Olinda or bust...

We left Salvador a few days ago and headed north in a combi with our final destination being Olinda a beach town outside of Recife. The first day was a short drive to Laranjareis where we hoped to catch their largest cultural festival. About an hour outside of thw town we stopped for gas and interestingly enough gas stations here also serve alcohol so we all had a shot. The ladies workign there could not stop laughing at a bus full of gringos rolling up and having shots. We are all in such good spirits already this just made everyone laugh for the rest of the drive./

when we got to the town we drove thru teh deserted streeets to discoverhat we missed the festival by three days. so we checked into a pousada, the only one the town had and headed out for some food. We only found one restaurant and it was closing so they offered us beer to go for dinner. Then the owner offered to make us all mistos, grilled ham and cheese, and we settled into a table chatting with the three other customers that were there about music, our trip and life. Then we crashed for the night and started out bright and early for Olinda.

The drive took longer tahn we excepted so by teh time we got here we skipped teh show we were going to see in Recife and went to dinner. We sat in a garden havig dinner and one of teh crew was almost knocked out by a mango that a bat was snatching from a tree above. Only in Brazil. Then we went back to our Pousada and grabbed the camera to film a Choro performace that was happening in the street just out front of our place. Fran and Ian joined the group and there were people everywhere up and down teh block. Then a few of us stayed out and went up the street to an outdoor club to see a group that played contemporary Brazil music. The DJ was spinning Reggae and funk when we got in there and it was the fist time I had really heard music that was not Brazilian since we got here. Then the band came on and they were great. They played a mix of traditional and contemporary music and even played the theme from James Bond. We stayed up way to late but it was worth it.

The next day we went to meet Beth de Oxum, she runs a cultual center out of her home and is one of teh most well known players of Coco music. We interviewed her and came back that night for an impromptu performace in her house. It was really great. After that we headed nirth to the beach to go swimming. Teh water is like bath water here. I swam straight out into the ocean further tahn I shuold have just trying to find cooler water. Then we got back in teh combi and haded to the oldest church in Brazil about 40km north for an outdoor performace of Maracatu in the square. It was a small group but it was, as Ty says, very rootsy. The whole neghborhood was there signing along and dancing. The we came back to crash still tired from partying too much our first day. Now we are heading back to beach for more swimming and then we are going back to Beth's house so the band can have a clinic with her to learn Coco music. Tonight there are numerous festivals in the street that we will be filming so it should be another great and late night...