>Continuing northwards, we are now anchored in the riverways in the city of Recife
Although it has seemingly miles of wonderful beaches and it is soooooooooo hot, we aren't rushing into the sea. We're rather disappointed at how dirty the water is along the cities beaches. And the water in the river area where the yacht club is situated is really just a running sewer so we´re not too keen to stick around too long - the stench is somewhat overpowering especially during low tide. The yacht club is, however, really great. It has two swimming pools, one with water slides (back to our childhood), a fabulous and inexpensive restaurant, bars, tennis (too hot for that), showers, saunas etc. and only costs US$5 per day.
We enjoyed a week at the yacht club and then moved back down the river to the Pernambuco Yacht Club which, in appearance, leaves an awful lot to be desired but we met some wonderful people and thought we'd stick around for a few more days. We joined them for a meal in a nearby favela (a very poor squatter camp settlement) and thoroughly enjoyed both the meal and the atmosphere. They also took us to a very fancy all-you-can-eat churrasco restaurant. Churrasco, traditionally, is skewered varieties of meat which are brought around to each table and sliced onto your plate. This continues non-stop until you raise a red flag or something similar to indicate that you've had enough. Howver, this particular restaurant had a buffet-style set up which included the meats as well as quite a few dozen other dishes, fish, casseroles, salads and even sushi. This was our budget killer of the month but, wow, was it ever worth it!
The city itself is very dirty but very interesting. The marketplace is huge and quite amazing, we could have wander ed around for ages. There are a lot of 'sharks' on the take but one just have to keep their wits about you and hands on your valuables.
We have absolutely no idea of what is going on in the rest of the world as there is positively NO English media here at all. We have learned that the Pope passed away but only because his photo was on the front of every paper here, Brazil is a very Catholic country. If anything else significant has happened, we are certainly in the dark. All we need to worry about is where the next icy cold beer is coming from! And boy, do they ever know how to serve them cold here! Even I, who NEVER touched a beer, rather enjoy a glass or two just because it is served soooooooooooooo cold!
No comments:
Post a Comment