Last day in Brazil

My last day in Brazil was traveling to Recife, 14 hours north of Salvador, by bus. I had just a few hours in the city and took a tour with a friendly local driver. Unfortunately, I  didn't see anything worthy of a return trip. Recife is very poor and dirty. Most of the roads, buildings, and other infrastructure is crumbling. I tried really hard to find one nice picture (the church) rather than focusing on the blight.

The one exception: the modern airport...new for the 2014 World Cup. A mural in the terminal details the local culture. This part of Brazil compares best to Appalachia.  This is the poorest part of the country. Notice the lack of anything African in the mural. The music here is more based on guitar and accordion (sometimes brass bands) and less on drums.

I did see a long row of 40-story condos along the beach. Life is probably pretty nice for the people who live in those high-rises.  I have learned to just stay away from those areas, since the people zoom by you in cars to their gated parking garages.

Between Salvador and Recife lie many sugar cane fields. The land there is hilly, like Orange County. It was hard to imagine what kind of tractors could plant/harvest on this terrain. Of course in centuries past, the work was done by slaves. The Europeans were crazy for sugar, to compliment the spices that were coming from the Far East. I'm not sure how much of this goes into the food supply now. Brazil has been fueling cars with ethanol from sugar cane since at least the early 80's.