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Published: October 25th 2006
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Marco Zero Rêcife
From here to... eternity Thursday morning saw the intrepid five up early and without Aidan for once. However, his hand could be felt (not literally) in proceedings as he had organised a three hour bus tour for us in Rêcife, Olinda, and all points in between. Our guide was a very enthusiastic English-speaking Brazilian named William, with his driver whose name presently escapes me. Both could speak English and ein Bisschen Deutsch; I reckon they must have taken turns doing the driving and the touring.
Anyway... William soon had a groggy Irish family roaring and whooping, putting everyone in a pretty good mood. Nothing unusual there, you say. We went along the beachfront of Boa Viagem on our way to Rêcife Antigo and William pointed out all the exercise and sports facilities that are free to all to use; it was not uncommon to see guys in nothing but Speedos doing sit-ups on the side of the road in the middle of the day. Highly unusual for us inhibited Your-O-Peons of course, but when in Rome, one must try to fit in. Needless to say I resisted the urge to visit the beachfront later and show them a thing or two about exercise, thinking
Fishermen
on the Rio de Caipiribe their poor constitutions too fragile for such an display. Driving onto the island of Rêcife proper, we stopped off and walked around a bit. We saw the city's Marco Zero, from which all distances to Rêcife are calculated, and then went on a walkabout tour of the older parts of the city. The photos should tell all, as long as I can remember what is what.
Along the way, William would suggest a stop here and there for a picture or two, and if he was close enough to a friend's establishment, would mention how hot it was and say that if anyone was thirsty, there was a shop/bar right beside us ("here's one I prepared earlier" shite). We were wise to his ways but at least he wasn't obnoxious about it, unlike the billions of annoying fucks trying to flog everything from bedsheets to woodcarved phalluses. He really knew his stuff when it came to fielding questions from my ever-inquisitive parents though - I don't think he'd bargained with quite so interested a party as my history-shite-lovin' father. We later went to a former prison that had been turned into a shopping centre for arts and crafts -
View from Marco Zero
All roads start here in Rêcife Antigo each cell was a shop, it was an intriguing setup but since I have no interest in buying trinkets, I was like a quadriplegic at a porno movie - just looking.
We headed on to Olinda, which was the initial landing point for most of the religious institutions way back when. In order to get some lording-over done as quickly as possible, the hills close to the sea were used as ideal starting points for settling. There is a ton of old religious buildings over this way, many still containing ornate furniture, fixtures and paintings, many of them surviving from before the Dutch fucked off from Pernambuco in the mid-17th century. After going through more religious institutions than Oliver Cromwell, we headed back up the hill where the van had left us only to be accosted by more sellers of useless shit that we'd never need. Earlier when we'd left the van, we'd passed a yard that contained a makeshift bar and some chairs, and William had said in Portuguese that "we'll come back". Even with the nice guys, you had to watch your back. In the end, we were treated to some savage frevo dancing in the midday
Jesus Street
Jesus Street used to be called Jews' Street... guess they took a wrong turn somewhere heat (remember, super close to the Equator here, sun is as high as is imagineable) and gave the dancers five reais or so. Feckin' William... although one of the dancers was a hot chick - see picture.
It was Aidan's 63rd birthday today, so we were all heading out to the Teatro on Santo Domingo island for some more frevo dancing! We saw Paula for the first time here, and along with Aidan and his new squeeze Telma; Michael came too. The frevo was fantastic, it went on for ages, with about 3 groups of dancers switching around to keep the performance going. The dancers are so flexible and fit, twisting and contorting their bodies at will, and putting their limbs into perilous positions (I was getting squeamish thinking of my poor knees at one point). The next performance was a breakdance performed to Rimsky-Korsakov's
Flight of the Bumblebee - also great! However, things slowed down decidedly from there, with two silent dance displays that were a little shit, to be honest. The rest was a bunch of fags running around in supposedly modern ways - to be honest, if you stuck a camera outside Supermacs in O'Connell St
Led's Big Brother
Graf Zeppelin over Rêcife in 1937 for an hour after closing time you'd get the same sort of moves for a lot less effort.
Michael and the Terrible Three then bid farewell to everyone else and headed off to Cuba Caibiribe, a club in a swish shopping centre not far from the Teatro. We stayed there til about 2.30 and danced to the music of Chico someone or other (who's apparently from Cuba). It was pretty rockin' and we had some sweet caipirinhas. But hey, I've written too much - look at all those photos!!
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