Here is where I met my Mexican Minion - Allie who happened to be travelling to the exact same places as I am at the exact same time. Fate is a wonderful thing sometimes :) so after an hours sleep ive never gotten up and packed so fast in my life. With a 5:50am meeting time for the bus, and us sleeping through the alarm til 5:30 it was an experience, half asleep and extremely under slept we threw our bags on and trekked through the sandy roads of Jeri and made it in time. Exercise done for the day haha...
8 hours later we reached Fortaleza where we had a 1 hour wait before climbing back onto another 8nhour bus ride to natal.. Its like an instinct now to just automatically try go to sleep as soon as you climb into your seat on the bus. Pull the recliner all the way back, stuff something under your head and watch the back of your eye lids. Only problem is, after the first 8 hour bus ride your body knows it doesn't need to sleep.. second problem; iphone headphone hole is broken, third problem; laptop sound not working. NO MUSIC, NO MOVIES, NO BOOK Nothing.. so back to trying to sleep. After a quick stop and a piece of chocolate cake later my body decided it could sleep the cake off.
Hello Natal.. Raining. Something that seemed so foreign after almost 3 weeks of no rain. Never in Brasil did I think I would find myself back at a pretentious nightclub like I would find back in Aus but here I was paying $20 to get into this club called " Peppers Hall" which was hosting a "white night:". Everyone was dressed up and in white, and being a pretentious club no one was dancing of course except us gringos who made the most of our night in Natal.
With no idea on what Natal has to offer we ventured on a bus towards central, but again the working ways of Brasil it was a Sunday and NOTHING was open. We managed to see the tourist building which used to be an all girls orphanage, jail, WWII point and now a centre for tourist and forro based on top of the tallest hill in Natal Centro. As rain had once again graced us and ruined our plans to do an Acai tour we decided to head out to Pipa earlier. So 5 of us and all our luggage cramped into a cab and we set off for our "Brazilian hour" drive down the coast. We arrived in this gorgeous little cobble stone beach town that sits on a hill sounded by beaches. The perfect place to relax and take in the sun.
So our first night we check into this very empty hostel which was the only place with room for us. Here we are 2 small girls with the whole upstairs room to ourselves. Ocean views and breeze the perfect setting for the location. Perfect.... well there a price to pay with having a open window facing the ocean , besides the blowing winds, there's killer mosquitoes and Bats. Yes, after awaking from the constant noise of mosquitoes buzzing around my head I decided to spray myself head to toe in repellent. In doing this I woke Allie, who was quick to inform me there was a Bat in our room flying around. Lights off I couldn't notice so if anyone knows me well, knows that I DO NOT like flying things. So like a frightened child I freaked, squealed and run back to my bed and hid under the blankets. So we quickly decided that this room was not safe to sleep in and so we snuck into one of the private rooms with air-conditioning and a closed window where we were able to decently sleep away the remaining of the night, before having to sneak back into our room early and catch the sunrise beaming through our window.
Pipa ended up trapping us with it's beauty and tranquil charm for more than a week. A week of rain, shine, hammocks, maconha, brownies, beaches, boys and amazing new friends. Every day just became harder and harder to say goodbye too as we were embracing the relaxed lifestyle a little too much. I clocked up some oval hours during my stay. So once we were able to leave, we were on the road again to a city called Joao Pessoa.
Another sunrise and another plan to take on the next city. Jacuma; a small fishing town with some secluded beaches, a real non touristy area. This we found out after we waited around for 3 hours on the side of the road for a bus that decided to never come. So back up plan was to try get ourselves down to Olinda. After another bus ride back to the Rodavaria we found out that it was impossible to get straight to Olinda so with 2 minutes to spare we raced for the bus to Recife.
5 hours later we arrived in Recife with no idea of what we were doing or where we were going to stay, with Hostel world telling us that all the hostels were booked out, we lucked it out with one. A metro ride and bus in the dodgy parts of town we finally found our way and were happily in bed after an expensive room and a shot of Cachaca. This is where we found out that we have terrible luck with buses. After a quick decision of where to check out next we decided to check out Porto de Galinhas, but this was no QUICK transfer. We checked out the bus times and headed to the stop with plenty of time to spare and waited. And waited, with the rest of Recife by the looks of things as bus after bus piled up after one another on the side of the road picking up and dropping off new passengers, so many that when our hourly bus finally came there was no where for our bus to stop, let alone see us trying to flag it down. So we decided to wait for the next.. which not to our surprise NEVER showed up.
Porto de Galinhas a beautiful local brasilian hotspot with gorgeous natural pools and beach as far as the eye can see.. and what happens when we arrive? It rains for 3 days straight. After being frustrated with the weather and driving each other insane the sun managed to grace us on the last day for long enough for us to swim with the fish and catch some rays. ( not the Steve Irwin kind). Here we met Lilia & Mani, two friends travelling from Denmark who had plenty of fun stories for us.
Soon again we were on our way to Olinda, a gorgeous Heritage sister city of Recife with streets full of old houses all stacked upon each other painted in different bright colours lighting up the city full of emotion. For 2 days we spent wondering around the small cobblestone laneways snapping up memorabilia and inspiration of these mansion masterpieces. For a small city with 22 churches it wasnt long before it was time for me to leave back to modern life in Recife.
Back in Recife we were joined by a number of friends we had made along the way one of which was celebrating her birthday, which meant party time. We found the nicest clothes of what we have packed and headed out to a local club with a great group of friends. Happy Birthday Aimee. A early morning struggle and the best buffet all you can eat sushi i have ever been to we decided to lay low and spend the day in bed.
A missed alarm meant for another rushed morning to the airport where we were heading to Salvador..
Until next time..
