Tropical Storms in Olinda

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Rain drops the size of man-hole covers were soaking me to the bone, here in Natal, Brazil’s “City of Sun”. All the tourism brochures and guidebooks went on about the coastal city’s 300 days of sun a year, but it was hard to imagine it in the midst of a tropical storm. The weather, so kind to me thus far, had finally decided enough is enough. If you’re going to go to Northeast Brazil in the two months that make up its wet season, you’re going to get drenched. Even if you’ve been lucky for three months, and even if you’re traveling Gonzo. And no, my hat did not keep me dry.

After Jericoacoara, the plan was to hit Praia de Pipa, another gorgeous beach town. It would involve a few buses and two days hard traveling, but the reward would be worth is if Jeri was anything to go by. Having filed a report once again at Fortaleza’s aiport, I caught an eight-hour bus with Phillipe to Natal. Along the way, we picked up some tourist info and Natal didn’t look too shabby itself. Blue seas, sandy beaches, and things to do and see. Which we might have done, had the first tropical storm delayed its arrival by a few days. The newspapers were warning of floods, and it was easy to see why. In a city that prides itself on its sunshine, people were walking around like soaked rats, the buses skidding around corners. Pipa was only two hours down the coast, and fell within range of the dark angry clouds. I’d had a taste of rain in Jeri, so spending a few days in a flooded tropical paradise did not appeal. Instead, we fast tracked our makeshift itinerary and took another six-hour bus to the city of Recife. One of its suburbs, Olinda, had been highly recommended to us as a charming, colonial neighborhood full of colour and cobblestone. After two days on four buses, it could have been a roach motel. Brazilian bus drivers use caution the way doctors use lawnmowers, and Philipe was making me nervous. Turns out I had made the right decision to skip the Pantanel and meet him instead in Fortaleza. His bus to Campo Grande had a head-on collision with a truck at 3am in the morning, rolling twice. People were cut up pretty bad, but miraculously, nobody was killed and Phillipe escaped uninjured. I would have been on that bus with him, and who knows how I would have fared? Sometimes I feel like there’s a bald, chain-smoking lunatic named Hunter S. looking over me. Anyway, Phillipe is naturally traumatized, and despite wearing a seat belt on the bus, he’s twitching every time the driver skids a corner or slams the brakes to stop for a fruit fly. Finally we pull into Olinda, jump in a cab to avoid walking too much at night with all our gear (as per warnings in Phillipe’s Lonely Planet), and arrive at the pousada exhausted, ready to catch up on some sleep. Which of course didn’t happen. We meet a bunch of Irish doctors, celebrating their recent qualification, and a married couple from London, and the beers are flowing and next thing I know I’m in a shady nightclub, grateful for my stubble and scary, red eyes. I’m in no mood to socialize anyway.

Gonzo Gallery for Tropical Storms in Olinda

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