dont know where it came from but a friend of mine uses a carbon filter. he has a house in bahia and pipes water from a river direct to his tap (which is a big with an inbuilt carbon filter) and drinks from it. I have drunk from it and its fine. He is austrian so he may have bought it over to brazil from europe. I will try to remember to email and ask him.

It also depends on whereabouts on the island you live - many of the properties higher up, away from the beach, have the luxury of drilling, or using an existing, well to provide fantastic quality drinking water for free.

This is what humans used to do long before Coke started bottling tap water!!!

ishootit

I'm afraid I only have ( or may have ) a small plot big enough to build a house with a garden, and no I have done nothing to it.

There is no doubt that Brasil has a bad image in relation to crime. Here on the island, with lots of apparently empty properties, we suffer occasionally from burglaries and robberies.

There are many police forces in Brasil, but here we are interested in 2 - the military and the civil. The former react to emergencies and civil disorder (in Brasil??!!!), and the latter are plain clothed, but armed, investigators of crime. Being an island with one 400m bridge to the mainland theoretically this gives us the ability to control ingress and egress with ease.

Last week the British resident community here (all 3 of us), plus a bunch of locals, island businessmen, politicians, police, etc were all invited to the State Governor's Palace in Recife, an hours drive away, to discuss security and safety issues.

All points of view were expressed and listened to, in a very polite and sensibly reasoned discussion (with translations), with the final conclusion that, for the first time, the 2 police forces will work together to a common aim, and will receive the additional resources they seek. Dates were set for this - none being tomorrow, and we do not hold our breath!

It may have been helped that the Chair of the meeting owns a property here, and reports directly to the State Governor, and the Brits have a healthy respect for the police forces and know individual members well.

Nevertheless it made Pernambuco TV news, many locals stepped forward to answer a call for witnesses, and the next day several arrests were made and stolen property returned from as far away as 2 hours drive on the mainland. Incidentally crimes against foreigners here are regarded as more serious than against Brasilians.

I only post this as this thread is specific to the island, but it is possibly symbolic of what the country as a whole may strive to achieve in the long term... I will be interested to see if any of my Brasilian resident colleagues elsewhere read this thread and want to comment.

And I believe there is is still a far greater risk of your teenage kids being stabbed to death in London, New York, Miami, Paris, Liverpool, Berlin, etc, etc.

You have mentioned cities ,but Itamaraca is a small island,hardly a comparison and as for Recife ,say no more!

Itamaraca is actually a city in its own right, and although the resident population numbers only around 17,000, this swells tenfold at weekends outside of winter, and up to a half a million over Carnaval.

There are some fantastic parts of Recife some very modern, some very old, and it has a great deal of tourism. But, like every other city in the world, there are some parts that are not so good...

hi ishootit,new to posting,but been keeping tabs everyones veiws for a while,you seem to be in or you was in the same sort of boat as i find myself in at this time,have you had any luck if so have you got any pointers for me,as i don't wish to take a wrong turn as what i have to invest is not a great deal to some it s a fair sum to me,any help would be great

Welcome!

We live on the island of Itamaraca, and can advise you what is, and what is not , real property at real prices.

We have seen some properties we know of, for sale on the web at crazy prices, compared to the price here...

Hi again, I'm still searching. Have not had any luck with finding property on the island, so I may be looking to the mainland.

Try brazil-property.co.uk