Well – got to Olinda. And it’s pretty cool. Beautiful town. From the hill, a great view of the town – all tiled roofs, heaps of trees, old cathedrals popping up everywhere, the ocean, and across the bay – the high-rises of Recife. I arrived yesterday morning, and was immediately informed that there happened to be a festival that night. So – a siesta in my pousada which has a pool. Then – a little exploring, some seafood and cerveja at restaurant with a view – and then festival. Watched 30 police raid a bar. Then, was taken to the bar by a local who’d accidentally stolen my beer – and proceeded to replace it many times over. Bar had live band – including children. But, then the crowd consisted of many families with babies and young children at all. When I left, rather intoxicated, I realised it was only 8:30 – so not as irresponsible parenting as I had thought.
I then watched some capoeira on the street. Awesome. Open circle – so anybody can walk in, and ‘fight’ somebody else. Nathan would have loved it. Usually, the fighting was more show than actual fight, and never any actual contact. But occasionally, there’d be two folk who obviously had an actual grudge. Twice it descended into actual full-scale blows. Each time, when push came to shove came to punch – the capoeira seemed to turn into normal drunken brawling. The big guy running the circle sorted people out pretty quickly. A couple of times he took a dislike to somebody’s attitude – and tagged in to teach them a lesson.
After this – back to the pousada, for a night-time swim. And today, eight bloody hours catching up on uploading all my photos & videos. Should all be there now. Tomorrow – the plan is to spend all day in or beside pool.