Fat boy slim, beaches and mini-carnivals

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I've now got just over a day left in Olinda, my next destination is the Archipeglo of Fernando de Noronha, which I fly out to on Tuesday.

I did make it to Fatboy slim on Thursday night, he was pretty good. Most of the music would have been recognisable to somefrom the UK. His set didn't start till 0:30 and went on till 3:00.

While I was there I was adopted by a group of local students, who were all aged around 18, who thought I was crazy and/or brave to be travelling on my own! Most of them only spoke a bit of Portuguese, so the one who spoke the best English acted as my translator. They even came from Olinda, so managed to share a taxi back home. I've exchanged emails with one of them, so I now have my first Brazilian on msn messenger!

Friday, was my semi-offical rest day and didn't do much really. Only thing of note is I got a taxi into Recife, to sort out my tour of Fernando de Noronha.

Saturday I went for a bit of adventure, I decided (not sure why) that it would be a good idea to get the bus north along the coast to a beach. My plan essentially involved getting the first bus north. After trying to talk to the conductor - she didn't speak english and I can't claim to speak portuguese - it took a while!. She recommended me a beach, but meant getting a second bus, basically to the middle of knowhere.

I ended up at a place called Maria Ferinha. This was really topical beach territory, there was only a few bars, small beachside houses and curiously, what looked like a half-finished abandoned hotel. Unfortunately my only photos are on a disposal camera because I didn't want to risk taking my digital camera with me.

I walked along the beach until I reached a river inlet, which meant I couldn't get any further. ?So I stopped off for food at a beachside bar, slightly inland and my plan was to walk back along the beach until I got back to where I arrived. Unfortunately, when I got back to the beach the tide had come in. My only option was to walk back along the main road (a kind of dirt track). Luckily, I found a bus parked up, that would take me back south. However, in true latin-american style, when I asked when it was leaving, the driver said an hour later! An hour later it left, ocassionally stopping so the conductor could buy lottery tickets.

Yesterday I've stayed in Olinda, because its was a mini-carnival and there has been lots of floats and parades going by. It's amazing, how much more is now going on in Olinda than when I first arrived, there seems to be people setting things up for carnival everywhere and there were a lot more people around. Its just like Notting Hill at carnival - every house seemed to be opened up, either set up to sell beer, food or full of people sitting out enjoying the music.

Today I got the bus to the local shopping mall, as I needed to buy things before going to Fernando de Noronha - I've heard its expensive to buy things there.

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