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Published: April 8th 2006
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Six days of staying in a hostel finally caught up with me. I got sick and spent half my time here in Recife recovering. Thank God it wasn´t the food poisoning sick that happened to me several times in Chile, just a really bad cold.
Olinda On my way out of Natal, I picked up two brochures for hostels in the Recife area. One was for a hostel in Olinda, the other for a hostel in Boa Viagem. Olinda is a historical city a couple kilometers north of the city center, and Boa Viagam is the nice beach area south of the city center. In part going on Luis Fernando´s schedule, which had me doing a tour of Olinda the first day, I decided to go to the hostel in Olinda. I dropped my bags off, then immediately went to the main square. Fodors recommended taking a tour from one of the tour guides in the Praca do Carmo. The guides are former street kids, and part the proceeds go to support the organization.
The tour of Olinda took about two hours. The guide, Julio, then offerred to give me a tour of Recife as well. It was at
this point that I decided that I didn´t want to stay in Olinda. There was nothing close to the hostel, it was small, no one was there, and it just didn´t seem like there was much to do in Olinda. So, Julio accompanied me and I grabbed my bag and we took off for Boa Viagem.
Boa Viagem and Old Recife The hostel in Boa Viagem looked a little better, and the area is definitely the place to be in Recife. Boa Viagem is often described as the "Copacabana" of Recife. As for the beach itself, there have been numerous shark attacks in recent years, so I was warned by multiple people not to swim unless I wanted to be "Hamburger de tiburão" ("shark burger"). I again dropped off my bags at the hostel and quickly took off for my second leg of the city tour in Old Recife. I decided not to bring the big camera this time, and missed a few really good shots (although I got a few with the point and shoot).
Old Recife is a small island with lots of colorful two and three story colonial buildings. The island is separated from the
rest of Recife by two rivers, which has lead some to call Recife, quite misleadingly "the Venice of Brazil." The area is currently being restored, and should look quite nice in a few years.
Traveling on your own is hit or miss. This time, Recife was a miss from the start. There weren´t other people to go out with the first night, and it was a shame, because every Tuesday Julio said they had live music in one of the squares in the center of the city. We walked by at the end of the tour when they were setting up and it looked like a great time - like one of the squares with outdoor cafes that you would see in Rome. I guess I could have gone by myself, but Recife is kind of a scary city, and I had gotten up at 5:00 AM that morning so I was lacking that extra motivation.
Porto de Gallinhas and Crashing Hard My luck continued the rest of the week. Wednesday I took a bus to Porto de Gallinhas, a beach town 50 miles from Recife. The name means "Port of Chickens," but, it was really a secret
entry point for slaves after the abolition of the slave trade. When the slaves would arrive, they would announce that "chickens" had arrived, which was code for go 50 miles south to get yourself a slave.
Its history aside, Porto de Gallinhas was my favorite beach in Brazil so far. The water was perfect, there were palm trees, lots of colorful charaters selling coconuts and bracelets, and beach music. Porto de Gallinhas is famous for having colorful pools of deep water out in the bay. For $4 you can get an hour long boat ride to see for yourself. Definitely a great place and it put me in a better mood after Tuesday.
When I got back to the hostel from Porto de Gallinhas, there were some new people there. I met two kids from Brasilia who said they were going out to a jazz club and invited me along. It was a suprisingly nice place, and I really liked the two kids, but after a couple drinks I realized that I needed to get home and take care of myself. For the past day or so I had been caughing and it was just getting worse.
Unfortunately, sleeping in an unairconditioned stuffy dorm room doesn´t help things. At about 2 AM I woke up completely congested and couldn´t get back to sleep. Finally, at daybreak I grabbed my stuff and headed to a hotel. The hotel I stayed at, the Recife Montes Hotel, books itself as a four, sometimes a five star hotel. In reality, it is about two years short of looking like the Hotel Citroen in the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I had a two story "luxury" suite complete with seventies style bed panel controls for the lights, tv and air conditioning, none of which worked. If I wasn´t so exhausted, I would have found a better place. But, it was cheap, had a pool, and was comfortable enough to serve the purpose of helping me to recuperate.
I spent most of the next day sleeping, then went on a quiet beach tour to Itamaraca on Friday, where I met my second thirty-something dentist from Rio who offered to show me around. Still didn´t feel great Friday night, so I went to see V for Vengance (one of my favorite Latin American traditions is to go to the movies by myself), which
was honestly one of the most godawful movies I have ever seen in my life. It takes the pedantic philoso-babble of the Matrix series to an entire new level.
Its now Saturday morning and I am killing time before my flight out of town. Recife wasn´t a disaster - I am still glad I am came here and Porto de Gallinhas might have been my favorite place in Brasil so far, but it could have been much better. For anyone thinking about coming to Recife, realize that it is a big city, find a hotel which will book tours for you, and bring a friend.
Oh yeah, and in other news, I passed the bar :-)
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Youcef
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Brian, it is so nice reading your travel log. I feel like I’m there with you. It’s a great escape from the daily grind at the clinic. Also, congratulations on passing the Bar.