The Many Faces Of Recife
Brazil must surely be one of the best countries in the world for using the Uber taxi service, certainly the best we’ve encountered anywhere so far. Easy, reliable and cheap. We originally intended to hire a car to explore the Olinda/Recife area, but once you realise that a half hour Uber ride can cost as little as £2.60 there’s just no point taking on the driving yourself.
But you know, once you get the hang of Brazil, it’s not altogether odd that Uber works well: this is a surprisingly well developed country in a technological sense. For a start, this is virtually a cashless society, everywhere expects payment by card, and even if you offer cash for a bottle of water costing 48p, you may well be asked for to present a card instead. Only the street vendors deal in cash, nobody else. In addition to that, every single bar, cafe and restaurant, no matter how ramshackle, will have free wifi, usually of a decent standard.
You could be forgiven for getting an incorrect impression of Recife just by entering at a certain point, such is the diversity of its various districts. Head straight to the beach end and you’re in something which resembles Rio de Janeiro, dozens of soaring high rise blocks lining the long, long seafront strip. Arrive in the old town and you’re cast into a world of colonial architecture so grand that you could be exploring a European city. Start at the renovated dockyards and you’ll be surrounded by revitalised wharf buildings bursting with cafe culture.
Yet take a stroll away from the old town and cross the bridge towards Santo Antonio and you’re forced to walk in the road to circumnavigate the hundreds – literally, hundreds – of homeless people living on the streets. Individuals, groups of males and entire families with children sleeping on cardboard. This is possibly the densest concentration of homelessness we have seen anywhere outside of India.
Our first exploration begins at Marco Zero close to the seafront, an attractive modern plaza from where distances to and from Recife are calculated, close to the classical old town where many impressive colonial buildings are located. The grand street of Rua do Bom Jesus, nowadays mostly pedestrianised, leads away from Plaça Arsenal to trace a route between those bold, imposing buildings which once reflected the wealth of a thriving port city.
Recife was in fact the site of South America’s first ever river bridge, built at the behest of Mauricio de Nassau, Governor of Dutch Brazil, in 1643. Standing at the confluence and joint mouths of two mighty rivers, the Beberibe and Capibaribe, the oldest part of town proudly sits on an island linked to the rest of the city by a series of bridges. Brazil’s fourth largest city with its 1.6 million+ inhabitants is the capital of the state of Pernambuco, and has a long and proud history.
Established by the Portuguese in the early days of colonisation, in 1537, taken briefly by the Dutch before recapture by Portugal, Recife’s considerable wealth grew from the milling of sugar cane from the numerous surrounding plantations, plus the characteristics of its shoreline providing a protected area for development of the port. That protection is provided by a number of offshore natural, but non-coral, reefs which run parallel to the shore: the very name “Recife” is derived from the Portuguese word for reef.
On one such reef, now enhanced and expanded by human input, is the Parque das Esculturas, the Sculpture Park, home to some of the work of one of Recife’s favourite sons, Francisco Brennand – the guy featured in our last post – which we reach via chugging motor boat from the harbour wall. It’s an intriguing first glimpse of his unusual work.
Tucked in amongst those grand colonial buildings along Bom Jesus is America’s oldest synagogue, former embassy buildings and once great mansions. The views of these are remarkable for the differing fortunes of the buildings: some retain an air of grand maturity, others stand in decay: roofless, crumbling and strewn with graffiti, while some, like the wharf buildings at the port, bear the hallmarks of modernisation and adaptation to 21st century life.
And those clashes of cultures, those diverse areas, continue to confound. To reach the gleaming gold interior of the church of Capella Dourada, we have to manoeuvre through hordes of homeless, some begging, most sporting forlorn expressions, and shady looking characters who make us closely guard the contents of our pockets. A burly security guard stands at the church door, a watchful eye on our progress towards the interior.
Capella Dourada
A short distance from the church, hiding behind fences laced with ivy, convolvulus and other climbers, is an arts and crafts market in a most unusual setting. The Casa da Cultura is housed in a former prison where surprisingly little has been done to hide its former incarnation: as we wander through inspecting everything from wood carvings to clothing to bottles of flavoured cachaça, we are left in no doubt as to the building’s original raison d’etre.
Elsewhere in the city there must be current day gaols of much greater proportions, for Recife has a reputation as one of Brazil’s most violent cities with over one thousand shootings per year. However, this misleading statistic should be set against the fact that education here is of a high standard, average earnings are significantly above the national average, and medical and technological studies and services are considerably advanced.
Our final port of call in Recife is to walk along the beachfront at Boa Viagem – on a Sunday, the favourite day locally for beach time. Once again, the scenes are comical, the concentration of parasols so dense that the entire beach may as well have a roof. Another form of shade comes to the beach early, too – the density and daunting height of the huge high rise blocks means that it’s only half way through the afternoon when the sun’s rays become blocked by the concrete jungle and giant shadows creep across the sand.
Our single day exploring some of this sprawling city has been remarkably varied, such is its rambling diversity and disparate characteristics. Modern, ancient, gleaming, scruffy, clean, filthy, pristine and defaced, one can only hold opinions of districts rather than of Recife as a whole. Turning one small corner can take you from one aura to another.
And so we move on again, now even closer to the equator, towards the waters of the mighty Amazon and the intensity of the rainforest and jungle…
27 Comments
Lynette d'Arty-Cross
Wow – you did a lot of exploring for a single day! Recife sounds very eclectic. Thanks for the great piece about it.
Phil & Michaela
A city of many parts
Travels Through My Lens
It’s interesting that Brazil is mostly cashless; we’re in Croatia at the moment and have found that many places do not accept credit cards, only cash. Good to know beforehand. Recife looks very colorful and inviting, particularly the sculpture park. I could easily linger there, but not the crowded beach!
Phil & Michaela
There’s definitely lots of interest, but yes the beach is a no go!
restlessjo
Your observations reflect much of what I’ve read about Recife, Phil, but good to experience it at first hand. When will we get a grip on the homeless situation? And that beach is a nightmare!
Phil & Michaela
We were quite shocked at the level of homelessness, Jo. It was bad in Rio too but Recife really seems to suffer. And it’s a relatively wealthy city, too.
Toonsarah
What a city of contrasts! I like the look and sound of the Casa da Cultura, the grand colonial buildings are lovely, and that church looks pretty stunning too. But navigating so many homeless people must be daunting and distressing, and that beach isn’t for me!
Phil & Michaela
Yes, definitely. The beach was amusing to see but we definitely wouldn’t “beach it” there. What makes it even worse is that you are only allowed to go knee deep in the water, no further, as these are shark-infested waters!
Andrew Petcher
Looks fabulous. Great gallery.
Phil & Michaela
Fabulous in parts….
Monkey's Tale
Recife’s contrasts continue for many of the cities along that stretch of coast, so you saw a good representation.
Phil & Michaela
I guess we did
WanderingCanadians
You covered a lot of ground on your day trip. It’s unfortunate to hear how many homeless people are living on the streets though.
Phil & Michaela
It really is a shock when you first encounter it in such quantity. Interesting and varied city though.
grandmisadventures
What a wonderful whirlwind tour of this city! It is one of those cities that I have heard the name a lot but knew very little about so I really enjoyed the tour of it with you 🙂
Phil & Michaela
Thank you Meg. We’re just now at the departure airport for leaving Brazil. Next stop New Orleans!
grandmisadventures
wahoo! New Orleans here you come. I think you’ll love it there- it is a place of its own. I’ll send you an email so we can connect when you come to Tennessee 🙂
Phil & Michaela
That would be great! At the minute (subject to tweaks) Nashville is looking like 3-6 May, something like that
Alison
Sounds like a very dodgy place, your’re both very brave to venture there. You managed to cram in so much in one day though.
Phil & Michaela
Only in certain places really Ali. Much of it was fine.
wetanddustyroads
Recife is definitely a diverse city. One can hardly believe there are so many homeless people when looking at your photos of Rua Bom Jesus and the beautiful colonial buildings. The beach is a bit too crowded to my liking, but I suppose for the residents of Recife, this is what a weekend looks like when the sun is shining.
Phil & Michaela
That beach was not at all appealing but was amusing to see. Interesting and varied city though.
Annie Berger
Thanks for the interesting tour of Recife – as I suspect you both did, I found the pastel-colored colonial buildings and Brennand’s sculpture park of particular interest. We love beaches but definitely not ones shaded by high rises for a good chunk of the day, nor completely covered by beach umbrellas. How sad that such a relatively well-to-do city has such a large homeless problem. I still remember being unnerved by the same issue in Sao Paulo years ago. welcome to the US – I hope you have fun in The Big Easy!
Phil & Michaela
Hi Annie. We arrived last night and started with a stroll down Bourbon Street. The Amazon jungle to Bourbon Street in one move. Talk about culture shock!! 😂
Annie Berger
I laughed as I read that as I can only imagine the contrast must have been a shock to all your systems!
Heyjude
Mmm… not a place I would enjoy despite the interesting colonial buildings.
Phil & Michaela
A curate’s egg kinda place, Jude…