Olinda’s Windows

I am fascinated by windows . . . not Windows . . . but windows of the world.  Wherever I go, I like to photograph windows.  Nowhere is this more fun than in Olinda, Recife, Brazil.  Olinda is the original, “old town” of Recife, dating back to the time of the thriving trade in African slaves to work the Brazilian sugar plantations.  Wisely the area has been preserved.  There are brightly colored old buildings, cobblestone streets, and it is a fascinating place just to wander around.

We’ve been there several times when I did Tri-Continent cruises on the ROTTERDAM.  It’s a hefty cab ride from the ship, but  you can get there on public transportation.  It’s not easy, since everyone speaks Portuguese, not English or Spanish, but with the help of a lot of kind people we found our way.  Getting back to the ship was one of the truly special moments of travel.  We were on the wrong bus, and we had the conductor and almost the entire crowded bus working to figure how to get us back to the ship.  Who has paper?  Who has a pen?  Everyone was digging into their purses.  It was a unique experience of people working together to help some poor gringos who were lost.  Beautiful!  Then to top it all off, a beautiful – read Brazilian knock-out beautiful – twenty something gal got off the bus with us, off her bus, to wait with us and see that we got on the right bus!

Anyway . . . I thought you’d enjoy some of the windows of Olinda.