No one here but me and my crabs

Sheets of rain fell all night last night and continued until late morning. After a quick meal of yet more leftovers carted with me from Olinda and once the rain ceased, I headed off to Tamandare, the village 4 kms away from the beach, with Leo in his beat up beach town truck to get groceries:

My new buddy, Leo, buying road chicken

It quickly became clear that Leo is like the Big Man on Campus in Tamandare, a one-horse town of about 2000 people. He moved here from Recife 10 years ago and has been managing the apartments here, owned by an Italian from Recife, ever since. A nice gig that comes with an apartment on the beach. He knows EVERYONE in town. He took me to the supermercado, and Roberto’s Peixiaria (fish shop) where I purchased a half a kilogram of local shrimp for 2.50$. Sounds awesome right? That turned out disappointing. I went to clean and de-vein them for dinner later and they were so small that I spent an hour, up to my elbows in shrimp shit and central nervous systems, and barely made a dent so I gave up.

Cleaning shrimp FAIL

After getting all my food and drink needs met for the next few days, Leo and I headed back to the apartments, cracking jokes about the intense and explicit religiosity in the town. When we returned back, I was once again offered food, some grilled chicken, by Leo and his beautiful partner, Eliza. It was only a small grilled chicken he had bought off the street, grilled in a sawed in half oil drum-turned-BBQ and, and while it smelled amazing, I didn’t want to take their lunch away from them. I respectfully declined, made a joke about how much food I now had in the fridge and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich before heading out to the neighbourhood pub one building over down the beach:

Neighbourhood pub

 I was sitting alone with my B & B (beer and book) overlooking the water for about 3 minutes

Monday afternoon beer and book.

 ...before the couple sitting at the next table struck up a conversation. Shirley and her husband were from Sao Paulo, on business in Recife but taking a day to beach-hop. Their order of calabrese and fries came and they invited me to join them at their table and share their food with them. I began to see a trend with the offering of food and I wondered if it was similar to my experience in South Asia where “food is love” and refusing food was viewed as insulting. And I love calabrese sausage. So I didn’t refuse this time.

The rain finally ebbed and I decided to go for another walk. The beauty of touristing on a beach in a rural area is the simple itinerary: Day1, walk north up beach; Day 2, walk south down beach; Day 3, sit on beach. I planned to venture about 3 km north up the beach, around the point. Around the point there are natural pools created in the rocks when the tide is low that I guess people take mud baths in and snorkel in or something like that. I began to walk and walk and walk and soon realised that I essentially had 8 km of tropical beach to myself. It was surreal and it is unexpected that isolated places like this and solitary experiences like this still exist on the planet.

Where the heck is everyone??

I arrived at the natural pools and waded around in them not really noticing much except they were wading pools contained in rock formations with sandy-ish bottoms. Then, all of a sudden, my perspective shifted and I began to notice. The pools were teeming with life: little tropical fish, some see-through ones, some with leopard patterns, some with striped black and yellow patterns…and the little shells…like the shells you find all over beaches in Canada…well except here is where all those shells must come from because all of them here are the homes of a creature. If you really pay attention you see every single shell moving slowly along the beach on the backs of some little crustacean. I have never had the pleasure of seeing these little dudes in action before! Unfortunately this is so often how we experience life around us, viewing only the big pictures of the past and future and not seeing what is directly in front of us right now, the minutiae, William Blake’s proverbial ‘grain of sand’.

My favourite creature of all that I saw for the first time ever are these sand coloured crabs, about the size of the palm of your hand, with pearl white claws, scuttling everywhere across the beach. Again, if you are not noticing the minutiae, these little fellas will escape your view with their excellent camouflage and smooth scuttlin' style. As soon as I noticed one, I paid closer attention and looked around and noticed they were everywhere. As soon as their big black, protruding eyes catch a whiff of you they either pretend to be statues or scuttle rapidly down into their perfect little holes in the sand. Here’s a crappy photo that you'll have to look at closely to see the little guy but it helps give an idea of what they look like:

My shitty photo

What they actually look like. Thanks: www.animalhi.com 

On my way back home, I took a float in the ocean as the sun was starting to go down, highly anticipating my shrimp pasta (that totally barely happened) and my bottle of Chilean wine. What’s the term one of my friends uses? Champagne socialist? Yeah I’d say that’s me right now. 

A trip to the shore

It was raining this morning when I woke up; the kind of tropical rain that creates a thunderous an almost opaque veil through which only the Sunday morning bells of the 17^th century churches could be heard.

Much to my pleasant surprise, ‘my driver’, Junior, showed up half an hour early in his pink short sleeve polo shirt and with his melodious northern Brazil dialect of Portuguese. I was thrilled about this because he was there to whisk me away to paradise and the sooner the better.

Junior Abrasco of Tamandare Taxi

We made our way south out of Recife through neighbourhoods that were equivalent to the types of neighbourhoods typically seen in low-income countries. Quality of life in South America, I think, seems to exist as this interesting dichotomy between living conditions: those neighbourhoods that most definitely rival North American neighbourhoods in infrastructure and those neighbourhoods that look more like the crumbling urban areas of Dhaka (okay, maybe not that bad but it’s still quite the disparity). On my hop-on-hop-off bus tour in Curitiba we drove through neighbourhoods that, I swear to god, could have been North Vancouver. However, with that being said, things generally most definitely function way more smoothly than anything you’d experience in Bangladesh or India. The traffic is mellow, the electricity grids work consistently, the wifi has been amazing, and getting around has been pain free.

I was kind of surprised by this because, for some made up reason in my head, I believed that Brazil was among the melange of nations that contain mega cities and exploding populations (evidence of how much I actually knew about Brazil before coming). In fact, Brazil’s population density, at 25 people per square kilometers, is less than the USA’s and is dwarfed by Bangladesh’s and India’s 1222 and 436 people per square kilometer, respectively.

Finally out of the city, on practically deserted highways, a wave of excitement and tranquility washed over me as we sped our way through small farm villages with their ‘caged in’ houses. These villages are nestled within the rolling hills of green sugar cane fields sowed in orange and rose coloured soil. Random horses, all alone, occupied the strangest places; I even saw one that was tied to a tree grazing in the center of one of the villages on like what looked like a traffic circle meridian. I learned from Junior that sugar cane is still harvested manually and the horses are used to transport the cane to market for a huge amount of both domestic production of sugar and ethanol and international exports. The prevalence of off-leash horses seemed problematic to me, confirmed when we passed one that had been hit by a car and his/her massive carcass was off to the side of the road. It was kind of akin to a deer on the side of the highway in Canada but there was something about the size of a horse torso blocking the road that was slightly more disturbing.

Also,in a previous post I questioned Brazilian capacity to brave inclement weather and get on with their lives while in Curitiba. I want to suggest now that, according to what I saw in these rural areas, as the tropical rains came dumping down, people continued to work cutting sugar cane, walking along the side of the highways and selling lychee and oranges, to ride their bicycles and motorcycles in these downpours. It doesn’t hurt that it remains comfortably warm while the drenching occurs.

We continued on at top speed (of course) in the pouring rain, men on dirt bikes weaving by us wearing big racing helmets with visors and no shoes, and the village store fronts ubiquitously spotted with signs with the word “pneus”on them:

Which I’m sure means something like “tires” or “oil changes” or something like that but I found it funny to repeat in my head: pneus, pneus, pneus and to see it constantly sprawled across building signs. It’s probably not even pronounced like I think it is.

Finally we arrived to the sleepy Sunday village of Tamandare and my home for the next few days, Praia dos Carneiros. I chose to come here after telling a Carioca in Rio that I was thinking of visiting Port de Galhinas, a recommended and popular beach about one hour south of Recife. She scoffed and suggested this beach instead calling it a veritable paradise with almost no people. Sold.

At my hotel/apartment complex located directly on the beach, I met Leo, the manager. I immediately liked him, with his full head of white shaggy hair, his surfer dude barefoot saunter, and his tanned leathery skin covering his middle aged tall man bod, sporting giant dark rimmed hipster glasses. His English is as good as my Portuguese and I’m finding that I can totally get by on this level of communication with the help of charades. He checked me into my beautiful apartment with a balcony overlooking the water and apologized he couldn’t give me the ground-floor terrace that opens onto the beach apartment. Ha!

The view from my balcony

The view from my bedroom

Kitchen

Living room

I quickly unpacked, shoved some leftover pizza in my face that I had carted with me from Olinda (along with leftover pasta, caprese salad, cookies, and chips). I had anticipated that there would be no way a grocery would be open on a Sunday in a small village in which every wall and vehicle in some way has a reference to god and jesus: Deus e Justo! grafitti  or just simply JESUS painted in giant letters across the top of a mototaxi shop. And I was certainly correct! What can I say? I’m a food planner and a large portion of my trip thus far has been in search of calories.

I put on my swimsuit, grabbed a reclining beach chair and headed to the water:

Stairway to heaven from my apartment complex...who would've thought it would be of the descending variety?

Praia dos Carneiros, in the off-season

I dropped my shit on the beach as if in a trance and immediately went into the water. This was my first Brazilian beach full-on dip. It was absolutely heavenly and for the first time in four days my body temperature was just right. After a short float I went to lounge on my lounge chair. Now it had been relatively cloudy all day and finally the sun and blue sky emerged! Ah yes, and now to finally really work on my tan. That lasted about seven minutes before the searing heat of the sun compelled me to also go get a large beach umbrella from the hotel. It was made of wood and very heavy. I also really have no idea how to put  a beach umbrella into the sand, especially one of significant heft. The couple a few meters away from me who are staying at my same hotel, at first, watched me, as I clumsily lifted the umbrella and made an attempt to drive it into the sand multiple times. The woman started coming over saying in Portuguese, “wait wait, my husband is going to get you the thing to use to get it in the ground to make a base”. I understood. Her husband returned with this clever tool that you are supposed to use to help dig a deep hole for the umbrella stem and then pack it in with sand. I had been totally off base. Anyway, like a gentleman, he put in my umbrella for me and they introduced themselves in about as good of English as is my Portuguese. They were from Sao Paulo having a two week holiday beach hopping. Later on they went and hunted down the ice cream salesman and bought me a coconut mousse popsicle and we stood around ‘shooting the shit’ as best we could with our popsicles dripping down our arms and onto our legs.

I went back in the water a while later just as the next bout of torrential rain was about to hit. Floating about in the turquoise water with monsoon rain pounding down on my face was enchanting and I basically just wanted to get naked and quit my PhD and stay there forever. 

But I didn't. I went back to the apartment eventually as the weather got worse and had an incredibly non-romantic evening of watching Game of Thrones and Mindy Project in bed only to be very kindly interrupted by Leo, the manager, who was concerned I didn't have food and he offered to share his dinner. I kindly thanked him, said "muito obrigada mas eu sou OK" and returned to my well-planned leftovers that I toted from Olinda and eventually drifted off to sleep.

Depends on your definition of "failure"

What a glorious morning in Olinda, waking up and having breakfast on the veranda with my pousada co-tenants: lizard, gecko, tiny monkey, and the resident beija flor (Portuguese for hummingbird which translates to “flower kisser”). And this morning, I finally got some solid work done… a solid 1.5 hours, for sure.

I had had a great sleep and again was feeling fresh and ready to spend the day exploring Olinda. The only parts of Olinda worth exploring only take a chilled out one-day to wander via foot. Following breakfast and some work, at about 10 am, I laced up my mom-shoes and headed out into the sunshine filled, cobblestone streets with my little map in hand and headed for my first stop, the Convento de Sao Francisco, founded in 1535, destroyed by the Dutch, then rebuilt in 1631 and it was Brazil’s first Franciscan convent. It is still in use today and, even as I strolled up, it appeared there was a wedding happening:

Convento de Sao Francisco, Olinda

Next I headed for where all the Catholic men were once kept, the Mosteiro de Sao Bento, built by the Benedictine order of monks in the 1500s.

Mosteiro de Sao Bento, Olinda

As I turned the corner on Rua Sao Bento and the monastery came into view and a full-on thick fluid sheen of sweat had by now taken hold of my entire body, I immediately imagined those first monks who came here, sweating profusely in their impractical, yet dogmatic, garbs, to do the civilising and righteous work of the lord. Ha!

According to the internet, it is the only church in Olinda with a mezzanine which is where, in “colonial times” (whatever that actually means), the wealthy would sit:

Mezzanine in the Mosteiro de Sau Bento, Olinda--the VIP box

While the non-wealthy, free people sat on the ground floor:

Inside on the ground floor of the Mosteiro de Sao Bento, Olinda-- the economy class seats

And the slaves rocked out outside in the courtyard, reflective of the long tradition of inequitable access to services; in this case, access to the services of the divine.

After a few quiet and cool-ish moments spent sitting in the pews, I headed out once more in search of the puppet-making museum where apparently you are able to even play with the puppets! But I walked and walked and came to the conclusion that my Frommer map was entirely out of date and that it no longer existed. Also, nothing was really open yet either so it’s hard to say if it isn’t there or if they weren’t open so there was no sign out. Who knows. I kept walking to the next museum on my little fun-filled day-long itinerary which was also not there, or perhaps it had a different name, but I couldn’t find it either. So I thought, well I guess I’ll just go find the Brazilian seafood restaurant recommended by Frommer that sounded really great. Nope. Couldn’t find that either. In fact, I kept ending up walking through streets I pretty much had no business walking through and here, in this more impoverished part of Brazil and me in my mom shoes and wayfarer sunglasses, I was most definitely not “blending”. It was all a total fail, really. I gave up looking for that particular restaurant and decided I’d settle for another one, whatever decent looking place emerged as I walked around more. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Rien. It seems they don’t “DO” lunch, here. And if they do, it isn’t until, at the earliest, 3 pm. Well fine. I get it. With the heat and stuff. But I assumed that, given it is a tourist town, that some clever Olinda inhabitant with an entrepreneurial spirit would have the great idea to set up a lunch place with a lunch time that more closely reflects the cultural lunch time values of, perhaps, say, North Americans and North/ Western Europeans. I did find this place for rent which could make a nice spot for a bistro, no?

For rent!

It’s across the street from this:

Basically I just walked and walked and finally, drenched and shiny with sweat, I admitted defeat for the day and went back to my Pousada. I was certain I had been out and about for hours and hours and that it was at least close to 2 pm. I then found out that it was only 12:20 pm and that even my Pousada’s restaurant didn’t open until 1 pm. It feels as if, in the tropics in the oppressive heat, that time, like the people, stands still.

To kill time until I could access a meal, I went to my room, changed into my bathing suit, grabbed a beer from the minibar and went lounging poolside:

In all my travels, I’ve always felt this pressure to “site-see” so I can go home and tell everyone about all the things I saw. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not alone in this feeling. I recall the first time I said “fuck it” to site seeing, however. It was a two week trip to Santorini a long time ago. I was staying in this great little villa with a pool and had a suite with my own little terrace. I woke up on maybe the second or third morning there and was really having a hard time getting out of bed dreading the idea of touristing and navigating strange transportation systems. I asked myself, out loud: But what do YOU want to do today, Adrienne? I responded to myself with: I want to lay in bed and drink cappuccinos and read the pile of books I brought with me (pre-e-reader phenomenon). So I did. I might have even ordered delivery pizza at one point during that day. Basically I sat in a my bed in a hotel room on a Greek island and ordered 'za. I still don't believe that was a wasted day. When I’ve had the luxury and good fortune of travelling with friends and family, they’ve been good motivators to actually go out and see things rather than just me café-hopping and drinking and eating all day, which is really nice sometimes but it gets both expensive and unhealthy. And sometimes one simply wants to stay in your nice boutique hotel room and watch re-runs of “Friends” in Spanish. It's hilarious.

Today's "failed" afternoon ended up being exactly what I needed.

After an hour by the pool reading and having a beer and re-calibrating my body temperature, I went for a cheeseburger and fries at my Pousada restaurant and a two and a half hour afternoon tropical siesta. It was my thinking that I’d wake up and feel ready to hit the town for the night. That also didn’t really happen.

I went wandering at around 6:30 pm looking for a nice place to sit outside and maybe have a drink before having a late-ish dinner. But that isn’t really a thing here, a nice place to have a drink. The only places that were open or opening at 6:30 pm were full-on restaurants or what I’d describe as “holes-in-the-wall”. The latter all had the kind of ambience I wasn't seeking created by one of two things: 1) bright fluorescent lighting and plastic chairs scattered around onto the street or 2) by very dark, seedy blue-ish lighting where I did see some women in there alone but it looked more like a place where filthy, fat, pasty American tourists (or any nationality, but for the sake of brevity…) would go for some Brazilian sexual exploits. Mostly it appeared to be all locals sitting around on the streets drinking beers. And it was mostly men. It didn’t feel quite right to sit by myself and have a drink in the dark heat on the street with the local men. It’s not that I was scared but rather the idea of this felt more intrusive, than anything.

I retreated back to the trattoria I had dinner the first night and dined on the beautiful veranda overlooking a lush courtyard and had my same beautiful and kind young server with her infectious laugh serve me.

My dinner companions consisted of a large tree...

...a cricket the size of my index finger, and the silhouette of the next door neighbour’s parrot who was sitting on their window sill against the backdrop of their kitchen’s light. I can’t say for sure, but I think we had a staring contest.

I also had the company of a surprisingly wonderful book, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller (P.S. this book was "borrowed" a long time ago and you, the true owner, can have it back when I see you next). He writes at great length about alone-ness, which I think is apropos for my current travel situation:

“No, we are never alone. But one has to live apart to know it for the truth…To be alone, if only for a few minutes, and to realize it with all one’s being, is a blessing we seldom think to implore….only when we are truly alone does the fullness and richness of life reveal itself to us..” 

As I walked home, the nightlife scene didn't seem to have become any more welcoming so I retired for the evening. Tomorrow morning I head for a truly isolated tropical paradise, Praia de Carneiros, near the village of Tamandare, about a two hour commute south of Recife....my "driver" is picking me up at 10 am.

Old Recife and New Friends/"Friends"

Oh the tropical morning breeze in rainy season, with its warm and gentle, yet crispy, caresses snaking in through my window that keeps the skin stickiness at bay and allows a few moments without the stale AC air filling my lungs...sigh

  

I encountered my first mosquitoes last night and so I decided I'd try to set up my mosquito net that I purchased for 50$. I decided to bring this net along because there is a fair amount of dengue fever in Brazilian cities. I have had the pleasure of contracting dengue in the past and if you have the luck of catching dengue a second time then the risk of hemorrhagic dengue increases immensely...enough for me to pay 50 bucks for a net. I would just absolutely HATE to start bleeding from my tear ducts and other orifices. While the mosquito that transmits dengue is indeed a day-time biting mosquito, daytime means the whole spectrum of day time to them: from the wee wee hours of dawn until the last vestiges of sun rays are squelched out, so a net, especially for the morning is still doing its job at 6 am. Anyways, the net I purchased FOR 50 DOLLARS from the VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH AUTHORITY TRAVEL CLINIC is the WORST NET I'VE EVER OWNED. Once it is set up, it feels like you are sleeping in a net coffin. It is treated with pyrethrum and it sticks all over your arms and legs and it's so close to your face and you're breathing that garbage in. So I've decided to give up on it and just wear my 25% DEET repellent to bed...my evening moisturizing ritual. As you can probably tell, I'm super pissed at wasting this money and someone from those clinics should actually travel and try to wrestle with the terribly designed products they hock. 

I also have heard discussion at my public health conference that in Brazil, mosquito control for things like zika, yellow fever, and dengue is indeed an equity issue: spray where the tourists and rich people are and neglect the poor areas. So, as elitist as this is going to sound, I'm not worried. BUT I fully acknowledge how unfair this is and how unfair it is that I have the unearned privilege of existing and moving around in spaces where those little vampires are more likely to leave me alone.

Yellow fever awareness raising poster in Brasilia airport-- where rich-ish people hang.

Yellow fever awareness raising poster in Brasilia airport-- where rich-ish people hang.

Yellow fever vaccinations in the historical center of Curitiba--where more rich-ish people hang (and a few homeless people)

Zika awareness raising poster in the historical center of Curitiba--you guessed it! Also where rich-ish people hang

I'm not saying that these campaigns ONLY happen in these areas, but let's face it, I was annoyed about not being picked up by a personal car and driver at the airport yesterday so obviously I'm not doing much real sleuthing in favelas to thoroughly investigate as to whether these kinds of public health campaigns are happening everywhere-- I'm sure they are, though...maybe...well I'd like to hope so.

Sleeping net-free allowed me an incredibly deep and wonderous slumber and I awoke feeling ready to go exploring. But first: BREAKFAST! And a breakfast it is that they offer here at my pousada. It consists of beautiful fruit, ham and cheese (of course...latin America cannot get enough ham and cheese), and a number of really beautiful regional foods:

The breakfast spread

Inhame, macaxeira, munguza, sweet rice, and caramelised bananas

I always find it slightly surreal when I am introduced to vegetables and fruits that I didn't know existed in the world.

My brother and his family spent a couple years living around these parts back in the late 2010s and connected me with one of their friends, Fabio, who still lives here in Recife. The plan was to meet Fabio in Old Recife at around 12:30 pm for lunch and do some exploring. I had a couple hours to kill before heading out on the bus to go meet Fabio so I went to the lovely pousada reception to capture some of those wifi laser beams that are scarce around these parts and do a bit of work. I had so many good intentions for work on this trip and I've managed to pull together about three hours of work thus far. Damn you Brazil for being so interesting! Anyway, now was my chance to start preparing my poster presentation for the Canadian Public Health Association conference in Toronto in June, the week after I get home. Anderson, the front desk guy, struck up a conversation with me in the kind of common way people do when you tell them you're from Canada: "I must say, I loooove Celine Dion....and Alanis Morissette". Then he began introducing me to youtube videos of famous Brazilian pop stars and crooners which led to videos of fevro and forro, two very traditional regionally beloved types of music/dancing. Most excellent. And work was once again put aside for something much, much more interesting.

So then off to the bus and to Old Recife! Recife is like the ginger-haired step child of the three cities I've visited thus far in that it seems to be slightly more neglected, with crumbling infrastructure in parts, litter, sewage smells, crappy wifi, and poorly labelled streets. It's just...different. It is evident that poverty is a serious issue here. And with this kind of context, coupled with a ton of tourism, you get the pesky tourist things like shady-eyed men approaching you and mumbling quietly under their breath in Portuguese "taxi? taxi?" or "tour guide? tour guide?". I picked up my first Brazilian "pest" this morning in Olinda waiting for the bus to Recife. He was fine at first, selling water to people on the buses passing by at the stop so I figured he had "a job". He began talking with me and I repeatedly told him that I didn't understand him, that I didn't speak Portuguese... he kept repeating himself, citing all the tourist places to see in Recife and I was like: "yes yes, I'm going there". I also think he was trying to say something along the lines of "I could show you these places and not for any money, just for conversation". I had told him I was meeting a friend in Old Recife and I had indicated that I totally knew how to get where I needed to go on the really direct bus route right to the location I needed to get to but he took it upon himself to designate himself my guide. He unnecessarily helped me find the right bus and then proceeded to get on the bus with me. He suddenly became my shadow. I was like: aw man, now he's gonna follow me all the way to where I need to be and he's gonna demand money and it's just going to be an overall annoying experience. I became cold and silent with him on the bus. Then he started talking to me again in Portuguese and all I could muster in Portuguese was, in a stern voice: "Nao Dineiro" and "Nao bem" and "eu nao entiendo" and "eu nao falo Portuguese" while pointing at him (basically pointing and saying- "no good!" and "I can't even understand what you're saying!"). He finally got off a few stops later and loudly and angrily said "Tchau" to me, causing quite a stir on the bus. It felt as if everyone around me, myself included, sighed a sigh of relief and the other riders kindly smiled and shook their heads in agreement/pity with me. I imagine the only reason I did not experience this in Rio is because of the Olympics and the city's preparatory "housekeeping". **Disclaimer** I hate telling these kinds of stories in a way that sounds like I'm not cognisant of the fact that my shadow-dude was also just trying to bring home the bacon. However I still hold that it's a bit sketchy to pester AND follow a poor little delicate flower of a lady who is obviously travelling alone.

With my tail shaken, I found my way ON MY OWN VERY EASILY to Old Recife, a really lovely part of the city that my guide books tells me is one of the very few places worth sight seeing around in Recife (poor, poor neglected step child).

Old Recife

Old Recife

Marco zero-- the point from which all measurements in the city are made (maybe even in the state?)

View of water from Old Recife

I met up with my brother's friend, Fabio, his wife Vanessa, and their incredibly beautiful 11-year old niece Taina (Full name: Winitaina Gomez de Souza; Birthday: quinze de maio...as she informed me and made me practice saying repeatedly) at the Caixa Cultural in Old Recife, an old bank-cum-puppet museum:

Caixa Cultural (furthest big building to the right) at Marco Zero

Now, I'm not particularly a puppet enthusiast, in fact I think puppets are kinda strange, but these puppets were magnificent. This is a traditional art form from Pernambuco state, this region of Brazil. I have been told that Carnavale here, in Olinda and Recife, is one of the most unique and interesting ones in the country, which I assume is probably somewhat due to their amazing tradition of puppet mastery coupled with the flamboyant sounds of Pernambuco's beloved Frevo and Forro. Frevo dancing, an old slave dance, involves holding little mini umbrellas, and is reminiscent of dancing on hot coals. Forro seems to me to be basically accordion and drums. I have yet to see, in-person, either of these. 

Fabio and his family took me for an amazing seafood lunch overlooking the water and to Boa Viagem (the beach in Recife and the only other place the guidebooks recommend checking out in Recife), famous for the sharks who took up residence there a few years back due to their habitat being destroyed by the building of Port Suape, a massive shipping port created in the late 70s.

Fabio, Vanessa, and Winitaina Gomez de Souza (born 15 de Maio)

Fabio, Vanessa, and Winitaina Gomez de Souza (born 15 de Maio)

Ugh...yikes.

And then I was treated to a drive home to Olinda and a stop at the Sé on the way:

The Sé, overlooking Olinda and, in the very far off distance, the skyline of Recife

Apparently the Sé is where a Dutch dude (with the last name 'Sé') stood once, before the cities were built, and said out loud to himself: "yes, this would be a nice place to build a city". How very colonial of you, sir. So they built the city and a cathedral up there and named it after this Dutch guy.

I arrived back to my pousada at around 5:30 pm and was absolutely exhausted. I mustered up the strength to go for calabrese pizza and do some reading. Just as I returned home, the frevo music down the street was being struck up again. I was torn. I was exhausted yet feeling obliged/curious about the music but decided to say, "fuck it" and instead let the far off  cançãos of the tubas and trombones again, lull me to sleep.

Dude! Where's my car?!

Danger danger danger! There should be a law against more than two caipirinhas in one evening! Last night, finally arriving home from Canada Night after an, AHEM, intentional late evening constitutional to help digest and NOT a lost wandering through the shadowy streets, I was incredibly tired but still had to pack for Olinda. I went out every evening in Curitiba and stayed out far too late and drank far too much to maintain my health. I have been feeling really "well" so far here but something turned on me last night. First the intense heart burn and minor nausea started as I was packing. I popped a gravol and went to bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up twice with what felt like food poisoning (but didn't ultimately manifest as any typical food poisoning outputs) AND these violent chills. I actually was able to fall back to sleep through the chills but was worried something more sinister lay underneath of these strange symptoms and I would miss my flight to Olinda and be found incapacitated by my airbnb host upon check out time and be cast out onto the streets with hemorrhagic dengue fever. (All of this worry, of course, without having seen one single mosquito yet here).

But I woke up with my alarm and "got 'er done". I arrived at the airport feeling nothing but very fatigued, a little weak with a touch of "sea-sickness" and highly painful heart burn all day. However, feeling pretty terrible in transit, coupled with some nuisances (e.g. some sort of sports team travelling from Curitiba to Brasilia that apparently had never been on an airplane before and had less than savoury airplane etiquette and seats that do not recline on the two and a half hour flight from Brasilia to Recife but rather were at a slight acute angle as far as I can tell AND arriving at the airport in Recife with no airport shuttle there to pick me up as planned....***where in the hell is MY CAR!!!**) made the trip rather torturous and I had to try and leave my body, basically. I believe my friend Lisa was right when she said, at Canada Night the night before, "there's a three drink limit on caipirinhas". I think that is actually a physiological, biochemical, medical "thing".

I grabbed a taxi, like a pleeb, from the Recife airport to Olinda due to the lack of a personal driver that was supposed to meet me. Olinda, I think, translates as "the beautiful". And beautiful it is:

Igreja do Sao Pedro Apostolo, Olinda

Rua Prudentes de Morais, outside of the Pousada Quatros Cantos

Olinda was originally founded by the Portuguese in the 1500s, a center of the sugar cane industry, and was named a world heritage site in 1982. As we drove through the city, my spirits began to lift, the 30 degree weather and the sunshine wrapped me in a warm tropical blanket and I checked into this lovely Pousada in a giant old colonial house that takes up an entire block in the center of Olinda:

Entering the courtyard of the Pousada Quatros Cantos, my home for the next three days

The door to my room at Quatros Cantos

A courtyard view from my room

My clean and simple room

I was exhausted and still having intense heartburn when I arrived but when they offered me a cold welcome drink with guava and cachaca, I couldn't refuse. After I drank it, my acid reflux seemed to vanish leading me to believe that it wasn't the cachaca after all but all of the lime that goes into the caipirihas! So note to self...switch to caipafrutas, the version of caipirinhas that just has other nice fruit in it rather than lime.

I unpacked, set up camp, and went in search of water and food and further sedated myself with a bowl of freshly in-house made tagliatelle bolognese at a little trattoria recommended by Herr Frommer, the great explorer. I drifted off to sleep to the gentle soothing sounds of frevo (a regional type of brass/big band latin American music that roughly translates as "fever") and intermittent monsoon showers. Not bad. Not bad at all.