Recife and Praia do Frances

So we arrived in Recife and met my friends Marthas host sister Raphaella who organized accomodation for us in their neighbours house. The guys living there were really nice and it was good to get to know some locals again after being only normal tourists for a week.

On sunday the city of Recife close some of the car lanes in the city and turns them into bikalanes which seems to be a pretty new thing in Brazil, so everybody is crazy about it at the moment and cycles three bike trails that connect diferent parts of the city. It was funny to see how some people struggled riding a bike and there were also some accidents due to unexperienced bike riders, but it was good fun for us finally being able to ride a bike again.

On the bike ride we also saw quite a lot of the city and especially the city center was surprisingly nice which dutch colonial style houses (the dutch invaded the noth coast of Brazil in 16-something and stayed there only very little time but still influenced the architecture of whole cities), well cared for riverside park and little markets dotted thoughout the city and probably making good business considering the crowds of people in and around the city center on sundays.

One day we also went to Recifes neighbouring city Olinda which has lots nd lots of colourful colonial style houses. There wasn't really a lot to do so we just talked around, took pictures and enjoyed the view from top of the mountain.

We took a bus to Maceió, but being a bit sick of big cities, we decided to stay in a nearby town called Praia do Frances and just enjoy a few more days of shark-free beach holiday. Actually Florian was the only one to reall enjoy it, because I had to work, therefor spent most of the time in the hotelroom, but I managed to go to the beach at least on the last day for a few hours and get a sunburn.

-Sandra