May 21 Fortaleza.

May 21 Fortaleza.
We slept in pretty late today and didn't leave the hotel until about 1. We took a cab to the main beach front road in downtown Fortaleza called Avenue Biera Mar to go to an ATM. The area is pretty cool with resaurants on the beach. The beach here isn't that popular for some reason though.

After walking around a bit we hopes in another cab to the main beach area called Praiah de Forturo. There are tons of Barracas (beach restaurants) and we went to one to meet up with Laryssa, one of Aline's best friends. She is great. She's a doctor in Sao Paolo and speaks English which was awesome. When we met up with her she found the oyster guy, ioto, and we had about 20 beers and 160 oysters between 4 of us. Dmitry Jessie and I paid for the oysters and it was oy $20usd each! The oysters were absolutely delicious too. Probably the best I've ever had! He shucks them r
Individually for you and sprinkles them with salt, lime juice, olive oil and if you want, a couple drips of hot sauce which was delicious too. When the sun set Laryssa give us a ride back to the hotel.

We showered and changed and met up with Tony who arrived today and then met up with Aline's sister Bruna and the rest of the family for a big dinner at a brazilian steak house. The food was amazing. The salad bar had everything a imaginable from carpacio to sushi to caviar! For dinner they brought all sorts of meats around on skewers for your choosing. I tried a chicken heart which was actually quite tasty. I sat across from Aline's oldest sister's husband who speaks some English and is hilarious. He is a big guy and enjoys his booze and we drank pretty much everything they had to offer! We had an odd but good sweet desert wine, caiperinias (mixed drinks made with fresh smashed fruit and sugar) and shots of cachasa (the local liquer which seems similar to tequila)

After dinner Bruna took us out to one of the biggest clubs. The place was absolutely huge and it had it's own credit card system where you just get a card and they swipe it when ever you order drinks and you pay the balance at the end of the night when you exit through the turnstyles. Entering and exiting felt like we were at a baseball stadium. I think we left there around 3am and walked back to our hotel which was just a few blocks away but bruna hired a security escort. I guess it can be pretty dangerous. Forteza is a huge city with over 2 million people and the slums are always close by so you need to be careful.