Recife, Brazil

After some quaint fishing villages, we were not prepared for Recife, a city of 1.5 million inhabitants. Parts of it were originally layed-out by the Dutch so there is a series of canals and waterways and the city is also known as the Venice of Brazil. The Portuguese then took over and so their influence can be seen in much of the colonial architecture.

The city is an assault on your senses. The waterways are clogged with all kinds of garbage with the Egrets fishing among the detritus. It was about 90 degrees with high humidity, so you can imagine the smell.

To say there was a cacophony would be putting it mildly. All of the street vendors are yelling out offering their wares. On the bridges they have their goods on blankets; everything from television remotes to knives with 8 inch blades. Most of the stores have either music blaring or people with loud speakers trying to entice shoppers. The ice cream sales people all seem to do loud clapping, while the water sales people shout a rhythmic "agua, agua, agua ". Add to that guys on bicycles with large front and back speakers loudly promoting something--we think it might have been political. In many cases the bikes are just parked, blasting out the messages with no rider in sight. Then there are the street musicians, the bible readers, and the traffic: scooters, motorbikes, buses, hand carts, and you name it--all going full tilt! Oh, and machinery! Road works, guys with generators doing electrical work, builders, painters, and every other person shouting into a cell phone--Mama Mia!

While downtown we did have a brief chat with a guy trying to attract attention for an Optical store. We believe that he was dressed as Ronaldo, the famous footballer. He started off with "I love English" but switched to "I love Americans" as soon as he learned our citizenship. I have attached his "slo-mo" video because he was so proud of his performance (we actually had it twice) and we have half a dozen photos of the 3 of us too!

The architecture ranged from beautifully restored colonial buildings--like the legislative buildings and the prison turned craft market--with each store in a different cell, to places under long-term renovation, like the British built train station. Then there were gorgeous old buildings that looked as if they would crumble if you blew on them, interspersed with some of the ugliest concrete and glass monstrosities many covered with mold.

The map we had was fairly useless and so we never actually got to the place we were intending, even after much arm waving and rapid-fire Portuguese directions from some well intentioned heavily-armed, Kevlar-vested police. Actually, there was a large police presence everywhere we went. Apparently the unemployment is 33% and 70% of the wealth is held by 3% of the population so crime can be an issue. We were told not to wear any rings, watches, necklaces, etc when going ashore and heard, second hand about two people from the ship that had necklaces yanked off.

After a fairly unsuccessful morning we returned to the ship for lunch and set off in the heat of the afternoon on a ship excursion. We started with an open-air catamaran ride on the same river we had traversed by bridge in the morning. Luckily the tide had come in and so the garbage had been covered up and there was no smell. All the locals were very friendly and waved from the shore or from other boats, and the town looked much prettier from the water. They are in major preparation to host some games of the soccer World Cup in 2014.

While we were on shore the Brazilian authorities came on board to conduct a health inspection of the ship. It is their requirement that cabin attendants wear certain attire to clean cabins, so we were greeted in the hallway by Rovic wearing a full length (to the floor) rubber apron, heavy rubber gloves, rubber boots and a full face cloth face mask. Oh, and I did mention that it was the mid 90's! The day before we were delayed leaving the port for 2 hours while they tussled with some "immigration" issues. I might suggest that with the Olympics coming in 2016 that Brazil might think about streamlining some of their tourist-related processes!