merry christmas, seasoning greetings, merry hanuka and so on (what every you prefer ;-))

oi everybody...

just arrived in olinda, i little colonial town north of recife.....
but beginning from the start:
after we left maceio, we headed for some more quite place on the coast line. we have found a section in the travel guide about a "rota ecological", an area north of maceio, where some of the local pousadas (little hotels) decided to run more sustain buisnesses concerning local development and enviroment. so just right for us. we found a pousada that is run by a swiss so we fought that would make things easier because of conversation issues ;-) not being able to speak portuguies in brazil is not ideal because people, especially in the north, dont really speak english. it was really an excellent decision to take this "rota" because what we have found was quite beaches, only fisherman and us, quite right after the hectic in maceio. that beach is called Tabuba and the pousada Arco Iris and is well worth a visit! (nice rock formations, quite sea, excellent sea food!!)

the next stop was in Japaratinga, a little town further north. the pousada dos cabanas was a suggestion of nino and marion, who where there before the worlds. we had a bungalow right in front of the beach, the hammock almost above the water ;-) again, an extensive beach, almost nobody excellent... really a nice placeto chill and relax, have caipis served in the hammock and so on...

then we took another bus ride to recife, which was not as easy as we thought in the first place! the bus was supposed to come at around 12, but the owner of the pousada told us, we should be there not later than 11.30, because the bus might come earlier. it came at 2pm but was full so it just drove by ;-) the locals waiting at the station kept calm and told us, the think there will be another one. so we waited until 2.30pm until it came, and was packed again. we found a standing place so we actually made to recife by 6.30pm (around 200km ;-)). coming to recife was a bit of a change again. big city, loud, dirty and a lot of people on the streets. we headed for a shopping center to find stuff (charger for my digicam :-( which i didnt find, and so on), annoyed from the mall we headed back to the hotel and prepared to go out in recife antigo, the party place to be were told. excellent choice, because there were thousends on the street to celebrate christmas with brasilian rock music and so on. what i realised the first time by celebrating a massive street party was the extreme diverse society in brasil. poor and rich people are living really close to each other, street kids sleeping between the party people, who dont really care about them, on the street (even right on a bridge) or are dunk or intoxicated by something else. this was hard to see, because it really seems that the party dont even see the kids anymore or dont wont bothered with them when the celebrate. those things are really immanent when you walk around bigger cities in brazil, at least what rytz told me about.......same situation the ext evening...we were on a reggae christmas night (sounds odd, doesnt it ;-)) and again, lot of street kids arounf try to get something to drink (alcohol for sure) or stuff the can sell for drugs. its a pitty, because brazil is not a poor country, not at all....its a thing of distribution of wealth....(sounds easy, i know its not)

anyway...now we are in olinda, only a couply of kms north of recife, which is much more relaxed, cleaner and less crowded. there will be a christmas party on the beach with capoeira and music (at least, that was told us ;-)) but before we will have a descent christmas dinner and a couple of selfmade caipis ;-))......

therefore: MERRY CHRISTMAS to everybody out there.....i hope you have a good time!!!

sigi