Recife and Olinda

Amazing that I am still in the same country. Recife is everything that the forest doesn’t represent. Modern highrises and some of the world’s best urban beaches were waiting for me on the Brazilian east coast. I preferred to house myself close to the beach, south of the city centre, and stayed here for three days before going further.

Day I:

I started the day by updating myself with the latest news as the hostel had internet. I had lunch at the nearby supermarket and checked out the beach. It started to get very hot around mid-day so I went into the historic centre to have one of my standard walkabouts, in which I try to cover all the city’s main sights. I like to walk. Several hours later, I realised there was nothing more on the program today because unlike travelling overnight in bus, a night flight (with changes and waiting time!) is different as it is almost impossible to sleep more than 1-2 hours. You get very sleepy in the evening. No wonder it was a cheap flight.

Day II:

While Recife is a major commercial and financial centre, it doesn’t really interest itself in tourism and has little to offer in terms of cultural experiences compared to similar sized cities. After all, it has almost three million inhabitants. Instead of ploughing the streets of Recife further, I took a bus 20 km north to its sister city Olinda (pop. 300.000), which is the cultural counterpart of Recife. Here one finds pastel-coloured houses, scores of churches, street musicians, plenty of guesthouses and bohemian quarters. A plain touristic city. The only mishap was when I were going back to the beach in the afternoon; I took the wrong bus which terminated somewhere far away in a small suburb outside Olinda and after going 20 minutes through small labyrinthic streets. I didn’t know how to get back but took first best bus that left the terminus and jumped off when it passed a bigger avenue. Luckily, I found a bus there to the beach.

Day III:

Last day in Recife. I realised that for being so long in South America, I was still white as a snowfall. It was obviously due to the jungle and the need to all the time cover up to protect against mosquitoes and other evil things that lurks about. It was therefore natural to have another last visit to the nearby beach. Unfortunately I must have used too little sunscreen (although I use factor 30) because it all resulted in a painful sunburn. I didn’t notice the extent of it today, obviously, but it was to culminate over the coming 3-4 days. At dusk, I travelled to the bus station to catch my night bus to Fortaleza.