoa Quebrada

East of Fortaleza there are two basic routes. The first heads along a coastal road that branches off the BR-116 just south of the city to Beberibe. The first coastal village along this route is AQUIRAZ, where there are the beaches of Iguape and Prainha. Buses to Aquiraz are run by the São Benedito company and leave from a stop on the corner of Avenida Domingos Olímpio and Avenida Aquanambi. For anywhere east of Aquiraz, buses can be caught at the Rodoviária. Thirty kilometres beyond Aquiraz is Cascavel, 12km inland but a starting point for two more beaches: Caponga and, less crowded, Aguas Belas. Twenty kilometres further on is BEBERIBE itself, the drive there a lovely one on a country road through palm forests and dunes. The irregularly shaped dunes of Beberibe’s beach, Morro Branco, are fifteen minutes away. Five kilometres from here is the small fishing village and mineral-water spring of PRAIA DAS FONTES, which also boasts a luxury hotel of the same name, reasonably priced and serving excellent food (tel 085/338-1179; $50–70).

A more direct route east takes you to ARACATI, two hours from Fortaleza, a once properous small textile town with half a dozen derelict, and a couple of functioning, eighteenth-century churches. It is also the jumping-off point for one of Ceará’s better-known and most fashionable beaches, Canoa Quebrada, half an hour along a dirt road from Aracati: pick-ups meet every bus from the city, so access is no problem. Canoa Quebrada is popular with foreigners and young Brazilians alike, the atmosphere is relaxed, and it’s fairly lively at night. Certainly, if you want company and movimento it’s the beach to head for. The dusty approach road to Canoa Quebrada is flanked by dozens of boards advertising pousadas and restaurants and there’s no shortage of either. Curiously, the beach served directly by asphalted road from Aracati, Majorlândia, is less crowded and a lot quieter. It’s certainly as good as Canoa Quebrada, there are jangadas on the beach and surf here as well, and it’s just as easy to find places to stay.

West to Jericoacoara

The choice of strands west of Fortaleza is equally rich. Only 8km from Fortaleza is the town of Caucaia, which is served by buses from Avenida Rui Barbosa (outside the Ideal Clube) on Praia de Meireles. From Caucaia, local buses head out to the beaches of Icaraí (not to be confused with another Icaraí more than 150km to the west), Pacheo and Tabuba where, even by Cearense standards, the coastline is really something, with dunes, lagoons, palm forests and enormous expanses of sand; the road ends up in the fishing village of Cumbuco.

Frequent buses from the Fortaleza Rodoviária (tickets from Brasileiro Transporte) go to SÃO GONÇALO DO AMARANTE, only an hour and 57km away. From here, you can head on to the beaches of Pecém, 15km away, and the glorious beach of Taíba, 6km on. Not all buses to São Gonçalo continue to the beaches, but if they don’t there are pick-ups and local buses. The beach town of PARACURU, 80km from Fortaleza (frequent buses from the Rodoviária, also with Brasileiro Transporte), is being rapidly developed and gets crowded during weekends, but is less frenetic during the week.

After Paracuru, you head out of Fortaleza’s influence and the further west you go, the less crowded the beaches become. A good place to head for, reasonably remote but not impossible to get to, is TRAIRI, 118km from Fortaleza, served by direct buses from the Rodoviária, which take around three hours. From here it’s a few kilometres to the beautiful and usually deserted beaches of Mundaú and Fleixeiras. When the tide is out, you can walk for an hour along the beach to the fishing hamlet of GUAJIRU. There is no electricity or running water, but the people are friendly and the scenery marvellous.

Ceará’s most famous beach, JERICOACOARA, lies 320km west of Fortaleza, a remote hangout with huge dunes of fine white sand, and turquoise lagoas. Two buses a day from Fortaleza cover the seven-hour journey to the village of Gijoca, where pickup trucks and buggies will meet you for the hour-long ride over the sands to Jericoacoara. It’s still a primitive place, unconnected to the main electricity grid, but there are plenty of places to stay. If you want to organize a tour here from Fortaleza (from $50 per day) contact Correta Turismo (tel 085/227-3288 or 998-4910).

Getting there & around

The Rodoviária and airport are some way from the centre in the southern suburb of Fátima, but getting into town is easy thanks to the comfortable frescão service operated by the Top Bus company ($3). The buses will stop to let you off – or can be flagged down – wherever you want along their circular route, which takes in both the airport and the Rodoviária before winding its way through the crowded city centre to the beach areas; it’s supposed to run throughout the night, but the service is less frequent then, and you should check with the tourist office if you’re relying on it to catch an early-morning bus or plane. If there’s more than two of you, it might be cheaper to take a taxi, which costs around $8 to the airport from most places in the city.

Fortaleza also has plenty of local buses. Useful routes that take you out to the main beach areas and back to the city centre are those marked “Grande Circular”, “Caça e Pesca”, “Mucuripe” and “P. Futuro”. Two buses, the “Circular 1” and “Circular 2”, run services that cover the outskirts and central part of Fortaleza respectively. There are loads of taxis, too, which are essential for getting around late at night. You may also choose to walk around Fortaleza quite a lot: the city is heavily policed and feels much safer than many other Brazilian cities, though the usual basic precautions are still in order.

Tourist Information

Fortaleza is geared towards catering for visitors. The main information office of the state tourist office, SETUR (Mon–Fri 7am–6pm, Sat 8am–2pm, Sun 8am–noon; tel 085/212-3566), is in the Centro de Turismo in the centre, at Rua Senador Pompeu 350, and should be your first port of call; the staff know their stuff, and are especially good on the complicated bus journeys that are often necessary to get to the out-of-town beaches. The tourist information posts are also friendly and efficient; they give out free city maps, and if you’re planning to travel in the state outside Fortaleza you should stock up on the relevant information here. There are information posts at the airport (24hr; tel 085/477-1667) and at the Rodoviária (daily 6am–6pm; tel 085/256-4080). The best maps of Fortaleza are usually to be obtained from the municipal tourist organization, FORTUR, who have an information post (daily 8am–5pm; tel 085/252-1444) on Praça do Ferreira in the centre.

You can change money at numerous places down on the beach and, in the city centre, at Tropical Viagens, Rua Barão do Rio Branco 1233 (Mon–Fri 9am–5pm, Sat 8am–noon).

Eating and drinking

You’ll be all right in the centre during the day if you want something to eat as there are countless places to grab a snack. However, most of what Fortaleza has to offer your palate is to be found on the beaches, especially around Rua dos Tabajaras on Praia de Iracema. The pier here, known as Ponte dos Ingleses, is a lovely place to have a beer and watch the sunset. Rua dos Tabajaras itself is a joy to wander around, with its brightly coloured bars and restaurants, and glamorous young people out enjoying themselves. The Restaurante Estoril makes the best of its setting at Rua dos Tabajaras 397, but it’s quite pricey. Slightly cheaper is the Colher de Pau at no. 412, while La Bohème at no. 380 offers a moderately priced French menu. An excellent seafood restaurant is the Restaurante Tia Nair, just down the seafront road, on the corner of Avenida Beira Mar and Rua Idelfonso Albano. Much further south along the seafront, past Praia do Futuro at Av. Beira Mar 4566, the Marquinhos Restaurante (tel 085/263-1204) serves excellent seafood (try the skewered lobster); it’s not cheap but the service is good and the restaurant open and airy.

Nightlife

Two bars on Avenida Beira Mar, just along from Rua dos Tabajaras, offer a wonderful combination of eating, drinking and live music: the Pontal de Iracema at no. 680 and the Cais Bar at no. 696 are extremely trendy nightspots where you have to arrive early to get a seat. For jazz, try the Ludvico Bar and Restaurante, at Rua do Mirante 161, Mucuripe (tel 085/263-1545), on most Thursday evenings.

Forró: Dancing and clubs

Fortaleza is justly famous for its forró. Nowhere is it so popular, and there is no better way to see what Cearenses do when they want to enjoy themselves than to spend a night in a dancetaria in Fortaleza. And spending the night is literally what you need to do: although most dancetarias open at 10pm, people don’t really start arriving until around midnight, and peak time is in the early hours of the morning. There always seems to be forró on somewhere but the venue changes every night.

On Mondays the place is Pirata, one of the most easily accessible nightclubs in Fortaleza, at Rua dos Tabajaras 325. It’s a great night out but not cheap: entrance costs about $12. Subindo ao Céu, at Av. Zezé Diogo out on Praia do Futuro, is the main venue on Tuesday nights. On Wednesdays the scene shifts to the Clube do Vaqueiro (tel 085/276-2014), a taxi ride away out on the periphery of the city along the BR-116 highway leading east to Natal. As its name implies, the club has everything for the cowboy: the huge complex is sometimes used for rodeos during the day, and on Wednesday nights the cavernous interior throbs with forró rhythms and hundreds of dancing couples. On Thursdays you can eat crab and enjoy live music at Chico do Caranguejo, at Av. Zezé Diogo 4930 on Praia do Futuro. Finally, on Fridays the venue for forró is the Parque do Vaqueiro (tel 085/296-1159), west of Fortaleza on the BR-020.

Accommodation

The budget hotels, as ever, tend to be in the centre, which hums with activity during the day but empties at night, and the more expensive ones are generally out by the beaches, notably Iracema and Meireles. But this is not a hard-and-fast rule; there are literally hundreds of hotels of all shapes and sizes in the city, including luxury hotels in the centre and cheap ones in the beach areas, although very few bargains are to be had on the seafront itself. You should remember that Fortaleza can get very hot, and either air-conditioning or a fan is essential.

The beaches
- Pousada Abril em Portugal, Av. Almirante Barroso 1006, Praia de Iracema (tel 085/231-9508). A good-value budget hotel near the youth hostel. $10–20.
- Albergue Praia de Iracema, Av. Almirante Barroso 998, Praia de Iracema (tel 085/252-3267). Fortaleza’s youth hostel is in an excellent location near the best nightlife and costs $15 a night per person.
- Hotel Beira-Mar, Av. Beira Mar (Av. Presidente Kennedy) 3130, Praia de Meireles (tel 085/242-5000, fax 242-5659, www.hotelbeiramar.com.br). Luxury hotel with pool, right next to the Praia de Meireles. $70–90.
- Brisa da Praia, Av. Beira Mar 982, Praia de Iracema (tel 085/219-4699, fax 219-1964). Modern, medium-sized hotel right on the seafront, with a small pool and rooftop terrace. $50–70.
- Pousada da Ponte, Rua dos Cariris 70, Praia de Iracema (tel 085/219-7696). Basic but friendly little hotel in a stylish old building close to the beach; all rooms have fridge-bars and air-conditioning. $10–20.
- Pousada Portal de Iracema, Rua dos Aranius 2, Praia de Iracema (tel 085/219-0066, fax 219-3411, pousada@ultranet.com.br). Well-located pousada, right on the edge of the sea beside the heart of the nightlife district, yet surprisingly quiet; good English spoken and lovely breakfasts. $35–50.
- Raio de Sol Praia Hotel, Av. Almirante Barroso 772, Praia de Iracema (tel 085/219-0077, fax 219-4264, www.iate.fortalnet.com.br). Fairly luxurious place to stay near Iracema beach. $50–70.
The city centre
- Casa Nova, Rua Pedro ángulo 56 (tel 085/252-4179). A small place right in the heart of the centre with 18 air-conditioned suites; family-run and very clean. $10–20.
- Hotel Caxambu, Rua General Bezerril 22 (tel 085/231-1217). A clean and comfortable hotel with air-conditioning, bar and restaurant. $20–35.
- Lidia Hotel, Rua Rufino de Alencar 300 (tel 085/221-1365). Friendly, modern hotel which meets all the basic requirements for comfort. $10–20.
- Hotel Passeio, Rua Dr João Moreira 221 (tel 085/252-2104). Well-run hotel, located opposite the pleasant Praça dos Mártires, just a block from the Centro de Turismo. A bit musty and at the lower end of the price range. $20–35.
- Hotel Sol, Rua Barão do Rio Branco 829 (tel 085/211-9166, fax 262-1021). A classy option with airy rooms and a swimming pool. $35–50.