Oh Linda!
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
8
36
Trip End
Sep 01, 2007
Where I stayed
Olinda (Recife), Brazil
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Olinda is a sister city to the big smelly city of Recife whick is a seaside sprawl.
Olinda is made up of alot of beautiful colonial style buildings built on a hill with a view of the sea. We stayed in a great HI youth hostel (discount with our membership cards... geeks). We got up every day early and had a morning dip in the pool, had a great breakfast and then we lay about in hammocks, man this traveling life is hard!
So what has Olinda got to offer then?
Well it has shark infested waters for one, which nick (thats me) only managed to venture into up to his knees, well waist deep then with bent legs cos he needed a pee and then big waves came in so he ran away! The sign posts are amusing, see photo, its always good to know about a higher than average risk.
Well aparently like everywhere else in Brazil its not best to walk around at night with valuables or by yourself, so lucklily we found a local street procession on friday night where the locals get together wander round the streets, randomly stopping for a while singing traditional songs drunkenly while men wheel drinks around in wheelbarrows and everyone gets generally intoxicated. So, not wanting to be left out, we tagged along. You should always be aware of where to go to the toilet on such processions, the mens toilets are on the right, left or down any dark alley, women go at any bar you happen to stop at and because there is only one loo of course this gives all the men enough time to buy more booze from the wheelbarrow men outside. You then make it back to the main square where the drinking continues. We are not sure what it was all about but it was alot of fun! However we did miss the Samba band on top of the hill however I reckon thats was for the tourists, we were down with the locals all be it with drunk old men and women! But don`t worry Cath, you will find your Samba! I just dont know when that will be!
We did make it to the top of the hill on our last night for some amazing capoeira and some more caiprinhas with a few of our interntonal friends from the hostel. We were the only English in the group which was refreshing however eveyone, as usual, communicated in English which is always handy if a little embarrassing!
There was one house in Olinda which we walked past, it seemed a little odd when you peered inside, strange pieces of art and collections of oddities scatterd around, is it a museum for strange creepy things? We were then caught by this lady who actually reminded me of my old art teacher Mrs Romp. She invited us in........then locked the door behind us. Then everything went black, blood started to run down the walls and and all the strange objects came to life. Then i realised my imagination was getting carried away! It was her house and art studio, silly old me! She taught her students out back and the rest of the things were her art, a little dark but interesting, we looked around and thanked her kindly. As we left the building the black clouds cleared and sunshine rained again, the birds started to sing and then suddenly.........................................
