The Natal-to-Fortaleza Buggy Adventure -- If you can't get enough of the coast, consider the 800km (500-mile) adventure trip from Natal north along the beach to Fortaleza. On the way you'll visit 85 beaches and countless dunes, some of them massive monsters seemingly transplanted from the Sahara. You'll pass through petrified forests and pocket deserts, and float your buggy across dozens of little estuaries on rafts, and visit little fishing towns that rarely if ever see tourists. Buggy is the best and only way to do this trip, and now is the time to do it. Real estate developers have finally discovered the vast and so far largely undeveloped coast line between Natal and Fortaleza. Wait a few more years and the coast will be clogged with resort hotels.
Buggy & Cia, Rua Belo Monte 213 (tel. 084/9982-3162 or 084/9416-2222; www.buggyecia.com.br) specializes in this trip. The expedition takes 4 days, usually starting from Natal. Cost is R$2,400 (US$1,000) total for two people, including accommodations and breakfast plus buggy and driver. The owner, Kadmo Donato, speaks English. The website has a good map of the route and some excellent photos showing what's in store on the trip. Note that with Buggy & Cia, a driver does most or all of the driving. Some find this a disappointment, but it actually allows you to dispense with driving and spend your time drinking in the views from the prime buggy spot -- above the roll-bars on the back of the buggy's chassis. The only company that does allow guests to drive is the Paris-based firm Brésil Aventure (www.bresil-aventure.com). However, Bresil Aventure's trips from Natal to Fortaleza take 2 weeks, and their guides speak only French.
Heading Inland--The hot, dry interior of the Northeast hides some places of outstanding natural beauty: indigenous petroglyphs; rock formations as odd and impressive as many in Utah, fossilized dinosaur footprints 120 million years old. Reaching these sights can be a challenge: distances are long, and temperatures high. Based in Natal, Cariri Ecotours (tel. 084/3234-4068; www.caririecotours.com.br) specializes in trips into this Brazilian outback. The company offers various multiple-day packages. The 4-day, 3-night Valley of the Dinosaurs package strikes inland for the Valley of Dinosaurs in the far west of Paraiba state. Here, 120 million years ago, dozens of species of dinosaurs lived at the edge of a great shallow lake. The tracks they left in the mud of this lake filled with sediment and became fossilized; hundreds of tracks in this area remain clearly visible to this day. The tour then swings back towards the Cariri region, to the vast and magic rock formations at Lajedo do Pai Mateus and Saca de Lã. The expedition finishes up with a visit to one of Brazil's most significant archaeological sites, a stone wall inscribed with the symbols and artwork of a now vanished prehistoric people. Trips can be made by either air-conditioned Land Rover or comfortable air-conditioned Fiat Duplo. Cost per person for groups of two to four people is R$2,235 (US$935) by Fiat, R$2,905 (US$1,210) by Land Rover. Most meals are included, and accommodations are at some of the finer pousadas of the interior.
