Day 83 - 26 Feb.2012 - Aracaju

We did not leave Ilhéus without a quick city sightseeing tour by car. It is Sunday today and the historic town centre was still relatively empty by the time we were driving through the streets. It did therefore not give the impression of a lively town. We drove back to the old companion of ours the BR-101 using a better road then we took yesterday where we could avoid the town of Itabuna. Old colonial style fazendas, Engenhos, are seen along the road. The old time of the colonial past don’t seem to be that far back here in the Northeast.
Driving on a Sunday has its merits of having less lorries on the road and we made good progress.
We were already in Sergipe when we had to decide where to stop for the night. We decided to continue driving as long as it is daylight, reducing the time we have to drive the next day.
The Brazilian government has big plans to upgrade the national infrastructure and roadworks are seen everywhere along the road for the duplication of the BR-101 all the way. We have been driving down this stretch of the road already 3 month earlier and a lot has happened within this time. However, every roadwork can generate some traffic jam and sure enough some kilometres before Aracaju we got suck. We just passed by the town of Itaporanga d’Ajuda and thought it might be worth just driving back the few kilometres and search for a hotel there. It turned out that the best place in town, a pousada at the main road, was not really to our standards with shared rooms and common bathrooms, which looked like not being used for some time and we decided to face the traffic jam again to drive into Aracaju.
It was long dark by the time we arrived in the city centre. Having said that, now that we are back in the north again we can clearly see the difference that the days are much shorter again. By five thirty it is dark, and without twilight, just a question of minutes and the light is gone. The search for a hotel was as expected not very fruitful and again, we decided to drive a bit back out of the town along the coast in search for a hotel. After some 10 km we found a nice enough place to stay with private car park – always important. We checked in and left again in search for a place to eat. The guy at the reception with a funny American accent told us that some 5 blocks away is the beach front where there are plenty of restaurants to choose from. Plenty might have been a bit exaggerated but we found a nice Italian restaurant where we stayed for dinner.