Grape Vendors Money Swindling Scam, Art Castle

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  Olinda, Brazil
Thursday, January 10, 2008

Used a local city bus from Recife City to Carmo, the historical centre of Olinda. We stayed at the Hostelling International Olinda and met a sweet guy from London named Matthew who was full of advice for us about South America and had also been a participant in a Ayahuasca ceremony which was very similar to what i will be doing. Turns out he works at the hostel we have booked in Ipanema, Rio for Carnaval and has vowed to look after us all week. Great guy.

We did a walking tour of the city. The sleepy streets lined with pastel-coloured houses and packed with churches wind their way around a few hills with an Atlantic ocean backdrop. The neighbourhood has many artists, students and bohemians and we mainly browsed art galleries and museums. We climbed the Alto da Se for the view and went into the Convent Sao Francisco. There is alot of anticipation building up in the weeks before Carnival which starts on February 2. You can taste it in the air and the Samba schools are practising in the streets everyday. There are also the large paper mache carnival doll puppets being made. People are starting to hit up the stores to perfect their Carnival costumes for this year. Most Brazilians are very creative. There are many fabulous stores selling masks, fabrics, feathers and all that sparkles and shines. Costume themes include warriors with huge headpieces, royalty, harlequins, bulls and frevo (crop tops with ruffled sleeves for both genders and a tiny umbrella) however anything goes. We have decided to rent some of the elaborate costumes just once (very expensive) for the Gay Gala Ball night in Rio where we will attend the grand party with the most glamorous drag queens in the world.

Art In Castle

We are starting to get excited about Carnaval now and now think it will be more overwhelming than we can comprehend right now. We are happy with our choice of the Rio celebrations, it is the best of all.

We headed back into Recife City. Recife is the capitol of one of the more culturally rich states in the northeast, Pernambuco where itīs argued the musical traditions of forro and frevo (fast paced popular music) were born. We hit the ridiculously chaotic market where they sell everything from pumice stones and undies to live crabs and suspicious herbs. This is where the grape vendors money swindling scam occurred. It was one of the oldest scams in the book and we were disappointed we had fallen for it. We were wandering around sampling all kinds of little edible delicacies. While purchasing half a kilo of grapes, the grape vendor spotted a 50 reals note (US$25) in my wallet and offered to break it down into 5 ten real bills. People change money and do foreign currency exchanges on the streets all the time here but there was no reason for him to do this exchange and i immediately suspected fake notes and declined three times. Meanwhile, an English speaking guy introduced himself to me and started to take my attention away from Nadine who was changing notes with the grape vendors as she was in need of smaller bills. The trick was they originally gave her four 2 real notes and four 10 real notes in exchange for her 50 real note, therefore short changing her by one 2 real note.

Johnny Minnitt Watching The Oven

Noticing this deliberate mistake, Nadine queried them on the 2 real note and the money was taken back and reorganised into a visible bundle of four 10 real notes and five 2 real notes. Thinking they had handed her all the notes, Nadine put them away in her bag not realising the guy had expertly made a couple of the notes disappear up his sleeve before giving her the money back. The guy was good and i missed the whole thing as the English speaking guy held my attention until the transaction was complete with Nadine. Neither of us saw the swindle and we only realised after we had walked away. Nadine lost about US$20. Of course we couldnīt argue it back in Portugese and were very annoyed to have fallen for it. Bastards!

We visited the Ricardo Brennand Institute which is a huge art collection housed in a European style castle. There were paintings (mainly erotic nudes), peculiar sculptures and a whole range of medieval gear including suits of armour, knives and swords. The most interesting pieces were a bible with a cut out section where a gun was hidden and Hannibal Lector Silence Of The Lambs type iron masks. There were some miniature, coloured ostriches prancing around the gardens, a tribute to the eccentricity of the artist, Brennand. On the way out there we spotted a mass kombi graveyard from the bus, maybe 200 vans in various states of mangled wrecks and pieces.

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Olinda Hilltop

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