I stepped off the gangway into the blinding Brazilian sun and felt the humidity wrap around me like a warm, damp blanket. Porto do Recife sat right in the heart of Recife Antigo, the old island district where the city was born, and within thirty seconds I could hear frevo music drifting from somewhere beyond the terminal gates. The air smelled of salt and grilled tapioca and diesel from the harbor tugs, and I remember thinking: this is going to be different from anywhere I have been before.

They call Recife the Venice of Brazil, and walking the bridges that morning I understood why. The Capibaribe and Beberibe rivers divide the city into islands and peninsulas linked by more than fifty bridges, and from each crossing I could see the water glinting beneath me while colonial facades painted in sun-faded orange and lime green rose on either side. But Venice never had this energy. Frevo dancers appeared in Marco Zero square with tiny colorful umbrellas, their movements so fast and acrobatic that my eyes could barely follow. I watched them for twenty minutes, mesmerized, clapping along with a crowd of locals who clearly never tired of seeing their own culture performed with such fierce joy.

What surprised me most about Recife was not the Dutch colonial architecture, though those stepped-gable rooflines and fortress walls were striking reminders of the seventeenth-century occupation. I had read about that history before arriving. What I did not expect was how many layers this city holds — Portuguese, Dutch, African, and indigenous — and how they do not merely coexist but dance together in the streets, the food, the music. The very name "Recife" comes from the Arabic word for reef, those natural coral barriers that protect the coastline, and I could see them from the waterfront promenade, pale lines of white foam breaking on the offshore rocks. I tasted my first tapioca crepe from a street vendor near the synagogue — crisp cassava flour folded around melted coalho cheese — and the flavor was so unexpected, so warm and savory and utterly unlike anything I had eaten before, that I immediately bought a second one.