People Watching in Ponta Negra, this Fun, Wet Mess

The theme of the week in Natal was “water,” and it started with my Airbnb host who spent a lot of time explaining to me how the shower worked.

“It’s tricky at first but you will get used to it. The left tap is the hot water. The right tap is the cold water. So you can adjust them both at the same time to—”

“—get the temperature just right,” I completed.

“Exactly!” he beamed.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her this was pretty much the standard I was used to in Europe and in North America—in Central and South America, “suicide showers” with an electric element built into the showerhead are way more common.

I soon found out that the boiler didn’t work anyway, so the water was never hot. Never mind, cold showers aren’t a problem when it’s 30⁰C.

The fact that I spotted a ceiling leak the first night was more concerning. My host had no idea what to do. I ended up using a couple of pots to catch the drip because it was getting worse every day. It was right by the front door, not a part of the tiny apartment I spent much time in, so it wasn’t a huge deal to me. The fact the kitchen sink was hopelessly clogged was more annoying—plumbing was cursed in this Airbnb.

I remained unflappable. That’s the way things are in Ponta Negra—the whole neighbourhood is a fun, wet mess. If you want to stay dry, just go to… I don’t know, Natal, maybe. I didn’t visit anything in Natal, I stayed in Ponta Negra like everybody else. Feng and I attempted to explore Natal in 2016 and it was both underwhelming and dodgy.

People come to Natal for Ponta Negra, the beachside neighbourhood, and the amazing sand dunes, lagoons and beaches in the area. Natal’s old buildings are at the bottom of the bucket list. Sorry, Natal.

If you didn’t set up your alarm at 7 a.m. to jump on a van and go explore the coast on a day tour, the best (and only) place to be is Praia de Ponta Negra. That’s the beach on the postcard… I mean, on Instagram, the one with the Morro de Careca, the big sand dune at the southern end.

You can spend an entire day on Ponta Negra beach and not get bored for a second.

First of all, the beach is actually pretty clean and the water is warm. There are waves but the sea isn’t as rough as in Fortaleza. Second, this is a very entertaining spot for people-watching.

The closer you get to the “morro,” the busier the beach is. Inevitably, at one point, the tide goes up and the ocean swallows the strip of sand only to be stopped by the boulder seawall.

But nobody cares.

People keep on eating, drinking, and playing, feet and then legs in the water.

It’s only around sunset—5:30 p.m., it’s early in the Nordeste—that the last tapioca crêpe is eaten and that people finally leave to go eat more tapioca crêpes and shrimp in one of the restaurants along the main avenue. Yes, French crêpes—made with tapioca, it’s a drug in the Nordeste—are inexplicably the most popular snack, another Brazilian mystery to solve…

The other side of the beach, walking away from the sand dune, is quieter and there’s a bit more. This is where surfers go, paragliders above their head.

I spent hours on Ponta Negra beach and I loved every single minute of it. People were very friendly too, this is one place where perfect strangers invite you to share a table so that you can leave your bag and go swimming. Otherwise, the Brazilian trick to tie your bag to an umbrella works too!