Coral Beach Brazil

[sarah nash]

michael, i guess we will not be neighbours!

I hear Brazilians like the lake and the sea, so this is actually perfect.

There are many facilities being constructed here, and the number of residential lots will create a corridor of commercial as it is required.

Lake and Sea, I do not mind if I am front or back then

Wishing you all the best. I am out.

[wolfgang]

Sarah,
I am sorry if my factual observation regarding the condition of the roads was not to your liking. On that basis,i suspect you are not going to like my next factual comment either: namely that contrary to your belief, Pinto Martins International Airport is not "outside" and "North" of the City of Fortaleza-it is actually to the South, within the city itself and located to the South East (or at least it was when i flew there in December) which makes it far easier to travel South on the improved BR 116 dual carriageway,not North.

Thank you for your advice regarding my staying off the roads,though it will be interesting to see if your comments are quite so dismissive of others who are trying to be helpful when you have actually been there and seen things for yourself.

Brazil is very much for me incidentally,though my strategy is to identify those areas that imho will experience the greatest growth which invariably means staying off the potholed backroads leading to remote developments and confining my searching procedures to accessible locations and quality developments serviced by driveable roads close to International airports.

In conclusion, (and please do not misinterpret this) if as you say you have done your homework on this,why do you need to ask who the developer is?
Should this not be one of the very first and most crucial questions?(ie who is it i am actually handing my hard earned money over to!)

[JMBroad]

As Sarah says, I'd imagine the people at the back would be more inclined to use the lake. Either way, I'm comparing it to other developments agents are offering which are nowhere near the beach. This one is on the beach with beach access. If you are going to buy a house in a development like this but you don't want to walk along the sand down the development to the beach then you've probably bought on the wrong development.

I grew up on a subtropical island, Mike. I used to walk 45 minutes down to the beach with my older brother and friends and then spend 1 hr 30 mins walking back up. And we are talking steeep hills, not a sandy beach. On the other hand, we'd spend almost all day on or around the beach.

Different people have different tastes.

[michaelbush]

Originally Posted by JMBroad

I grew up on a subtropical island, Mike. I used to walk 45 minutes down to the beach with my older brother and friends and then spend 1 hr 30 mins walking back up. And we are talking steeep hills, not a sandy beach. On the other hand, we'd spend almost all day on or around the beach.

Different people have different tastes.

This is probably 3° off the equator, hardly subtropical, and you were much younger then!!! If you had a beach buggy then, I bet you would not have been walking!!

[RalphJ]

Originally Posted by sarah nash

I think wolfgang that you should stop travelling or visiting brazil, it is obviously not for you. I am sorry that darkness scared you on the roads, I am sure they will be improved as they get used more.

Disagree 100% here. It is VERY dangerous driving in Brazil during daylight, and ultra-dangerous at night!

As Wolfgang correctly stated, most roads that are NOT toll roads have areas that are full of potholes, many are larger than cars themselves. One can be driving along at 80-100 km/hr on a good road, and then suddenly, without any warning, you enter a piece of road that can last kilometers that appears as if the american military just cluster bombed it. Of all the countries in the world that that United Nations keeps statistics on as far as traffic accidents and fatalities.....Brazil is at the top of the list!

Also, driving at night can be very dangerous for other reasons. It is not uncommon for thieves to place a tree across the middle of a road and when you stop your car they rob you. This happened to a friend of mine two years ago near Caruaru, they found his truck on the highway engulfed in flames and he was nowhere to be found....and has yet to be found until this moment. Every single sensible Brazilian will advise you to NOT drive at night for the reasons listed above as well as others. Another being animals on the road, cows, horses, donkeys, etc.

To illustrate this point even more accurately, approximately 5 years ago on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo, they put up an outdoor billboard that stated the U.N. stats on highway fatalities in Brazil, and how it was the most dangerous country in the world per U.N. stats to drive a car, within 4 weeks, a car had somehow driven directly through the middle of the billboard!!! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen the footage on the news.

[JMBroad]

Originally Posted by michaelbush

This is probably 3° off the equator, hardly subtropical, and you were much younger then!!! If you had a beach buggy then, I bet you would not have been walking!!

As soon as I became mobile I never walked it again but we are talking a serious hike - not flat but in many places vertical where you had to rock-climb up walls to get to the next walkable bit. Comparing that to a kilometre on flat land and it no longer seems so harsh.

[robh]

Originally Posted by RalphJ

Disagree 100% here. It is VERY dangerous driving in Brazil during daylight, and ultra-dangerous at night!

As Wolfgang correctly stated, most roads that are NOT toll roads have areas that are full of potholes, many are larger than cars themselves. One can be driving along at 80-100 km/hr on a good road, and then suddenly, without any warning, you enter a piece of road that can last kilometers that appears as if the american military just cluster bombed it. Of all the countries in the world that that United Nations keeps statistics on as far as traffic accidents and fatalities.....Brazil is at the top of the list!

Also, driving at night can be very dangerous for other reasons. It is not uncommon for thieves to place a tree across the middle of a road and when you stop your car they rob you. This happened to a friend of mine two years ago near Caruaru, they found his truck on the highway engulfed in flames and he was nowhere to be found....and has yet to be found until this moment. Every single sensible Brazilian will advise you to NOT drive at night for the reasons listed above as well as others. Another being animals on the road, cows, horses, donkeys, etc.

To illustrate this point even more accurately, approximately 5 years ago on Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo, they put up an outdoor billboard that stated the U.N. stats on highway fatalities in Brazil, and how it was the most dangerous country in the world per U.N. stats to drive a car, within 4 weeks, a car had somehow driven directly through the middle of the billboard!!! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen the footage on the news.

The US is still double Brazil for road fatalities in raw numbers and about the same for deaths per 100k.

I grew up driving on potholed roads in the countryside which were one and a half car widths wide, so to me the less well travelled roads in Brazil aren't that bad at all, but I concur, stick to the well travelled roads and drive in the daytime if possible.

If you want a real experience driving try countries where they don't keep stats! Egypt is a great one to test your wits, drivers drive without their headlights on at night so when they flash you with their high beams it has a greater effect!!

[RalphJ]

Originally Posted by robh

The US is still double Brazil for road fatalities in raw numbers and about the same for deaths per 100k.

I grew up driving on potholed roads in the countryside which were one and a half car widths wide, so to me the less well travelled roads in Brazil aren't that bad at all, but I concur, stick to the well travelled roads and drive in the daytime if possible.

If you want a real experience driving try countries where they don't keep stats! Egypt is a great one to test your wits, drivers drive without their headlights on at night so when they flash you with their high beams it has a greater effect!!

No...the U.S. doesn't even come close to the number on a per capita basis. One has to take the population of cars into consideration when making these comparisons, not people.

Brazil had in 2001 6.8 deaths per 10,000 vehicles....the U.S. had 1.93 per 10,000 vehicles. That's nearly 3.5 X more dangerous. It's not even close robh. And I can tell you from spending 32 years in the states, and the last 10 here in Brazil, it is a difference that I, and anyone with knowledge of both countries, doesn't need stats to know, although they're certainly there to be obtained. The link I will post below was a study where it talks about the gross underestimate of deaths on brazilian roads due to traffic accidents.

http://www.iatss.or.jp/english/resea...df/29-2-09.pdf

2. DISCREPANCY IN STATISTICAL DATA
The discrepancy found in the data regarding traffic
accidents disclosed by several sources has made clear the
need for a new and more up to date data base, that relays
a more reliable portrait of the country.
Official statistics show that the occurrence of deaths by traffic accidents is underestimated, due to the fact
that only the victims at the scene of the accident are
taken into consideration. Thus, in 2001 the National Department
of Traffic - DENATRAN, an agency of the Ministry
of Cities, registered 18,877 deaths in road accidents
(see Table 1).
The statistics from the Ministry of Health registered
at the same period 30,537 deaths caused by traffic accidents.
However, according to information provided by
FENASEG - The National Federation of Private Insurance
Companies, 36,521 deaths due to traffic accidents
were indemnified using the resources from the compulsory
insurance.

Once again, relying on gov't. statistics in Brazil for comparison is something that is just now "starting" to become semi-accurate. I cannot think of one Brazilian person that I personally know that has not had a family member, in many cases distant, cousin, uncle, etc, that has not died in an auto accident. That is certainly not my experience in the U.S. Trying to compare the safety conditions of cars, roads, and motorists habits in the two countries couldn't be much more different.

[RalphJ]

Also, there are more than 240 million cars in the U.S. (total fleet), in Brazil there are roughly 38 million.

In 2001 there were 36,521 deaths that were compensated with insurance in brazil due to traffic fatalities, in the U.S. there was a TOTAL number of deaths by auto accidents of 42,116.

You can do the math.

[robh]

Originally Posted by RalphJ

Also, there are more than 240 million cars in the U.S. (total fleet), in Brazil there are roughly 38 million.

In 2001 there were 36,521 deaths that were compensated with insurance in brazil due to traffic fatalities, in the U.S. there was a TOTAL number of deaths by auto accidents of 42,116.

You can do the math.

I was looking at UN figures which are obviously inaccurate.