Recife and Olinda

Carnaval in Brazil is probably a once in a lifetime experience.  Being on a budget and wanting a ‘real’ Carnaval, we decided to spend it in Recife and Olinda, and boy, we sure got our dose of the ‘REAL’ Carnaval.
We arrived in Recife and checked into our hotel we ended up staying at, a Best Western at that.  It was nice and offered a pool, free breakfast buffet, and was right next to Boa Viagem beach, very pretty, despite the numerous shark attacks!  The first day we spent down on the beach where they offer ‘free’ beach chairs and umbrellas to beachgoers, as long as they order food from them.  We never ordered anything and ended up just walking away from one to the next all along the beach (and got yelled at a few times in Portuguese for this).  We did, however, get a green coconut to drink the cold coconut water, so good!  After the beach we headed into the city on foot to visit a Cachaco factory that supposedly offered free tours on how to make the liquor used in the infamous Caiparinhas.  After wandering lost for a while and watching our pockets, we got some help from some very friendly locals who pointed us in the right direction.  We almost gave up our search at one point, but I’m glad we didn’t because we reached the distillery, saw a movie on the process, and got free drinks!  I think we had about 6 in total as they kept offering them to us!  They were good too(and strong)!  We did miss out on the actual tour though because we didn’t speak/understand Portuguese, and I did get mauled by about 40 mosquitoes, but it was still a great time.

Caiparinhas!

The next morning we work up about 5:30 to reach downtown Recife in time for the ‘Morning Call” of the rooster at daybreak, to celebrate opening day of Carnaval.  Unfortunately, it was already light when we woke up and we thought we missed it, but we went out there anyway and got there around 6, expecting to see the famous first day parade and chaos already happening, but the streets were empty!  Apparently there wasn’t a daybreak ceremony and the parade didn’t start until 9 am.  We walked the parade route, avoided the rain, and just people watched until it started at 9.  People were dressed up in crazy outfits and massive trucks of music/famous singers were singing.  I sometimes thought my ears were going to bleed because the music was so loud.  By 1 pm, about when we left, there were so many people there (estimated about 1.6 million) that you couldn’t stand without being pressed against people on all sides of you/get run over by crazy drunks.  Sweaty and exhausted, we retired to our room.
The next night we managed to make our way on various public buses to Olinda, where another big arty was supposed to be happening.  We were first going to visit the historic area and take a look around at the churches and other sights and then make our way to the fiesta nearby, but little did we know the party was in the same streets as those historic buildings!  Just as packed and crowded, we got to get up close and see the buildings amongst the craziness, or should I say, we got to see drunk guys peeing on the buildings/ college-age kids and adults passed out on the steps of the churches.  There were giant puppets and live bands called blocos playing frevo music, always followed by their biggest fans dancing closely behind.  We had some beers and various flavored caiparinhias and enjoyed the night!

Madness in the streets!

Our last day before leaving we headed out, on more well managed (or lucky) choices of buses to the Veneza water park!  about 40 km away.  We spent the afternoon racing down tube slides, getting lazy in the (I’m sure pee-filled) lazy river, and eagerly waited in the wave pool for the 0 total waves we got.  We also managed to down a ‘big dog’, a 16” x 6” hot dog with everything you can imagine on it include corn, peas, and shoestring potatoes.
Not really sure where to head next we decided to head north to Natal, and the next day we caught our 4 hour bus ride to dunebuggy central.