Mid-Tour City Envy

Ah! A night in my own bed. What a luxury, even though it won't be for as many hours as I would have liked! Here we are, mid-way through our second Rock 'n Roll Brasil tour and so far so good. Having had the chance to visit Natal a little bit prior to launching into work, I can admit that I have a minor case of city envy. Natal [pop. 800,000] is quite a bit smaller than Recife [pop. 1.5 million in the city proper / 3 million in Greater Recife] and we really only saw two parts of town. But those two parts looked good to me! Okay, in essence, Natal's waterfront area has been developed with a much clearer focus on leisure and entertainment than has Recife's. While Recife has a long coastline with lots of beer/coconut stands, Natal has a whole infrastructure for eating / drinking / walking / shopping / browsing along the water's edge. There also seem to be municipal codes limiting building height which makes for a more relaxed atmosphere compared to Recife's highrise condos and hotels which leave little space for the development of the service industry. If anything, trips like these are like a sampler platter. Quick tastes of several options to help make more decisions for future travel and vacations! Tomorrow we're off bright and early to Maceió. Pics to follow next week.