In the Christmas city of Natal

As we drove into the city in the darkness, the Christmas lights were already shining and sparkling on every street lamp. Welcome to the Christmas city, founded on December 25, 1599 and named after the great festival.

The city, also known as "Sun City" due to the ten months of sunshine per year, invites you to a summer vacation with kilometers of sandy beaches and dunes. We stayed in the suburb of Ponta Negra, where there are numerous accommodations along the 14 km long beach. We spent the first two days mainly at the beach. Swimming, sunbathing, swimming, sipping coconuts. We are really enjoying ourselves.

The suburb is very safe, but we were advised against going to the city center, as it is said to be dangerous. Yes, we must not forget, we are in Brazil.

On the third day, we met up with William. The Brazilian lives in Natal and works as a tour guide and English teacher. We met him on the boat trip to Alcantara, three weeks before.

To be with a local tour guide who also speaks English, we had drawn a double Joker. We drove to beautiful places where we had a fantastic view of the beaches around Natal.

Then we went to the world's largest cashew tree. With an area of 8500 m2, it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. We could hardly believe that this huge area is actually a single tree. The award is more than deserved!

For lunch, William took us to the birthday party of one of his friends. Once again, we experienced how warm-hearted Brazilians are. We were welcomed with open arms and pampered from head to toe. It felt like it was our birthday. The food was delicious, the birthday cake with the Brazilian sweet Dolce de Leite was a treat, and the hosts made the best Caipirinhas we've had on our trip so far.

Stuffed until we were about to burst, we continued our journey to Olinda in the afternoon.