Arriving to Pernambuco, Brazil

Check out:
Map of Pernambuco
Multimodal Transportation in Pernambuco Roads, ports, airports. Notice that some links are clickeable.
Conditions of federal roads in Pernambuco. Up to date info. Click on the name of the road to read details about it.
The most important highway is BR-101, the road which goes along the coast from Rio Grande do Sul to Rio Grande do Norte; during the crops of the sugar cane, there are big trucks going about - extra care is advised.
Another important road is BR-232, which connects Recife to the Agreste and Sertão (see map); this road has double lanes as far as Caruaru, and single lanes from there on.

Buses: the main bus station of Recife is
Terminal Integrado de Passageiros - TIP
Address: rodovia BR 232, Km 15 - Jaboatão
Tel.: (81) 3452-1103
This bus station is about 20 km distant from downtown Recife; there is a grid of urban trains from the bus terminal to the city. Notice that, in this map, the bus station is marked as "Rodoviária"; a train commuting is required to get to the airport (Aeroporto); the stations Antônio Falcão, Shopping, Tancredo Neves and Aeroporto are the ones nearest the Praia de Boa Viagem.
Some important bus operators:
Progresso from Recife to Natal
Guanabara from Recife to Fortaleza
Itapemirim from Recife to Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo
Nossa Senhora da Penha from Recife to Salvador and Rio de Janeiro
São Geraldo from Recife to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo

Airports:
In Recife: International Airport of Guararapes. Recently refurbished, this airport is now the biggest in the northeast of Brazil; by itself, the airport is a tourist attraction: shopping center, regional artcraft shops, pieces of sculptures and paintings by famous local artists.
Notice that, even though the airport is about 11 km from downtown, it´s right in the middle of Boa Viagem, the main tourist spot of Recife; despite the name, the train station called Aeroporto (see link above) is about 1 km distant from the airport.
In Petrolina: Airport of Petrolina. Flying to Petrolina, instead of driving, saves you from crossing the dangerous sertão.

Trains: most of the rail grid is used for transportation of grains, but one tourist event deserves mentioning: the Trem do Forró.
During the Festas Juninas (for a few days only), a group of forró lovers rents some wagons for a trip; seats are removed, a group is hired to play forró, and the passengers dance all the way until the final station (the return trip is by bus). The trip used to be from Recife to Caruaru, but now it is from Recife to Cabo; the number of participants has been growing every year.

Ports. There are two major ports in Pernambuco.
Port of Recife Funded by the Dutch, the port was the main reason why Recife outgrew Olinda. The port has lost business to the newer Port of Suape, but all the passenger ships dock here.
Suape Built in the city of Ipojuca, about 40 km south of Recife. Bigger and with a better infrastructure, Suape has been gradually gaining business from the port of Recife. Environmentalists say that the construction of Suape had impacts on the ecossystem of the region, which would have caused changes in the behavior of sharks, resulting in the high number of shark attacks recently observed in the beaches of Recife.