The sun rose very early this morning, so much to JL's disgust I got up at 6.00 to watch the sail in to Recife! It looked very impressive from a distance - lots of silver skyscrapers making an impressive skyline in the rising sun. We joined many other people on deck to watch the captain squeeze our ship into what looked like an impossibly small space between another ship and the end of the pier. I commented for the umpteenth time "I am so glad I'm not the captain of this ship", to which JL replied for the umpteenth time "and so say all of us!".
We had some breakfast and then met at 8.10 in the ship's theatre for our excursion this morning - 'Recife and Olinda'. We headed off the ship shortly after and thankfully got on an air conditioned bus, because even at 8.30am it was boiling hot out! The short rain shower which we had had earlier had completely gone. We met our guide, who was a French lady with 'interesting' English shall we say! JL and I were ok, because as we can speak French we were able to work out what she was trying to say even when she made up her own half English/ half French words, but some people were looking completely baffled! She gave us a very long talk about the history of Brazil, interspersed with instructions to the driver - she told us that he was from a village a long way away, had got up at midnight to drive to Recife through the night ready to do our tour this morning, and he didn't know the city at all. Luckily she said he did speak Portuguese, as sometimes she said she works with drivers where they can't understand each other at all! It all gave us great confidence in the morning ahead! [JL: our guide! The standard of her English was two notches below beginner's level and it showed! She kept inventing words when she was stuck which was every other word roughly. "Here is a fabrique of biscottes... There is an embottlement (traffic jam)... Look! This is manifestation! " (She meant demonstration)... And my favourite which came early in the day:"the Dutch came here for the showgirl". What the hell! Am I hallucinating? Emma thinks she said "sugar" but we can't be sure. By the end of the five hour tour my brain was scrambled. I think a short sharp mugging would have been preferable...]
We drove along the sea front that we had seen from the ship, past the wind turbine which I had noticed (although she told us it didn't work because someone had stolen the motor!), past lots of colourful houses and buildings, to the village of Olinda, which is a UNESCO World heritage site. The village is set on a steep hill with narrow cobbled streets, so we had to transfer into minibuses for the journey to the top (they were not air conditioned so I was very glad I had brought my penguin fan with me!). The first site to visit was the Sao Bento monastery which I enjoyed for a number of reasons - it was very pretty inside with gold plated decorations, it had seats inside, and it was nice and cool!
From here we got back into the minibuses and drove to an undercover market which had an exhibition of local sculpture and art work, lots of souvenirs for sale, and a group of young people doing a short cultural dance show - one of them dressed up in an enormous paper mâché costume which made him double in height, and the others wore brightly coloured carnival costumes. They did some clever acrobatic moves, and must have been exhausted due to the heat!
Across the road from here was another cathedral called the Alto da Se, which was again a nice cool retreat from the baking sun, and also had a lovely garden at the back with amazing views back to Recife. There were various statues in the garden, including one which Jean-Louis is sure is of Jesus holding a pétanque boule... I wasn't so sure!
We walked past another market square where I got my souvenir magnet for the bargain price of one US dollar, looked at all the brightly painted houses, shops, and art galleries, admired the view over the coast, smiled at the stray cats, and then got back in the minibuses to go back down the hill and rejoin our main coach (thankfully nice and cool as the outside temperature had now reached 32 degrees) which would take us back to Recife.
The guide then announced that we would be visiting Boa Viagem, a local beach. The coach didn't move though and then we heard the driver shout out what I imagine was the Portuguese equivalent of "well where's that then?!" We drove (with numerous shouted directions from the guide to the driver) through the city, amongst the skyscrapers (which up close turned out mainly to be blocks of flats, and many were either run down or had not finished being built), over several bridges (it appears that the part of Recife where our ship was docked is in fact an island), past numerous attractive colonial buildings, and eventually arrived at the beach. We were informed that we could get out and have a look around, but to be very careful as there are sharks in the sea - and sure enough there were signs all over the place warning of shark attacks - apparently there have been many recently by tiger and hammerhead sharks. I quickly paddled in the warm water but jumped out before I attracted any shark attention!
Back on the coach, we drove along the seafront past the most expensive neighbourhood in Recife, which neighbours one of the biggest favelas (slum areas), until we reached the main square Praca de Republica. We were due to get out here to take photos of various buildings and an ancient baobab tree, but there was a demonstration by a group of people [JL: no darling, it was a manifestation!] so the square was closed. Instead we went on to the final stop of the tour which is called the Casa de Cultura and is an old prison which has been converted into a shopping mall! It was fascinating as all the cells and bars and wooden stairs and walkways were still in place, but they had added lifts and turned each cell into a separate shop. On the outside there were clay models of heads with numbers next to them which I assume represents some of the former prisoners. A very interesting place. In the square outside we saw an old station which had been built by the British and kept as a monument even though the train line was now obsolete.
From here we headed back to the ship, past some modern art work and more interesting buildings, then caught a shuttle bus back to the terminal. It was lovely to be back in air conditioning again! We had lunch then decided not to venture ashore again but instead went to the onboard cinema to see the film Dallas Buyers Club (very good if rather depressing). After a quick catch up with my family, we went to the back of the ship for the sailaway party which this time was called the Great British Sailaway. We were handed Union Jacks on arrival and joined hundreds of other passengers in waving them while we loudly sang various British songs (from Land of Hope and Glory to Delilah by Tom Jones and 500 miles by the Proclaimers!) They also took a commemorative photo (which I'm sure we'll be able to buy!) of everyone crowding round the back terrace decks with their flags!
We went from here to the Crows Nest to watch the sunset (with a mocktail for me!) and then watch the ship sail away from Recife, which looked beautiful at dusk,
We had dinner then went to see the evening's show - a lady called Giselle Summers who was singing various songs from the musicals. She was lovely but I struggled to keep my eyes open after our busy but very enjoyable day!
[JL : don't miss today's photo on Facebook of Jesus playing Pétanque !!!]
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