So after my one night in a bed I hit the road for my 33 hour (which turned into 38 hour) bus journey to Recife and Olinda. Recife is a big industrial city in the Northeast of Brazil but the attraction was Olinda which though a city in it´s own right is pretty much considered a suburb of Recife.
Olinda itself is pretty laid back - a maze of cobbled streets and old colonial multi coloured buildings and is now a World Heritgae site.
One of the locals having his lunch!!
Lace seemed to be one of the main things on sale at the local markets.
Of course there were lots of churches in the old town - when the Dutch invaded they burnt down all the original churches but didn´t replace them so the Portugese had to rebuild them all when they gained power again in the 16th century. The religous arifacts in the Museu de Arte Sacra de Pernambuco came from all over Europe - though I suspect the painting is not as old as some of the other stuff!!
Even before I made it into Recife itself I could see the difference between the old town and the bigger city a few kilometres away - I love the contrast though.
One of the local artists at work.
Interesting house painting......
The contemporary art museum had some interesting paintings!!
My favourite museum was the Museu do Mamulengo - which houses the traditional puppets. Chom Poo Moo enjoyed meeting her hero Shrek......she feels she can relate to him now that she is permanently tattood with blue ink after an accident with a pen!!
Though I did head into Recife I stuck to the old part of town and avoided the skyscraper district so there were still a lot of old buildings here as well.
The Governor´s Palace was unfortunately off limits for me as I wasn´t dressed appropriately for this official site - they did let me into the foyer though.
Recife is made up of a number of small islands as well as the mainland - this is Marco Zero on Recife Island from which all distances in the state of Pernambuco are measured.
There was a local holiday in Recife the day I was there so most things were closed and there was a massive service on at the Catheral which all those people were waiting to go into to.
What I found funny was that once they come out of their religous service the carnival is 50m away so they can go gamble and look at these pictures of half naked woman!!
That looks like hard work to me......
Forte das Cinco - known locally as 5 Point Fort even though for over a hundred years it has only 4 star shaped points after being re-built. This was the last place the Dutch surrendered to the Portugese in the 1650´s.
As most places in the city were closed and the streets were pretty quiet it wasn´t the best or safest place to hang around so I headed out to Boa Viagem beach for a walk. It was a nice long beach not too busy where I first got off but that changed as I walked back towards the town. No shock to find Brazillian boys playing football on the beach.
Well no surprises for guessing that I didn´t go in for a swim after reading that sign@!!
One way to keep an eye on your bike whilst you sunbathe.
Mobile food service and disco.....
Definetely the busier side of the beach.
I don´t know what these boards are called but I have seen people using them in various countries - they jump on them and skim accross the sand as the waves come in - looks easy eh??
People collect the cans for recycling as they get paid per can.
Guys in Brazil like to keep fit but unfortunately ladies they also like to wear really tight speedo´s - and they don´t worry about fitness or age!!
And if you get fed up playing football and volleyball you can just practise levetating upside down!!
More built up and modern area as you walk along the beach.
This old lady was a hoot - she was singing and dancing and of course trying to make a few pennies on the way but she was funny and not pushy. Most of her money seemed to come from taking people´s bottles back to the shop where she would collect the deposit.
The street entertainers were also out - tight rope walking and eating fire.
Me and the girls from the hostel - someone asked us if we were from the circus that was in town!! Cheeky!!!
The Hostel I was staying at in Olinda was nice and very sociable.
Seceral times on the local buses there was someone preaching to the passangers from the bible....I wonder what would happen if someone tried that in one of the schemes in Glasgow!!
All the buses have these gates so that the number of people coming on the bus is counted - city buses have a driver and someone collecting money whilst the private buses just have the driver who also collects the money. Kids over 5 are supposed to pay but more often than not they are just lifted over the turstile - usually the driver/ticket guy helps!!
The culture centre which used to be a prison and now all the cells hold little arts and crafts shops.
The long distance buses here are usually pretty comfortable - luckily enough given how long some of my bus journeys have been - this was my shortest one to date at 12 hours between Recife and my next stop in Salvador.
I had debated not stopping in Recife as I really only wanted to see the old town of Olinda and the bus cost and took as long to Salvador as it did to Recife but in the end I couldn´t get a bus to Salvador for abvoutn three days and I didn´t want to hang about Belem which really had nothing to do. But I am glad I went as Olinda was a lovely place to hang out for a bit even if Recife itself didn´t have much to offer.
I had debated not stopping in Recife as I really only wanted to see the old town of Olinda and the bus cost and took as long to Salvador as it did to Recife but in the end I couldn´t get a bus to Salvador for abvoutn three days and I didn´t want to hang about Belem which really had nothing to do. But I am glad I went as Olinda was a lovely place to hang out for a bit even if Recife itself didn´t have much to offer.
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