Olinda and on to Pipa

OK, we know it was lazy but it felt good; we took a taxi from Olinda to Pipa yesterday to avoid the 5 hour bus ride. We have to go back to Olinda by bus anyway, so cheating on one leg of the journey isn't so bad...

Olinda is a very pretty town/suburb of Recife, which is an enormous imposing city of skyscrapers - we didn't go there. Olinda is made up of narrow winding cobbled streets and colourful little houses, which double as artist studios, cafes and pousadas (like hostels). We stayed in a rather nice, if very overpriced place called Cuatro Cantos, which was based in an old colonial holiday home. It had high ceilings, polished wooden floors and plenty of character, the only down side being that the rooms we could afford would have previously served as a store room or something similar! Clean and pleasant enough though. Olinda is a great place for just wandering and taking photos and stumbling upon things; music, art, whatever. We'll be back there on tuesday to take our flight to São Luis.

From Maracaipe and...

From Maracaipe and...

Pipa is also a lovely little town, cobble streets etc etc. It also has pretty good surf and the beaches are different to everywhere else we've been in that they are backed by cliffs, though not very high ones. I've been out on the board a couple of times, but we're going to sell it now (or have to give it away) as it's too much of a pain to carry it through the jungle and up to Venezuela - plus the airline will charge us more than it's worth just to stick it in the hold!

Tomorrow we're hoping to go and see some dolphins that are apparently in great numbers just round the headland.