Today we head to our next beach stop, further up the coast. We head off early, just after 8 AM. We drive through the nearby major town of Natal - a number of people need to try to get some money out of an ATM machine. We spend quite some time looking for one that they can access - our advice is bring a bit more cash on these types of trips.
We carry on driving through the morning, but our drive is abruptly interrupted - we run out of diesel in the main fuel tank. The fuel gauge does not seem to be working properly, so we just sputtered to a stop. Flip was able to pull us over to the edge of the road. This would normally not be a major problem - all you have to do is pump by hand some diesel from the reserve tank (which holds as much diesel as the main tank) to the main tank and head on. But the fuel transfer line sprung a leak and diesel was just pouring out all over the place with the built up pressure from the pumping.
As some of us covered the spilled diesel with sand, Flip and Mike did some emergency repairs to try to pump a minimal amount of diesel into the main tank - a petrol station was only a couple of hundred meters down the road so we did not have to go far. Flip and Mike were a mess in the end - all covered with diesel - but they got us to the petrol station where we filled up the main tank and then had our lunch.
Around 1 PM we headed on, arriving in Canoa Quebrada just before 6 PM. We had a bit of a trouble getting the truck down the lane to the hotel - someone had piled up sand at one tricky corner, so we walked the last few hundred meters as Flip and Mike dug the sand out of the way.
After getting our room and settling in, we headed out for a quick bite to eat. It is a small, one street town, but they are ready for tourists with lots of restaurants and bars. But it is a bit quiet right now. After checking our email, we headed back to the hotel for the pool party.
The bar people from our truck have prepared a huge pot of caprioscas - vodka, lime juice, sugar and ice. They are mean. A few of these, and you are no longer responsible for your actions. Throw in a pool, and you have trouble. As you can imagine, after a few drinks, just about everyone ended up in the pool, including some who had made the mistake of not changing into their swimmers.
The owners of the hotel tried to keep things under control - they said that people should not swim after 10 PM as some chemicals were be released into the pool. People either did not believe them or did not care. It was a good time. But then again, some just collapsed.