BootsnAll Travel Network



Dunes

16 July 2005 (Saturday) – 17 July 2005 (Sunday) – Genipabu, Brazil

Gisele has a beach house in Genipabu, about 20km north of Natal, near the sand-dunes. A beach house, imagine that!

After she returned from work on Saturday afternoon, we took the bus there first before her parents followed later. Well, unfortunately, as it was raining, we could only watch the beach from the backyard until the mosquitoes came out and ate me alive. (Yes, the house is beach-facing too!)

Gisele’s parents arrived later with their entire kitchen and larder of food. Gosh! Because of the robbery, Gisele’s parents installed themselves immediately as my Brazilian mama and papa. While I could not really communicate with them, they treated me with the sweetest and most amazing kindness one could ever find.

Gisele and her family at the beach house in Genipabu

Her mother was always worried about what I would eat, and would have every sort of options available for me, fussing over everything. Her father is the silent type, but through his quiet actions, I just know he has a heart of gold. I was absolutely touched by everyone. Everyone had been just great to me. I just don’t know how to repay them… ever!

The next day, Gisele and I took a walk around the sand dunes. There were many buggy ride operators up at the top of the dunes. Someone even brought camels to this place to offer camel rides to tourists. How silly! Camels walk on sand, NOT sand dunes. As they have a high centre of gravity, they are actually nervous when confronted with sand dunes. All this ‘torture’ just for tourism!! Sheesh!!

It was very sad for Gisele to see all these, as she had come to these sand dunes since she was little and she said, they were 4 times higher then. 4 times higher!!! Wow, the buggy rides must be destroying the very wonder they had come to show tourists. Somehow, something they are doing are causing the sand dunes not to be fed, so they would continue to be eroded, without being built.

Many people had told me that I m-u-s-t take a buggy ride through the sand dunes when I come to Genipabu. Well, not me. Looking at the state of things here, the rubbish, the desperate clinging to the remaining dunes, I feel very sorry for the sand dunes indeed and I also just saved R120. Maybe they would look much better further out, but Gisele said many people are building houses up on the dunes as well, just claiming the land as theirs and there was absolute nothing the authorities were doing to protect the dunes.

Four of her friends cycled from Natal here and joined us for the afternoon. They were Karin, Paolo, Salom and a funny guy called Joaquim who was a deadringer of SpongeBob. Not all of them spoke English, so their conversations were in Portuguese, with Gisele translating for me sometimes.

They said that two Dutch guys had just stolen a yacht from the Natal’s yacht club, taking the sailor along. What?? Now, they were worried about their bicycles. If the Dutch can come and steal our yachts, they can come and steal our bikes. So, we hastened to put them inside the house.

The topic of robbery naturally came up, and everyone somehow or other had a story to tell. Salom related how he was car-jacked once, and the robbers abandoned him somewhere later w-i-t-h-o-u-t his clothes! Shit!!

Gisele’s parents left for home that evening and at midnight, when we were ready for bed, I switched the TV off and found myself listening to the pounding of the waves throughout the night. Gosh, it was all really beautiful and I felt really happy.

Although I did not want to think about my camera anymore, I did. I remembered that my camera needed a support thingie to download photos and to recharge its battery. Without the support thingie, the camera would not work for long. And I have the damn thing in my bag. It’s like having the other half to the key to the treasure.

So, bizarrely, I felt a little ‘sorry’ for the robbers. My battery was running low and soon they would be staring at a dead camera, which they have no means to use or to sell (unless to a very gullible person). Oh well.



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