Wednesday, 2nd March 2011
Recife, is the capital of Pernambuco, a region or county on the NE side of Brazil. Recife has a population of 1.8 million people and is a very important City in Brazil and especially for the annual Carnivals. It has fantastic beaches, covered with thousands of scantily clad girls and guys, strutting around showing off their assets, the only trouble with these wonderful beaches is that you are not encouraged to swim, yes, no swimming, that's unless you want to be eaten by sharks,
07.45hrs We joined most of the other sailors at the Yacht Club and headed off in a big comfortable a/c coach for a tour of Recife and its adjoining older city of Olinda. Olinda is a very pretty and colourful city, and was originally the centre of business in Brazil. Most of the wealthy merchants lived in this city, so therefore it has a good collection of fine residences all overlooking the harbour of Recife. This was important, because the merchants could see from their houses what sailing ships were coming and going to the city and therefore could make their way down to the docks to meet the boats and do their buisness.
The city is almost ready for its annual carnival with all the houses and buildings being decorated and painted, plus all the painted portraits, and miles and miles of colourful streamers along the sides of the streets. The Carnival kicks off tomorrow, thursday and will continue for 5 days, and much longer in other places. Our lady guide emphasized the sensual nature of the carnival and kept referring to the sexy girls and fellows (we have our balcony reserved to view the whole procession from start to finish).
We were taken to many interesting places, including the dock area, where the government are spending a lot of money on renovating the old warehouses as they did with the old Jail House, with hundreds of craftshop, restaurants, clay figurines, and sculpture shops, not to mention art galleries. It is interesting to see how the authorities here are developing their tourist trade, starting with Sun, Sand, & S* (with no swimming in the sea). The Carnival is the big attraction, no one knows how it started, it just kind happened, but grew like "Cork week" into a huge money maker for the locals, except here, the government recognised its potential from the very start and have continuously funded and supported the whole venture.
Later, we went to the beach area, where we met Bob and Maggie (Ocean Jasper) while having lunch in one of these weigh and pay places, How small is the world, there must be thousands of restaurants in this area, and they just happen to be in the one we end up in.
When we were suitably stuffed, we left the restaurant and walked a short distance to the beach, Ohhhhh, what a sight, the place was jammed with sun worshippers, many of them here for the Carnival and all that goes with it. We sat at the edge of the beach for a while, thats Joe & Judy (Brown Eyed Girl) The Bubbly Bev and Moe (Tucanon), Bob & Maggie (Ocean Jasper) and ourselves, we discussed with the Yanks our impending trip up the east coast of the USA as far as Maine, taking in "New Port", "Block Island", Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Cape cod, and Newhampshire, where we expect to meet our Daughter in law, Christine, our grand children, Hector, and others from that side of the family. They all live up in that region and will be very helpful when we arrive there.
We walked back about 5km along the edge of the beach to the Marina. The lovely Yacht Club and smelly marina. phew, and whats more the locals go fishing and swimming in this stink pot. but we will not let that get in the way of enjoying this wonderful place. However, one cannot drink tap water around these parts, so we all have to be extremely careful not to wind up with "Jelly Belly"!!!
Back at the Y.C. Joe, Judy, Skipper & Aileen had an evening meal, basically we all had steaks, and it was ok. Later, Skipper and Aileen joined John and Jenny, plus Dave & Sue on Tzigane for a few laughs, and plenty of night caps, not to mention the huge cigars. We also compared the differences between the World ARC organisation and that of the Blue Water Rally (RIP) so it became a late night.
That's all for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )