Brasil - Summer 2008

Anna an I were getting bored of the rainy season in Brazil. Yes, we knew it was the rainy season before we left and we knew it was their winter but we still wanted some sun and so far there wasn´t much. So we decided to head north up towards Natal, to, allegidely lovely place called Praia da Pipa.

When we enquired about the bus transport to Pipa from Recife, we got several different and somewhat confusing pieces of info. Basically, we needed to take any bus heading to Natal (of which there are around 10 and not 2 or 3 as we were told initially), buying a ticke in advance was not necessay and all we needed to do is ask the driver to tell us when we reach Goianinha. From there on there were supposed to be numerous vans, waiting to transfer tourists to Pipa at R$2.50 each. However, this wasn´t quite true and we ended up sharing a cab with an Australian couple. When you arive to Pipa spend some time looking for accomodation. We found a pousada that was much better thanthe hostel and acualy a lot cheaper too. There is more accommodation than needed at this time of the year so you should find what you want fairly soon.

Pipa is nice place, but it´s not more than a town that grew around the beach (similar to Buzos it was once a fishing village that was descovered). The guide book describes it as a global village, but it´s more global than village now. There is a surprising number of dutch surfers, argies and english people. I even met a guy here who went to my college and knows the same people as I do. If you visited lhabela or Buzios in the southeast, yo will have a good idea of what this place is like. There is the main street with boutiques and shops selling some really hideous stuff (little sculputeres of old people having sex etc.) that make you question the sanity of the people that made them and the ones hat are buying them.

Pipa is all about beaches and it certainly doesn´t lack them. My favourite is Praia do Amor (used to be beach of the drowned). On the way here we passed an amuzing sign in even more amuzing english (Who likes garbage is the pigs). Got to the right hnd side, away from the bars as the high tide comes much later, there is no wind and send everywhere and it´s more private. There are warm shallow pools to sit in and savour the scenery made up of fine sand and palm trees. It is a perfect stop for a couple of days to recharge the bateries and spend some time in the sun (which is very strong here). There is also Baia dos Golfinhos, which also has calm water for swimming (it´s much better for swmming than the other ones), but no palm trees. However, you will be able to see dolhins that come here (usually low tide but we saw them in high tide) and play in the water and do the jumps.

Finally, Pipa also has an ecological sanctuary, which has some ver good tails for walking but the real gem is the lookout point from which you can see giant turtles thatcome here for feeding at high tide.

Leaving the hotel in Maceio we thought we would be heading to Porto de Galinhas. However, it turns out that there was no bus too there so we would have to go to Recife and then out of there. Having got onto the bus we decided that we would leave Porto for after Fernando de Noronha and head north this time. Thus we found ourselves in Olinda.

You will be pestered by the people in many Brazilian town, but nowhere as much as here. Firstly, the taxi driver who was taking us to Olinda from Recife decided that we needed his help and started meddling in getting our accommodation sorted. I still fail to understand why he felt the need to do this given we had a perfectly good conversation with him in Portuguese and knew where we were heading. Secondly, Olinda has trained more tourist guides than they realistically need. Most of these are ex street kids and will pester you on every corner, following you around and offering their services. Whilst teh town would be very pleasant, this makes it somewhat exhausting and tedious.

Olinda itself is a larger version of the Salvador´s Pelourinho. It is a lovely colonial town, ideal for relaxing and strolling up and down the hills (far more tiring than it seems). Having been built on the hills by the Portuguese, it now looks onto Recife (built by the Dutch much later when they conquered the northeast). Whilst the churches in Pelourinho seem to be mainly for the tourists, Olinda´s churches are not really. They have weird opening hours and only come to life in the evenings during services. If all the services are as beautiful as the ones I saw, they really need all these churches. One service was in a convent that was empty save the 20 nuns that were singing most beautifully. The second service was in celebration of the Olinda´s patron saint and it was truly touching to see how powerfully these people believe. There is a wooden door with a simple inscription in that church and the iscription even though naive is touching. The person who wrote it said that after the death he was going to the Heaven to meet his ´folk´ and it was written in such a genuine way.

Olinda seems to specialise in giant carnaval dolls, that I haven´t seen anywhere else. They are above all sinister, but very interesting and it is well worth paying a visit to two places in the town that display a large number of these (in one place we saw one doll in action with a person underneath moving it).

Whilst teh guide book will give the impression that Olinda is a just a constant street party, this is not really true (at least not at this time of the year). In Alto da Se thee are many tapioca stands (btw, the ones from Edite, an old lady missing more than half her teeth, are really good and try to get them later in the evening because when the are just starting the fire is not strong enough so they are very crumbly) and lots of people (Sunday night reminded me of the county fairs in Serbia except they had transvestites here), but after that it is really down to one club in Praca do Carmo (Xim Xim), where the energy of the african beats on Sunday night was nbelievable.

I have read about Maceio before coming here. I visited the websites and looked at the photoes. I decided that 16 hours on the bus (6 from Lencois to Salvador and 10 from Salvador to Maceio, but turned out to be 18 overall) was worth it. I was wrong.

Anna and I had a pousada pre-booked and when we arrived we were shocked. I am sure that they would neither murder us nor molest us there, but at the time it looked as one of those things was bound to happen. There were long corridors of deserted rooms and we were allocated a dorm room with the windows only looking towards the corridor. There was no hot water (we later found out that they didn´t do hot water) and the toilet wouldn´t flush. We diceded to take our chances and leave it, finding ourselves on the streets of Maceio looking for the alternative accommodation in the area. The other pousada recommended to the Lonely Planet ( will not trust this book or the Rough Guide on accommodation again) turned out to be even more scary. An almost deserted family house with two old women and a man sitting in the yard watching the TV. What was once a TV and now merely a frame was hanging of the wall in the room. We settled for Ibis in the end.

Maceio must have been a nice city at some point as it lies on a nice stretch of coast and has a nice city beach. However, the city has been spoilt by the high rising hotels along the main street. Also, low season here means there is nothing really of an interest to tourists and the beaches north of the city, even though they are nice are empty.

The best thing about Maceio was visiting Orakulo club in the older part of the city. It is a pity they don´t make more of the old streets that are absolutely charming and would make it a perfect setting for the nightlife. Orakulo sits on a nice little square and I get the idea that weekend nights here a bit of institution. It was full of people dancing away to the range of Brazilian beats and dancing really good. The cutest of all were older couples, dancing the dances they must have danced their whole lives. They were incredibly comfortable with each other, knowing the steps they were going to do and this experience renewed my faith in humanity. Knowing that couples can be that happy after so many years of life together is the most positive thing I have seen on all my travels. If nothing else, this will make the visit to Maceio worth for me (even though 3 days there might be too much).

When Anna and I did the boat journey around the bay from Salvador, we didn´t think we would meet there some people that we would keep meeting again and again. We left for Lencois with just on girl from our hostel that we met on that trip, but kept collecting more and more people on the way. In the end, most of our bus ended up stayng in the same place (Pousada dos Duendes) and we all took the same trips and spend several days together.

First of all, pousada was a very nice place that was so friendly, we didn´t really want to leave in the end. I don´t think I will ever forget Anna, a greek girl from our hostel in Salvador, who has done just about anythng you can imagine and now lives and teaches in a Greek school in Sudan. Duendes are small elves (pixies) that chapada is apparently full of, and I cannot hlp but feel that they have something to do with the unique feel of the place. The word that springs to mind is magical.

Lencois was a centre of diamond mining industry, but this was officially forbiden in 1985 and since then the employment in the town is a major problem. There are lots of poeple on the streets and the laucky ones end up working as guides. In fact, you will be lucky to get a guide like ours (thak you Thiago), who not only knows the area inside out, but also feels such a pasion about the natre and is building his own eco house in teh area. He did not speak English so Anna and I had to work as translators for the rest of teh group, but we didn´t charge anyhting in the end

We did two trips in Chapada, one to the Pai Inacio Mountain and the other one to the Sossego waterfall. The walk to Pai Inacio was very nice and tiring, on the side of the mountain, very close to the vegetation typical to the region. We learnt a lot about many medicinal plants, as well as natural versions of the toilet paper and various dies (one Swiss girl was particularly excited and painted her face with those). However, the high point was arriving in front on the Pai Inacio and seeing something that I though only existed in the USA. The view is breathtaking, and if that isn´t enough, the views from the top are even more stunning. Thiago told us a story about the name of the mountain, that was enetrtaining and he kept doing it in instalemnts, building it up. In the end he ran and jumped of the top of the mountain, leaving us all stunned, just to descover that he did a trick on us. The story was amazing and if nothing else, this was worth the trip.

The second trip was through the landascapes that were quite different, but none the less beautiful. We walked through the canyon itself, oftend having to cross the river and walking on te rocks. Even though the distance was the same, it was more difficult, but more rewarding walk. There were natural pools along the way were we could swim. Plants surrounding the river release tannins into the water, making it so dark red that it is almost black. It is a secial experience stepping into the water where you cannot see anyhting, but we have been told there are no monsters living there and the whole experience was very rewarding. The name of the waterfall, means a person that is chilled and once you arrive there you understand why.

On the way we also saw the sedimentary layers that were amongts the most amazing things I have ever seen mainly dur to the evidence for the tectoic movements and the scale of it.

To finish it all we went to a small waterfall ending in a water slide (painful, but extremely fun).

Stewardess is running down the isle with the facial expression that doesn't suggest anything good. I am already prepared to die, when she announces that someone's mobile is ringing and they need to switch it off as we are landing. So much for a nice and peaceful flight.

There is an advantage to arriving in Salvador on a cloudy day. Through the clouds you can only see the snippets of what the city looks like and these little bits leave you wanting more, much more. The city is settled in a beautiful, if polluted bay and from the sky looks as a more sensible version of Rio (no mountains springing out of nowhere). The journey from the airport breaks any illusions about the city's prosperity. There are favelas everywhere and they spread as far as the eye can reach. The population is predominantly black, unlike the south of the country.

If Catholics die, their paradise must seem like Salvador. Terreiro de Jesus, one of the main squares, has three churches, but there are many more within 5 minutes of it (you have to ask yourself how many churches does one city need). They are all decorated to show both the wealth of the church, but also to scare anyone who doubts it's doctrine. This is particularly obvious in the Bonfim church (bit out of centre) where there are two paintings, one showing the death of the sinner and the other the death of the devout. Let's say that the artist did not leave anything open for interpretation.

The sculptures of saints in all the churches are very sinister and some are showing the saints in agony and self-flagellating. One of the things that scared me was in the vaults of the Igreja Sao Francisco, where they keep the bones of the rich people from the city. Each person has their little shelf and the whole place left me with the feeling of unease and I went off shivering.

On the other hand, Salvador has a strong African influence and this is why I love it more than Rio. The city's population is predominantly black, and the sounds, even though they can be heard in the south, are associated with capoeira and candomble. We didn't have the chance to go to an actual ceremony as we wanted to avoid the commercial ones, but we did go to a folkloric show in the centre, where they had elements of candomble. Even though it is aimed at tourists, this show is definitely worth a visit as the dancers are excellent and the capoeira is fantastic. In Museo Afro-Brasileiro, there is a big section on candomble and all the images and explanations really help you understand the different deities. I have decided that my god is Exu, but I think I would have to go to the ceremony and be selected first, before I can now what my deity is.

Anna and I have now nailed the bus system in Brazil and have been using it very successfully (even getting onto the buses whilst moving. Last year I was very worried about using buses, but they are an efficient way of moving around the cities and in my experience are very safe.