Dec 2006

Well, it is the morning of the 31st of December and they have blocked off the pier in Fortaleza (right in front of the youth hostel where I am staying) because the entire pier is full of fireworks. So I am in the right place! (I have a good photo of this but for some reason it won't upload to the blog.)

This morning I am going to Cumbuco, a nice beach about 30km away. Tonight, I am coming back to Iracema beach in the centre of Fortaleza, to watch the fireworks and to party a little!

Tonight, everybody in Brazil (literally everybody) will be dressed in white, and, at some point before midnight, must consume a plate of lentils. Otherwise, no good luck next year!

I have travelled over a thousand kilometres in the last week, this is why I haven't been posting much on the blog. Next week, I am off to the Lencóis Maranhenses, a national park of sand dunes, rivers, freshwater lakes and sea in the state of Maranhão.

Unless you are in Denver (Réjane!) or Ohio (Andrew!) you will be fast asleep by the time it is 2007 here in Brazil - we are four hours behind Amsterdam, three hours behind Dublin. So I will just wish you all a happy new year right now!

Feliz Ano Novo!
Alex

It has been a while since I posted, and I am actually already miles away from Pernambuco, but that is another story. This post is going to be nearly completely in the conditional tense, because it is all about a very hypothetical question:

What if Brazil had started off as a Dutch colony?

Forte Orange was built by the Dutch near Recife in 1631

Because it nearly did.

In 1624, the Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) conquered Salvador, then the biggest city in the Americas (north or south.) The Dutch freed the slaves (only to annoy the Portuguese slave owners, it didn't exactly stop the Dutch from trading slaves elsewhere) and put freedom of religion in place. Soon the economy started to grow, but it all ended after a year when the Portuguese, helped by the Spanish (Portugal was actually part of Spain at that time.)

In 1631, the Dutch tried again and this time it went better. They conquered the area known as Pernambuco, and started building a new city across the river from Recife, called Mauritsstad (now Mauritsstad and Recife Antigo form the centre of the modern day city of Recife.)

The Maurits Bridge was the first river crossing bridge in Brazil. (This is a rebuilt version, but it is still called Ponte do Príncipe Maurício.)

The Dutch occupation of Pernambuco ended in 1654 but it is amazing how 23 years at the beginning of Recife have given the city an unmistakeably different feel from, for example, Rio de Janeiro or Salvador. WIth its river, canals and bridges, the city actually feels and looks Dutch, because its basic layout was planned by the WIC.

Again, during the Dutch occupation of Pernambuco, freedom of religion was put in place (by force - Portuguese Catholic priests who did not co-operate with the new separation of church and state were locked up, in Forte Orange.) This meant that Recife / Mauritsstad became an attractive destination for Portuguese (Sefardim) Jews, who were being forceably converted to Christianity in Portugal. Many Portuguese Jews had already fled Portugal to Amsterdam, and now thew were more than willing to help build the Dutch version of Brazil in Pernambuco. Recife / Mauritsstad became the first city in the Americas (north or south) with a Synagogue, and many of the soldiers and sailors occupied with the city's defenze were Jewish.

The first Synagogue in the Americas, north or south, was founded in Recife during the Dutch occupation of Pernambuco.

But in 1654 everything ended when the Portuguese kicked the Dutch out of Pernambuco again. Freedom of religion ended, slavery returned. Just in time, two ships, especially sent from Amsterdam, rescued the majority of Recife's Jewish population from certain persecution. Some of Recife's Jews returned to Amsterdam, most went on to Nieuw Amsterdam (currently New York) and they became the first Jews to arrive in North America.

In Holland, the Dutch history in Brazil is almost forgotten. However, in Brazil, there is quite a little industry of what I call "What-If-Journalism". A Brazilian author, Aydano Roriz, has written a number of novels set during the Dutch occupation of Salvador in 1624, and a recently published book, "Outros Brasis" ("Other Versions of Brazil") examines what could have been if the Dutch, and not the Portuguese, had colonised Brazil.
In general, these books seem to idealize the Dutch period, because slavery was (more or less) abolished and because freedom of religion was imposed. Would Brazil be a more equal society today if it had started off Dutch?

I'm not even sure if it is worth asking that question, because you might as well ask what life would be like if the world was flat, or the sky yellow. What those Brazilians who idealize the period of Dutch occupation in Pernambuco don't seem to realize, is that a perfect example of what would have been a Dutch version of Brazil indeed exists - right next door. It is called Suriname. Of course you can't compare one to the other because one is a giant and the other one a fairly small country, but Suriname is not exactly utopia.

It has been a while since I last posted. I have travelled nearly 1,000 km since I last wrote, that is the reason! Hopefully I will get around to updating the blog tonight or tomorrow.

Well, it is time for me to say Feliz Natal to everybody who has been reading this blog for the past month and a half!

Olinda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is where I will be spending Christmas.

I arrived in Olinda at six o' clock yesterday evening, and suddenly realised it was Saturday... and that today was Sunday, and that all the shops would be closed! So I had two hours to get everything for my Christmas dinner before the local supermarket closed!
I am staying in the Albergue de Olinda, in an old colonial building near the historic centre of Olinda, a small city just north of Recife, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Christmas day I will be making pancakes! Cheap and cheerful. With lime and sugar. (They were a big success in Salvador.)

So what is Christmas like in Brazil? Well, thankfully, it only lasts for one day (the 25th.) People don't stay in with their families, but go to the city centre to celebrate and dance (I will probably go to the historic centre of Recife the night of the 25th.)

An ice-skating rink? But we're in Brazil!!! Christmas gone wrong in a shopping centre in Vila Velha, Espirito Santo.

Fake snow factories must be making lots of money in Brazil, because half the country seems to be covered in white fluff! Most of Christmas seems to be imported (from America.) A friend of mine in Salvador told me that there used to be Brazilian Christmas traditions, but that they disappeared long ago. He remembers his grandmother putting pitanga leaves (pitanga is a tropical fruit) on all the floors of the house at Christmas. If you walked on the leaves, they would release a Christmas-like scent, and the whole house would be perfumated. But he says nobody does this anymore... (In honour of this tradition I bought loads of pitanga juice in the supermarket yesterday!)

Well, a Merry Christmas from Olinda to everyone who has been reading this blog. And thank you, for showing an interest! It really means a lot to me that so many friends and family all over the world can follow my trip this way! And if you are bored during Christmas, check back!
Alex.

I am guessing that since I left Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo in early November I have travelled well over 4,000* kilometres on buses to get to where I am now, in Maragogi, Alagoas. And you can add another 250 km or so to that on city buses in São Paulo, Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Vila Velha, Vitória, Ilhéus and Salvador.

This is the oldest (and bumpiest) bus I was on in Brazil - from Conceição da Barra to Itaúnas in Espirito Santo.

Brazil closed down most of its intercity railways years ago (smart move! Of course Ireland did exactly the same.) Since an internal flight crashed near Manáus in October, air travel has been a complete chaos, as nearly half of all air trafic controllers in Brazil appear to have been suspended. When the airports can't handle the number of flights, they simply close down. So travelling by bus is the only alternative!

Thankfully, intercity bus travel in Brazil is generally of a very high standard. The intercity buses are bigger and better (but not faster) than we are used to in Europe. Still, all buses eventually fall into one of the following categories:

1. The Driving Refrigerator
Because of the long distances, most intercity buses run at night, so that passengers can sleep. There is usually plenty of legroom, but don't forget to bring warm clothes and a blanket! For some reason, Brazilian bus companies seem to think a fridge on wheels is a good idea. The airconditioning is usually turned on so high that condensation happens on the OUTSIDE of the bus windows, which makes it look like it is raining. Meanwhile, the passengers inside are freezing.

2. The Day-Old-Chick Bus
When you are travelling a medium distance during the day time, chances are you are going to be travelling on a day-old-chick bus. These buses carry everything - from people to pots and pans and birds in cages. If you do not get on at the very first stop, you will probably have to stand.

3. The Suspension-less Canonball (alternatively: The Human Sardine Can)
Brazilian intercity buses are fine. City buses are a mixed bag. First and foremost: the drivers are lunatics and the buses seem to have no suspension - prepare to be shaken, not stirred. Secondly, no maps with bus routes are available anywhere. Therefore you have about 1 millisecond to read the sign on the bus itself which displays the stops. Thankfully, the city bus systems usually make up for the confusion caused by the lack of maps with: loads of buses. It is not unusual to have 5 buses with the same destination pass by in one minute. However, when you are in a hurry, your bus will not pass by for another hour.
City buses drive at breakneck speed - but not during rush-hour. During rush-hour, the Suspension-less Canonball changes into the Human Sardine-Can. Fitting as many people as possible into a bus is a national sport. It's fun, there is always space for one more! I spent about half an hour pressed up against a middle-aged woman's bosom in a bus in Salvador and her hair was in my armpit. There was absolutely nothing we could do (except for sweat, which we did, profusely.)

Another fun thing about city buses is that whereas in Europe bus routes are usually lines, in Brazil they are often circles. Some cities (like Maceió) are enlightened and have a system where they have a blue sign in the front window if the bus is going one way, and a red one if it is going the other direction. Some cities (like Salvador) are less enlightened. In fact, Salvador's bus system is completely insane. For example, it is possible to spend an hour in a bus, pass the same lake twice, then pass the same supermarket twice, before arriving at your destination (which was only 4km away.) (This is not me being a tourist and taking the wrong bus - this is travelling with Nilton from town to his house - he has to take this bus every day!)

• If you read this article earlier today and read that I travelled around 3,000 kilometers: I estimated that without looking at a map. When I looked at my map I was shocked: as far as I can tell (without a ruler) I have travelled more like somewhere between 4,000 and 4,400 kilometers.