Recife/Olinda/Porto de Gallinas (Brazil)

So I'm in Santiago right now but I'll talk about Brazil real quick:

I arrived on Friday the 16th in order to start celebrating Carnaval the next day. Carnaval is actually celebrated starting from about a month before, but the main push is the four days just before Ash Wednesday. As was explained to me, there are three major Carnaval celebrations in Brazil: one in Rio, which is the famous samba/parade style one, one in Salvador, and one in Recife. Recife's celebration is called the "Carnaval for the people" because it's free, as opposed to the celebrations in Rio and Salvador where you have to pay, so anyone who wants to can attend, and it takes place in the streets where everyone participates together.

On Saturday we went to Olinda, which is a city just outside of Recife, which along with Recife and one other city whose name I forgot makes up the Gran Ciudad of Recife. Anywayz, Olinda was great. We just drank all day and danced along the streets. We didn't dress up in costumes but many people did. There was one group that dressed up as a funeral procession and carried a coffin around (filled with beer), and another group dressed up as the Smurfs, where everyone wore diampers and had painted-blue bodies and threw blue paint at everyone. There were people carrying trumpets and drums, singers singing from balconies, and music just everywhere. The streets were packed and it was really hard to move half the time. It was incredibly hot and we were all drenched in sweat by the time we left. Before going there I had somewhat expected naked grils running around everywhere, well, that didn't happen, but it was still great. :)

On Sunday and Monday we went to Porto de Gallinas, which is a touristy beach town. There we went to the beach during the day and went out to bars and clubs at night. We went to the same beach both days. The beach had a bar with tables, chairs, and umbrellas that you could place in the water. The waiters would come and take your order while you were sitting in the water, and would bring the food and drinks right out to you. So we would just swim up to the table and have a beer (which were like 3 for $2). We ordered plates of whole fish, and also ordered some little swordfish-looking fish as appetizers that you ate whole: bones, scales, and all.

On Tuesday we returned to Recife and celebrated the last day of Carnaval in downtown Recife. We just drank and danced all night again, and ate a lot of really tasty food. The downtown is really nice, and is sometimes called the Venice of Brazil, for all the bridges and rivers that criss-cross it. The architecture downtown was pretty cool, everything was done up in Dutch style. There was a big outdoor concert and once again packed streets with bands and costumed partiers.

On Wednesday we took in some culture and went to a castle/museum, which up until 3 years ago had been someone's home. It was incredible. It was really as luxurious/decadent as many of the centuries-old palaces in Europe. The castle and the property/land were beautiful, and the museum portion, which housed paintings, sculptures, and the largest collection of knives in the world, was truely fantastic, but I just couldn't believe that someone actually recently lived there. Driving up to the house we passed all of the shanty towns that bordered the city where the people lived in abject poverty, and then you had this huge completely-overdone palace. I guess it attests the huge disparity in Brazil between the country's rich and poor. I was told that the family that owns it no longer works, and that no one within the family's next 5 generations will need to work. Crazy...

The country itself is beautiful. The scenery on the drives to Porto de Gallinas was simply breathtaking. Vibrant greens with hills and palm trees, and the beaches were great. On Thursday we went to a beach about 45 min. from Recife, which was named by Travel magazine to be one of the 10 most beautiful beaches in the world. It was...

Recife, so I was told, is currently the most dangerous city in Brazil. While I didn't personally experience anything, Marilia told me about the murders of various family friends, her friend Marina told me about various times that she had been mugged at knife/gun/and broken bottle point, and during the four days of Carnaval there were 70 deaths, 23 car thefts, and 295 buses shot at in Pernambuco, the state of which Recife is the capital. Crazy.

Marilia, her family, and friends were all friendly and incredibly generous. Most could speak English and/or Spanish, and I managed to communicate with those who couldn't utilizing a mixture of very slow Spanish and very slow Portuguese. It was a great experience and I'm definitely going to study some Portuguese and return someday, especially to see Rio, which I was told countless times is just amazing.