8th-9th August: Thrills and Spills in Transit

An inauspicious start.  Not 30 mins from Heathrow and I´ve spilled a full Grolsch in my lap.  Clem finds this  highly amusing until she realises that I´m going to smell of stale beer for the next 24 hours and she has no escape.  16 hours later, and a theme is established.  Flying from Miami to Recife, an AA air hostess knocks a cup of red wine into my lap, and is subsequently astonished when dousing it with a club soda chaser does not remove the stain.

Further amusement when we realise that our flight from Miami to Recife takes a detour down to Salvador, the main reason we´re going to Recife in the first place.  No chance of letting us off where we actually want to go (although in retrospect we would have missed a great trip to Maceio), so it´s back up north for us.

Recife is huge, much larger than I had imagined, vast favelas stretching off into the distance as we approach by plane.  We´re not actually staying in Recife, forewarned that it´s not the most attractive city in Brazil, so we find a bus to Olinda.  The turnstile in the middle of the bus is mildly surprising, an entertaining obstacle for tired travellers with large rucksacks.  Ever the gentleman, I let Clem go first, and give her a less-than-gentlemanly shove from behind when she gets stuck (or rather her backpack, I should probably clarify).  I glide through gracefully, of course.

Olinda was once beautiful.  It is now sadly delapidated, but remains charming.  Lots of attractive and colourful old houses and churches, but mostly lapsed into disrepair.  Apparently it is rammed for carnaval, but at the moment it´s fairly dead.  After lunch and a wander round town, it´s a very early night and a long sleep.  Off to Maceio in the morning.