Olinda "post" Carnival

We arrived on Thursday to Recife. Natalia was very sweet to pick us up at the airport, and take us to get some amazing coconut water and açai on the beach in Recife at a stand in Boa Viagem. It was unbelievably sweet, cold and wonderful especially after over 12 hours of travel…now we really made it! We got caught up on all the latest family drama, which I will spare you all.
Next stop was Nadia´s house in Olinda citade alto. This will be our home for the next couple weeks. Denise the house keeper was here, and she had cooked a wonderful meal including fish, rice, beans and salad. It was very enjoyable, and great to get some local food in our systems. Next we decided to go to the Hiper market to get some supplies including organic coffee, oatmeal, tropical fruits, plain yoghurt, meat and cheese etc. After returning, we had some snacks, and went out and walked around the city with some cold beers, running into friends on the street, and getting coconut water, and some açai and caja sorbet that was so good I was close to crying. The sweet man that was the owner of the sorbet place was really funny. When we inquired about the hours he is open, he said simply every day all day with a huge smile. We laughed because he was so happy about keeping such crazy hours! When we got home and went to bed, there was a little issue with the sheets, so we made a pact that we would get new sheets the next day.
Friday we woke up and it had rained pretty hard during the night, but it was really sunny, clear and gorgeous morning. We had our cafe da manha of oatmeal and fruits, and then went straight to the shopping (mall). We were on a hunt for 100%cotton sheets and new speedos for us. We were completely successful, and very happy to find a nice price R$69 on the sheets, R$17 on the speedos and great matching colors!
Beto´s sister Carmenha had invited us to lunch at her apartment in Recife, so we went there after stopping at Nadia´s. The lunch was an amazing meal of 3 kinds of chicken, rice, beans and a huge fresh salad. Also present for the lunch were Nadia, Allene, and Paulo. We ended up hanging at Carmenha´s really nice apartment all afternoon, I took a nap there while the rest of the family watched Novellas (soap operas) and caught up. Later we stopped at Allene´s nearby apartement for an afternoon coffee with snacks of bread, cheese, cakes etc.
Once we got back to Nadia´s we could hear the Blocos starting up, so we hurried back out to the streets to see what was going on. We ended up getting some cachaça, beer and caldinho at this cute new bar. Caldinho is a really nourishing broth of either beans with a quail egg, or fish broth with a lot of fish meat. After that, we found a pretty large crowd building in the streets, and a bunch of horn players and drummers getting ready to play. We could tell it was a Frevo bloco because of the instrumentation. When they started it was awe inspiring mix of 6 trombones, 5 saxaphones, 1 tuba, 5 surdo drums, 2 snares, and a giant stilt walker. They played a few songs in the square, and we bought some beers from the street vendors. We ran into a friend and we were all dancing in the streets, and enjoying the hot frevo music. When the bloco started marching through the streets, we followed of course and it ended up being a pretty large route through the steep cobblestone streets of Olinda. At one point we had gotton off the main route with this giant crowd of people, and were blocking traffic including a packed city bus. They waited patiently until the end of the song, and then pushed through the crowd. After they had passed, the music started up again. The crowd was screaming: por que parou? – (why did it stop)? It was really funny.
After the frevo was done, we noticed another group of musicians getting warmed up. This one was mostly strings including guitars, violins, cavaquinhos, banjos and singers. They had a large sound system on wheels. They were getting ready to serenata, and I had heard of this, but had not seen it yet, so was very excited. The street vendors made the transition from beer and cachaça at the frevo to whiskey on ice here at the serenata. This was indeed a more chic crowd. The musicians all had matching satin vests, and were all ages from 16 or so to 80. We knew one of the singers, and she was really happy to see us. We ordered some Teachers whiskey on ice. The vendor didn´t have enough change, so he simply poured more whiskey in our glasses. When the music started, it was classic chorinhos – Pixinguinha, Cartola etc, and sounded so good after the frevo. It was already after midnight, and this crowd started marching through the streets with the sound system on wheels being hand pulled on a rope by the leader. A little rain didn´t seem to bother anybody, but it stopped right away anyway. We followed this group around the streets and I was crying because the music was so beautiful and moving. After that we went back for some more caldinhos and beers, and to use the bathroom at the bar. We ran into our good friend Jonahs at the bar, who we hadn´t seen yet and he was telling some great stories while we relaxed with coconut water to re-hydrate, and some caldinhos. By now it was almost 2AM, the streets were busy, and we ended up sitting on a stoop in Olinda and enjoyed a joing with Jonahs while he was making us laugh hysterically, all the while watching people walking through the streets. After that we called it a night, and came home.