Brazil 2008: The adventure continues

Going Again
When we left the Brazilian adventures last November I knew I wanted to go back, but didn't realize it would be this soon. I must admit the country has a strong calling to me: the people, the culture, the climate, the energy, the diversity just kept me calling me. So here I am, back in Recife. I chose Recife as a base of operations again because of its familiarity and simply said, I love this city.
I left on Friday April 11th. Other than being requested to change flights at the very last minute ---the airline asked me if I'd be willing to give up my seat for a lady who was desperately trying to get to Bolivia after the American Airlines fiasco the day before. I gave her my seat, the airline compensated me $300 and put me on other flight though Dallas and all went well. When arriving to Sao Paulo this time, the weather was clear and I was sitting on the right side of the plane. Last time we arrived I was on the left side of the plane and saw some of Sao Paulo thinking I had seen the majority of the city; WRONG. As we were on the approach and broke though some clouds my jaw dropped. For as far as the eye could see it was miles and miles of city. Countless high rise buildings --hundreds and hundreds of them-- as far as you could see. I was astounded at the shear magnitude. On one hand I was completely fascinated by what I saw, on the other hand I am glad I'm not trying to navigate my way around a city of these proportions!!
The layover in Sao Paulo was smooth. I could not stop grinning from ear to ear when I grabbed an "empanda de frango" (a pastry filled with chicken) as I was immediately back in love with the Brazilian cuisine.
The flight to Recife went perfectly and I arrived without a problem. Again the beauty of the Recife's glistening white skyline against emerald green hills and the turquoise ocean is just to beautiful to describe.
The First Week
Not much to report for the first week in Recife. Work keep me busy 12-13 hours a day. --Side note, I made contact with the lady across the street who makes those absolutely heavily home made lunches!! I would call at 9am and promptly at 11:50 either her or her son would deliver a hot wonderful meal; where else can you get freshly made food delivered to your door for about $4.50 a day? THIS is why I came back to Recife :-) (just kidding) back to the original topic-- I was reminded how much I like working in this time zone. I would wake up around 6am Recife time, be online and working by 7am --which is a hour ahead of east coast time; I've always liked being at work before the boss-- yet in time to work with Asia and Europe while they're still in their work day, then be able to wrap the day up dealing with west coast time zone; its perfect.
With the workload about all I got to do was walk to the local Wal-Mart for necessities and the local shopping mall for other food for the first week. One evening I did go see the Tapioca lady for her wonderful "tapioca com leitche" (tapioca with milk). The tapioca craving also got me a bus ride that I love so much; I still think the bus rides in Recife are the best carnival rides in the world :-) Finally the work week wound down and I made plans to travel into the country side.
Pharmacies
On Thursday I went to the mall for food at one of the kitchens there. These are buffet style kitchens where food is prepared and set out. Evidently one of the dishes I had (I think it was the rice with meat) didn't fare to well with my stomach and by the nights end I knew I was in trouble. Good thing I was in the apartment all day Friday as my system kept me in the bathroom most of the day. By Friday evening things were not getting any better, so I walked down to one of the (many) local 24 hour street pharmacies. These places are wide open (no door, just huge open store fronts) well lit and well staffed by friendly helpful people. I said "eu tenho diariah" the lady smiled, reached under the counter and pulled out a box of pills. I bought one pack (there were 4 pills per pack) and went back to the apartment. What she gave me worked immediately (thank goodness). As it turns out you can walk into any of these 24 hour pharmacies and buy single items without having to buy entire bottles or boxes for common things. This was realized when I stopped in again on Sunday to get a Band aid for a blister. I asked for Band aid expecting to have to buy a box, but instead the guy went to a shelf brought back an opened box a said "how many"? So I bought 5 band aids! Hopefully I won't have to visit the pharmacy again, but its very comforting to know all the basics are close and easy to get if needed.

Adventuring to Garanhuns and Gravata (or so I thought)

The weekend was here and I was excited to head out into the countryside. Two villages were on the agenda; Garanhuns and Gravata. Garanhuns is known to be the coldest city in the state of Pernambuco and Gravata was settled by the Swiss and has significant Swiss architectural influence. The "plan" was I would ride the bus to Garanhuns as it was the furthest city, then on the way back stop in Gravata....at least this was the plan. As the say "best laid plans....."

After successfully getting to the Rodoviaria (the main bus terminal) I bought tickets to Garanhuns. I had some time to kill so waited around studying all the shop signs trying to understand what they were selling etc. Finally it was time to board the bus. Here is a photo inside the Rodoviaria in Recife

Art and Music Promises
As I was getting on the bus there was a sign in the front window advertising an art and music festival in Garanhuns, "cool" I thought to myself. "There will be something to see and experience while I am there!!" So on the bus and off into the countryside. Last time on the bus the trip was north up the coast. This trip was directly west inland. Once out of Recife the land scape became rolling green hills. Again I was amazed at how much native flora and fauna has been burned to open up the country to sugar cane and ranching. As we got further out I could see large beautiful ranches and big homes (obviously country homes of Recife's wealthy) We traveled west for 4 hours and finally reach Garanhuns. Garanuhus' elevation is about 3 thousand feet; quite high for this region of the country. As soon as I stepped off the bus it was definitely cooler here with a stiff breeze blowing. Once I oriented myself I started walking to the central district by following the signs to "centro". I had no idea what kind of weekend I was walking into!!

Hotel? Where?
After walking for 20 minutes --on the way to the central district-- I passed the area where the art and music festival was going to be held. It was about 5pm and nothing was happening yet, so I continued to "centro". The central part of Garanhuns is not much. It is little down town with the basic stores, shops and local government. I figured it was time to look for a room. I saw a couple places so walked to the first. About all my Portuguese allowed me to say is "voce tem uma quarta?" (Do you have a room?). Nao (no) was the reply. Ok I said, and walked to the next one, "Nao", walked to the 3rd "Nao". At the 3rd hotel they had flyers for the festival that weekend. After reading it in more detail I came to realize this was the final weekend of the Art and Music Festival that had been running since December. This weekend was to have a contest of --apparently-- famous artists. At that moment I panicked a little as a realized there might not be a hotel room to be had!! After covering the hotels in the central area, I started walking down the main avenue hoping to find something and I was forming alternative plans in my mind if I couldn't get a hotel room. On the 6th try I was tired and a little frustrated. By now all composure I had in Portuguese was gone and any sentence I tried to speak was "porspangles" a terrible combination of Portuguese, Spanish and English. The guy at the desk sensed my frustration. Of course he doesn't speak a word of English. I was about to leave and he said something that I figured to be "wait". He got on the phone and was obviously calling places. Finally he found something. He took me outside an pointed up the hill above the festival grounds. Pointing to a the place, I made sure I had the directions correct, he nodded and said "vamos rapido" "go fast". He did not have to repeat that twice!! Off I hurried up the hill hoping I had the directions correct. Sure enough I saw a sign for the hotel and went inside. There was one another person there when I arrived. Obviously the guy who called told them I did not speak much Portuguese and they had everything ready and easy for me to check in. As I finalized the check in process, --about 15 minutes after I arrived-- there was a line out the door with people trying to get rooms for the night!..Whew!! I breathed a huge sigh of relief!!

Party all night long

With a room secure, I set out to look for dinner. I found a great place off the central district that served Brazilian Italian food. The food was excellent and I sat for quite a while just to relax. Finally about 9pm I left the restaurant and headed back to the festival. Expecting to see things happening by now, I was met with more people, but obviously nothing happening. So I milled around for awhile and toward 10pm more people started arriving. The festival grounds were large with a huge stage for the performers. They were testing the sound system --which was rock concert scale-- and it was obvious it was going to be a loud night!!

Finally around 11:30 the performances started and there were quite a few people there (15,000 or so I guess, but as it turns out it paled in comparison to the next night). The music was good and around 12:30 it was apparent this phase of the music was over. I headed back the hotel and as I was getting to bed, the live music started up again at 1am!! I cannot describe the volume!! The entire city vibrated with music and I'm sure it could be heard for miles and miles. As it turned out the first group of performers where the warm up act and music reverberated through the city until 4:30am!! Needless to say, not much sleep that night!!

The sights of the "Cidade das Flores"

The next morning I woke up around 7:30 with a pounding headache. I could not stay in the hotel room as it was about as luxurious as a jail cell!! 3 cots (a bunk bed and one twin bed) in a tiny room with little windows for ventilation and a basic of all basic bathrooms. I headed out to find breakfast and found a small cafe in the centro. While eating and reading a flyer about the city, come to find out, Garanhuns is called the "City of Flowers". The day then consisted of touring the two of the more popular parks, a small castle and finally the highest point in the region. The parks were as expected and I covered a lot of ground to see them. The castle was interesting. It was in all the literature and I was expecting to see something special. Come to find out it was built within the past 15 years by a guy for his personal residence. It is very small and he never finished it. But people were curious and over time it became a tourist attraction. When you get inside it consists of 3 barely finished rooms and the back part of the building is incomplete. The last stop of the day was the "monte de christo" "Mount of Christ" which is the highest place in the region. It was late by the time I got there and the lighting was bad to take good pictures of the Brazilian countryside. The wind was blowing like crazy and it was definitely cool, so I did not spend much time there. I got back to the hotel room about 5:30 and took a nap as I was wiped out. I knew this night was going to be a repeat if the last, so I took a long hard nap. Around 9:30 I left the room and made my way back to the restaurant from the night before.

The party continues
After dinner I headed back to the festival area. This night was double the magnitude of the night before! Everyone was there!! ages 9 to 90!! and obviously from the surrounding regions and cities as well. Everyone was smiling and enjoying the evening. Alcohol was everywhere. Not just beer and wine, but 5ths of hard liquor of all sorts. Apparently minors cannot buy liquor, BUT if they have it the cops don't care. So many adolescents walking around with Red Bull and whisky having quite a time. Based in the previous nights music experience I was aware they didn't care how loud the music was because the entire city is at the party. If you're at home and don't like the music, come join the party or to bad! My thoughts were to tough it out because sleeping was out of the question. The party started about 11:30 again and I found a comfortable spot where I could watch the people and see the bands playing. The amusement was watching young guys completely drunk --with their girlfriends-- climb onto a motorbike, wobble and barely hold things up, put on their helmets and ride away weaving up the hill: crazy! The helmet laws are strictly enforced here. I watched guys completely obliterated, get on a motorbike --with helmets-- in front of the cops and ride away. Watched another guy and his friend climb on a motorbike without helmets and as they started up the hill the cop grabbed them and hauled them off!!

Oh, Brazilians always have "music to go"! As I was touring walking around, first heard, then saw this little car with enough watts to power a house! You see these all over. Guys will pull up, turn on the music, people gather and its a party!

Defying the laws of physics

But the most amazing and amusing thing of the night were the women. Brazilian women obviously dress to the 9's for any party. Young and old, they're all dressed to kill; some more moderate than other, but all done up in their best. Some look crazy, some absolutely stunning, and none of them are casually dressed.

The place I choose to hang out for the evening was on the edge of steep hill just off to the side of the grand stand. I could see the band, yet out of the crowds. All the little streets are cobblestones in these towns and are rough and full of holes. The street where I was standing was one of the entry / exit points, so I saw all sorts people coming going. People would walk carefully down the hill coming to the party and the drunk ones would stagger from side to side going up the hill. But here are these women in these high heeled pumps with 3 to 4 inch stiletto heels, with flimsy little straps holding them on their feet and they could walk up or down this rough cobblestone street with all the elegance of a New York model on fashion runway!! Complete composure, complete elegance, eyes ahead of them and never missing a step. It was amazing. Crap I couldn't hardly walk up and down these in my tennis shoes!! This became my entertainment; which woman with the most impossible shoes who could navigate the hill with the most elegance! Yes there were varying degrees, and yes some did stumble here and there, but most were very successful. My hats off to the ladies!!

Ready to go home

After staying up till 4am, I left the hotel at 8am to catch the bus back to Gravata. I got on the bus and immediately fell asleep. I kept waking up as I didn't want to miss the stop to Gravata. The morning drug on and finally I knew we were getting close to Gravata. After stopping in every small town from Garanhuns --the bus I took from Recife was a direct run to Garanhuns, the return bus stopped at all the towns in between, this was the only way to stop in Gravata.-- we reached the edge of town. I got ready for the stop and to my surprise the bus kept going! I watched Gravata's Rodoviaria pass by the window. At first I was going to yell out, but then I figured my portuguese was going to be less than optimal, plus I was totally wiped from the weekend of little sleep, so I decided I needed to go visit Gravata another time. Since I had only paid for a ticket to Gravata, I figured I would have to pay the difference when we arrived in Recifie. As it turns out I was never asked, so I got my return bus trip from Garanhuns to Recife for about 1/2 price!

Back to normal (for now)

Today is Tuesday and I've recovered from the weekend --good thing I'm on vacation now!! This morning I did some laundry, read a little, napped more, got a haircut succefully, took a walk on the beach and spent the afternoon updating the blog. The Governor's Mansion is on the list and I still want to see Gravata, so will plan on venturing back there before I leave. I looked into going to the Amazon to see the forest. Now I know why it takes so long to get there even by plane! There are no direct flights. Apperantly once in the region planes fly up the amazon river stopping at the major ports. By the time you get to Manous you've made 4 or 5 stops thus making it 10 hours of flying. I think I'll pass on it this time :-) I will update the adventures later this week.