Most foreigners don't realize the raw diversity of Brazil.

Northeasterners view themselves as different from or superior to those from the metropolises such as Rio de Janeiro or San Paolo.

If one state typifies the northeast, it's Ceara.

Funding for In The Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnes Haury.

music The interior of the Brazilian state of Ceara is called the Sertão, it's a region with thousands of square miles of scrubby, spiny vegetation, like this.

But there is a lot more to the state than that.

There are mountains, a tropical forest, and there are countless miles of coast.

Visits to Ceara, nearly always begin in its huge capital city, Fortaleza.

Although it has colonial origins, it's a metropolis finding its way into a progressive future.

The mayor is aware of the huge challenges facing this emerging urban area.

Fortaleza is the fastest growing city nationwide at this point, so this is a challenge for itself.

It is a city that has faced a lot of migration from the countryside to the city, by the beach, especially because of the drought.

We have drought seasons, which are very severe.

So that has made Fortaleza one of the largest cities countrywide, we are the fifth largest city with special beauty, because we are right by the beach, we have about 33km of coast, but on the other hand, we are a very unequal city.

The biggest challenge that we have here, especially managing this city, is how to better balance this social equality to the point where we are known nationwide for our hospitality, that is one of the major features of Foreleazes, that is what we call ourselves, people who are born here.

We have the largest urban green area nationwide, it's a very special feature of the city.

My friend and native of Fortaleza, Ricardo Bezerra is an urban specialist.

This plaza, you would never know it existed when you see the skyline, this is all original stuff.

Yeah, it's like hidden in downtown, today, but it has gone through all sorts of renovations.

It is one of the most important areas in the history of the city.

Ceara was developed in a different way from other northeastern states, its organization came from the interior with the cattle, and so Fortaleza is not an old city, Fortaleza gained some power in the early eighteen hundreds, in fact Fortaleza took some advantage from the civil war in America, cause they had some problems producing cotton during the war and we had a lot of cotton here, and that gave some wealth to the place.

The fortress we can see from here was built by the Portuguese.

Although Fortaleza was born in the hill Ceara, which is about 3-4 miles from here, this spot is where Fortaleza by the Portuguese was built.

South in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, you had an economy built on cana, which is cane sugar and... Cacao... Cacao, and a little coffee, so those three C's.

You have three different ones up here, you have cattle and cotton, what a difference!

Yeah, and carnauba...

The wax.

Yes, the wax.

So what is this building?

Oh, nice plaza.

This used to be a prison.

We are just going into prison.

Hopefully we can get out.

Now it's an art crafts place, you know a market.

It's funny because it's a prison, but all the ironwork has some poetry involved.

This is very important for the economy because it's a way where you have hundreds of people that can profit from this... And it also brings people to the market, brings people to the center, downtown... Market... and it bring people, the tourists come.

This is renda that is a specialty of the Fortaleza region, and if you see these anywhere, you know that they came from around Fortaleza, and this might be the perfect thing to take to my wife.

Here we have a few things that everyone in Brazil will recognize, and no one in my country will.

These are hammock hooks.

Every house in tropical Brazil has these built in.

And there's a variety of them.

This is a very typical food, popular...

Very traditional...

Traditionally, yes.

This is called queijo coalho It's sort of a homemade cheese?

Yes, homemade cheese.

And it's been roasted.

It has been roasted, yes.

Oh that's good.

Well I think I'm in favor of your state, this is good... (laughter, music) From downtown with it's nibbles it's only 20 minutes to the beach.

With its real carengeijo This beach is called, believe it or not, Future Beach.

It's a good place, now.

This is the most important crab restaurant in all of the Fortaleza area, and in a restaurant you have to follow protocol, so I hope I look okay.

Cleanliness is next to godliness, and now we find out about the crabs.

We prepare the crab by cooking it twice, first we cook with just salt and water, and make this sauce to serve with the crab.

It has a coconut milk base.

This is with seasonings and it's been cooked in coconut milk.

And the aroma coming out from there makes me just want to drink the whole thing.

You have no idea how difficult it is walking through here smelling all of these wonderful smells.

This is a dish that is quite popular in the restaurant.

....with fried rice, it's very good.

SO you can see the shrimp there, well I can smell the garlic.

This is a crab serving restaurant, but the owner just told me this is what they're going to serve me outside.

I think I'll eat it all.

It's not just crab.

Oh my!

So I'll be eating this almost seaside.

This is cooked fish, and this is carne del sol... Carne del sol....

This is sun... Sun-dried... Sun-dried meat... With mandioca With a tuber sauce called mandioca, and it's real easy to get, you just have to keep pulling.

I know shrimp, oh my goodness.

Fish with banana, and it's topped with a cheese sauce.

This is the shrimp rice that I saw the lady making inside.

And for thin people like me, this is probably the best way in the world to gain weight.

I haven't tried the octopus yet.

I love beer in brazil because it is a very social drink.

You don't drink alone, you drink with friends.

Always cold beer, very cold.

And it's always cold beer.

Oh my, you're a genius.

Thank you.

This calls for another saude...

It does... To the coast of Brazil and I can look out and see the surf 80 meters from here.

And that's perfect.

The beach and its sensuous food belie the reality of the vast majority of the state of Ceara.

Our journey shows how very different it is when we leave the urban bustle behind.

This is a traditional house built when there wasn't a lot of electricity available, they lowered the roof down on this side to keep the sun out in the afternoon, which was very smart of them.

So this interior has sort of tiled floors, I suspect they were built with the same ceramics, from the same clay.

Huge room, the windows make it even bigger.

There is a constant breeze coming through here, and the circulation is great.

The ocean is only a couple of kilometers over here and the hammocks are strong, if you get sleepy you just pull out your hammock, take a nap.

At night, when it's time to go to bed hang your hammock, take it down and you've got all that extra room.

My friend Ricardo tells me there's a fellow here who takes the traditional ceramic pots that they made here for a long time and is converting them into musical instruments.

So this is a harp...we have a perfect scale, tune, it's got to takes some talent to be able to play this.

The base is a part from a transmission or a differential, they use all the materials you can.

This community is a region very rich in making ceramics.

Pottery making comes from an Indian heritage passed on through several generations.

It has been here for so long it is hard to say when or how it actually began.

The pottery has always been utilitarian.

Having a ceramic whistle is an ancient art, but making clay into musical instruments of a variety is very new.

My work with the community and with the clay band orchestra began with my intuition about what was possible.

I began by adapting existing resource materials into musical instruments.

It's like playing a piano.

So this is a ceramic cello, and the tone is very cello like.

This is father's day in a tapiocaria, which is a place specializing in tapioca, and tapioca is wildly popular in the northeast.

Now when northeasterners visit the United States, the one thing they say they miss is tapioca, they can't get it.

And here it is in every possible variety.

We must remember that tapioca, it's originally from the Indians, the natives, who lived here, they had this.

Tapioca in the US is usually confined to pudding, but not here, it's a basic dietary staple.

It's good.

(singing) We've seen just a tiny portion of the state.

My goal is Ceara's principal mountain range, it's a long drive out west, and I have a few stops along the way.

This is the town of Caetanos, it's a few hours to the northwest of the city of Fortaleza.

It's a fishing village of about 400 families and fisherman have been going off the coast here for eons, for centuries; but in recent decades the fishing stocks have plummeted so what does a village do that depended on fishing, that does not have an economic resource?

One thing that you do first is organize a community center.

One of the most important projects in any town, but especially here in Caetanos, is education for the kids.

This school is the result of the overall project, it keeps growing.

They're trying to bring every resource for education for kids that they can possibly do.

In addition, it has become a little miniature community center where adults are allowed.

These bags are full of unusable cloth from cloth stores, and they are trying to make them into various hangs and rugs.

The term for them in Brazil is fuxica , which means gossip, and the idea is when women are working on these it gives them the time to gossip and find out what's really going on in their neighbor's house all over town.

The school doubles as a community center, and this is the theatre of Caetanos, you don't even have to pay admission to come into see movies here.

We're out on the road on a Monday morning, back in Fortaleza Monday nights always feature one of Brazil's most famous and craziest nightclubs.

Its owner used to live in this town, he's like a native son who remembers his roots.

Pirata soon became known as the craziest Monday night in the world.

So what is the craziest Monday in the world?

It begins with a Forró Pe de Serra which is the oldest Forró in Brazil.

It has been going on for over 40 years.

Forró is the iconic folk dance here in the northeast.

I believe that if you are successful at making money, you should share it with others in a socially responsible way.

In this spirit we founded the Pirata Foundation.

We work mainly with children, we have an extensive literacy campaign which is recognized by the federal government.

We have the largest library in the region, this one here.

We also have a sewing shop, which allows mothers to bring their children here and carry on with a lace making activity.

With this work we help to maintain family ties, keeping the family together within the same place so that the child can grow up in a constructive environment.

I'm standing in part of a protected dune system a couple of kilometers away from Caetanos.

The wind is stiff, it's almost always stiff here.

This part of Ceara has some of the best winds for paraponting and for kite sailing in the world.

It's known as the kite surfing capital of the world.

The wind is always there.

This is really the Hawaii of kite surfing.

What Hawaii is to surfing, this here is to kite surfing.

Best wind conditions for kite surfing anywhere are found here in Ceara.

The best thing about it is to be in contact with the water, nature in general.

What I like to do the most is jump 30, 40 meters high, there's no height limit, the sky is my limit.

The wind here is very constant, on average it is 20-25 knots from the morning 'til six in the evening.

It's windy all day, every day.

Three hours to the west is a place that is popular with, well, affluent and adventurous travelers, especially Brazilians.

It's become world famous.

The best beach in the state of Ceara, I think without any argument is in a national park called Jericoacoara.

It's isolated, it's a long drive for anybody and it's hard to get into it.

Most people go in by a special dune buggy, but you have to have a special guide to show you the way in.

It's situated among dunes, it has a source of freshwater lakes behind the dunes, it has some of the most beautiful beaches of crystal clear water anywhere in Brazil, and there's a lot in Brazil, and I've never been here before.

A lot of people come here to go horseback riding along the shore, perhaps the most popular activity is climbing the dunes and watching the sun set.

Everybody seems to want to do that.

Twenty years ago Jericoacoara was an attraction to Brazilians primarily who came here, it was very isolated, to enjoy the solitude.

During the day there is plenty to do, but at night the place is no longer a sleepy fishing village, it comes alive.

One of the reasons for coming to Jericoacoara is it's one of the only places you can see this elusive, marvelous, strange seahorse, and they will glom onto say a mangrove root or a stick and camouflage themselves, so they're very hard to see, unless you have the experienced eye of a fisherman.

I've never seen a wild seahorse.

Seahorse males take care of the eggs once they're fertilized, they carry them around, they are responsible for all the brooding of the developing larvae, it's kinda a gender role that's been switched.

It's a marvel of evolution that they're even here.

So from the ethereal seahorses we go up into the wild dunes.

Apparently you can't get across the estuary.

I've never ridden directly onto a ferry in a dune bike before, but we've got to cross the estuary, and usually you do that to get to the other side.

We're providing employment here for a number of the local people which is terrific.

This is a very strange landscape, it's a dead mangrove forest here.

Mangroves do come and go, but it looks as though this dune has actually moved into the mangroves and killed them.

They have to have their roots directly in the water, so life and death in the mangroves.

Sand dunes are going to do what they're going to do, and there's not much people can do to change that.

In this area about 50 years ago, there was a town of 150 families, the sand dunes decided to move in.

The wind comes from that way, it blew the sand and the town was engulfed in a dune, and here we see the remnants, which was a fishing village and what didn't get moved, got taken over by the sand.

There used to be 150 homes here, I was baptized in the church that was destroyed by the sand, buried by the dune.

Now it is just the hill of sand you can see over there.

First the church's ceiling fell in, then the walls.

The only things left are some bricks.

The ships used to sail up here and harbor in the port.

The last one through, got stuck and couldn't get out.

The sands came and buried it.

The old-timers say that the big dune over there is 100 years old and is covering a big ship.

It is a haunted dune.

Dune surfing is popular in some quarters, and it can be grand fun, I will testify, the trouble is, you have to walk back up the dune and that is quite a chore.

This is a huge dune, its called a barken dune, because it is shaped like a slice of the moon.

The wind keeps moving it, and it will gradually engulf everything in it's path.

Dunes do that.

I like beaches, but mountains get my attention.

Especially those with tropical forests that are also known as garden baskets, and with an Indian name like Guaraciaba.. Guaraciaba's current economic cycle began in 1970s when the North American Tim Finan arrived here in our region.

At that time, this economy was based on three products, sugar cane, casaba, and bananas.

People's livelihood depended on these three products.

That's when Tim introduced tomatoes as a critical crop.

In addition to tomatoes he introduced carrots, lettuce, and many other vegetables that were unknown here to our region.

Thanks to the climatic conditions at our altitude of about 1000m, the new crops became so successful Guaraciaba.

started exporting both the planting technology of tomatoes and other vegetables to other urban areas and it began supplying vegetables to major cities such as Terezinha and Fortaleza.

So today, Guaraciaba.

is an exporter of vegetable products.

Other communities now look to Guaraciaba.

and it has become the largest producer of vegetables in this region, and it does it without the use of pesticides.

The introduction of tomatoes generated economic growth for the region.

Like many children of the Earth, I started a reforestation project, but on more of a macro scale.

It's an attempt to make up what was deforested for the tomato planting.

This is a re-planted forest.

There's enough rainfall that the stuff will come back pretty quickly and the temperature in here must be 10 degrees from out there in the parking lot where it was hot, inside here where it's cool.

The ground is moist, it was powdery dust out there.

It's a free environmental service.

This area we have reforested 42 hectares over the last 15 years.

As you can see the water is now running here, 10 years ago the water did not have any running water, so this is a result of the reforestation efforts.

It shows that we need to start in the right direction and then let nature do the rest by itself.

Here in the mountains at the western edge of the state of Ceara, the climate is cool, the air is fresh and rainfall is pretty much adequate; at Fortaleza on the coast, another coastal place, the climate is mild and also adequate, but in between lie nearly 200 miles of Sertão where a drought may last for years, where rainfall may never occur for over a year.

That baked plain, 700m below us here, presents a major challenge for planners.

It's time for all of us to get together and shake the neighborhood up with a ceramic jam session.

(music) Funding for In The Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnes Haury.

Copies of this and other episodes of In The Americas with David Yetman are available from the Southwest Center.

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