Recife Aug 31

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Saturday, August 31.  A quiet day on the beach after the conference.

We are awake, rise late and are more than a little fragile from the end of conference party the night before. Kate's been awake since 6:00 a.m., but is not ready to face the world.

Reg gets up and has a breakfast with Linda Sobell who lacks nothing in the energy area — she's such a live wire, she twitches! And, she's also willing to try some of the weirder breakfast things on offer — they fry up some white gruel and put cheese on it. It looks like an omelet but has no eggs.

We sat on the beach with Linda after breakfast and we coasted on a couple of beers. It's too early to try the caipirinhas! Linda had nothing to drink: her stomach was hurting. Then Linda and Kate went CD shopping at the nearby market — Linda bought four CD's and Kate bought a local one she thought Reg would like. At the shop they'll play the CD's for you and Linda had them play about 10 to 12 different ones before she made her selections. 

When Linda left for the airport we thought we should get some lunch. Our hotel and the beach don't appeal to us so we hopped a taxi for the Rua Bom Jesus area in the old city (from our previous visits) but, as we were driving there, we noticed a bunch of normal looking restaurants with out door patios around the nearby Pina area just north of us so had the cab drop us off there.

Kate had a glass of soup, a "calderone". It's a shrimp flavored Portugese concoction and had little eggs and an olive in it. It came with potato fries and four hard boiled eggs — Reg ate one. He had deep fried chicken wings and fries. A nice lunch and a little different from what we've been having. Just what we wanted. We're really sick of things buried in a sauce and the MN casserole type dishes. 

It was quite pleasant at this restaurant except for the very hard uncomfortable chairs — partly it was pleasant because an armed guard kept away the beggars and the ubiquitous street vendors selling things you don't need or want. That was a nice change.

We walked around the area and found a fabulous supermarket where Reg discovered they were selling a litre of the Pitu Pinga for only $1.15R! Reg was positively drooling to try to take this home with us! A case would be a great deal, and he would be happy pay the duty! However, Kate convinced him not to. We bought some gourmet coffee for Elaine instead. Damn!

An aside: Years later, on our Amazon River adventures (see December 2012 in this blog), we had stocked up on Pinga for the week long cruise. We bought a bottle at a supermarket in Manaus for perhaps $4US. Our friends from Norway were convinced to buy the same at a bar and they were charged $40US!

We used the McDonald's to go to the biffy (that's Graham for "toilet") and then walked along the beach back toward Boa Viagem. It was near the end of the day, about 3:30, most people were gone from the beach and most of the lawn chairs and umbrellas were packed up along with the little ocean side portable bars. Some young fit guys were playing soccer on the beach with really small nets. This might explain why the Brazilians do so well at the World Cup. Other boys were surfing along the wet shore sand on pieces of flat plywood — it looked like fun and very neat. 

All in all it was the least aversive time and the most normal experience we've had since we got here. But then why spend $2,000 to come to a place where the most pleasant day resembles an afternoon at Grand Bend? Except, of course, restaurants at Grand Bend don't have armed guards. 

Back in our room, the hotel seems to want us to leave. They had started changing our electronic door lock on Friday, after the conference. We've had to go at least three times to the front desk because our key no longer works. We do have a reservation until tomorrow but apparently they would like us gone. Could it be the bikes? Fatima's lecture on keeping us safe? Taking our room glasses to the beach? Or what? 

Finally, on Saturday night at around 6:00 p.m., we were lying in bed having some nuts and raisins for dinner and resting up for our travels home the next day. The phone rang and this fellow from the front desk says, "Mrs. Graham, we'd like to know: when are you leaving the hotel?" He made it sound like sooner would be better.

I guess we've worn out our welcome. Oh well, such is life in the fast lane.

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 30

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Friday, August 30. The last day of the conference, a there's a big party at Mile Marker Zero for us!

We've arranged to take Linda Sobell to the nearby supermarket where we buy coffee and more booze to take home. We've bought a barrel aged Pitu Pinga for a song. Gosh it's cheap. But the next day we find it even cheaper at a supermarket in Pina.

We're walking along the street to/from the market and a couple in a car yell at us to watch the camera — yeah, yeah. Yet again.

Kate and I bike down the beach to a glass place she had noticed from one of our cab rides. It's open, but they have to unlock the door to let us in. This is all too common, there's a security guard on the door to make sure they're not robbed. We changed $100US to $300R at an money exchange around the corner and it's likewise locked and barred. There's a doorman, an armed security guard, inside to let us in. I suppose others he would refuse entry. The are two windows inside on the wall for the money exchange. They are darkened, you can't see anything through them, until the clerk behind presses a switch of some sort to make the windows suddenly transparent. There's a tiny slot below the window to shove your money over and for them to return the exchange back. This experience speaks volumes about the country.

Kate doesn't buy any glass at the glass store. We return to the hotel and Kate is off to the conference. Reg walks up the busy street by the supermarket and passes lots of stores including the Boa Viagem Mercado. Vendors include shoe repair, appliance repair, and the usual fruits, vegetable and meat stands you would expect at a "market". The meats are really sad affairs — they are dried out from too much time hanging there without refrigeration. In the parking lot Reg notices live crabs strung up and wriggling on a post. They're teeny tiny, not much meat there.

Reg has given up on carrying his 35mm Canon SLR camera and relies instead on a pocket sized APS Canon ELPH  we've brought with us. It's more discrete and avoids the issue of people approaching us to caution we naive tourists about the snatch and grab pirates. Nevertheless, he gets some of the same even with this camera! We're obviously tourists and obvious targets .. but we've been safe so far! Wandering around in daylight is much safer than at night.

An aside: we are robbed later, when we're home, with a fountain pen not a gun. See the PostScript on this trip.

It rains off and on all day. From the hotel roof top you have that experience where you can look out and see it's sunny here but pouring rain over there. The roof top is easy access — a staff member shows us that you can go there via the fire exit/stair well. It's a little known secret. We offer him a tip for this insider's secret but he declines.

We met Linda after the conference with an intention of going down to the beach together. But it's raining and we end up parking ourselves at the hotel lobby bar for more caipirinhas. A colleague, Raquel from Uruguay, joins us. For some reason she's really keen about Kate's work (the Safer Bars project) but doesn't know Linda Sobell.

An aside: "The "Sobell drinking papers" refer to the ground breaking and highly controversial early 1970s research by psychologists Mark and Linda Sobell. Their studies challenged the long-held addiction treatment dogma that total abstinence was the only successful outcome for people dependent on alcohol."  Google AI from Society for the Study of Addictions.

With Raquel's rough English and Linda's rough Spanish we determine that the conference has some very interesting under currents that we weren't aware of: 

• that "alcohol" is just the latest boon doggle,
• that the "Jimmy Swaggart" drug advisor has done nothing beyond a needle exchange,
• that AIDS/HIV is the real issue,
• and, that underlying everything, is an exploitation of the poor. 

Raquel tells us the poor are seen as just a resource, they don't count as real "people" (there are nasty class structures here and throughout South America). Illiteracy is a big issue. Raquel is almost in tears by times and very frustrated that the same folks are getting more money under different "programs" and doing nothing. Nothing changes.

The extreme poverty in Uruguay has happened because of a recent economic collapse. She tells us there are men begging on the street in shame who only recently were employed in good white collar jobs.

It's a bleak sad conversation the girls are having this night around the bar.

But there's a dance party down at Mile Marker Zero arranged for the conference. We ride a bus and have to call Linda in her room so she can join us — she had got to working on her computer. 

That night drinks flowed like water — "we started out on whisky but soon hit the harder stuff". There's another Folk dance/Bale troupe with a band. Tons of costume changes and really high energy. They would have lost pounds and pounds in sweat. They do their thing and then engage all of the audience in some line dances. It was great fun.

There were some actors, unbeknown to us, who did a drunk scene in the audience — it ended up with a player taking away the car keys of the drunk. This scene scared the shit out of us — we thought it was a real event. We didn't know until after that it was all actors!

Kate did some dancing even though her knees are bad. Raquel, from Uruguay, was a passionate dancing fool. Robin is the worst dancer in the world. Although Bill, also from Australia, runs a close second.

Robin, Oya (Nigeria), Linda, Kate and Reg share a cab back to the hotel and then a bottle of wine on the sand of the sea shore for an hour or so. Robin asked everyone to tell the story about how they got started in the Alcohol field. There are some interesting stories there, but none recorded here.

We're in bed at 2:00am. A long day, the sun will be up in a few hours.

Edit/correct — There was a "Ayedokun Olanrewaju" from Nigeria at the conference, is that who we have as Oya?

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 29

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Thursday, August 29. Third day of conference mayhem with dinner in Rua do Bom Jesus in Antigua Centro near Mile Marker Zero.

It's a quiet day for Reg who wanders the beach by the hotel. It's the usual conference mayhem where things start late, speakers babble on, etc. But Robin Room got to be on a panel with a "sex trade worker". 

Reg had wondered why there were so many women who were dressed up tartily in the lobby that day. Actually, most/all Brazilian women seem to dress rather flash with tall heels, tight dresses, revealing tops, makeup, etc. They are much more flash here than in Paris. But the flash is the kind of "don't you want to fuck me?" you associate with "sex trade workers". Sex trade? I thought it was a cash deal.

Kate is an examiner by telephone on a PhD thesis oral back in Canada. The candidate is a colleague's student at the University of Toronto (and a former student of Robin's). The exam is pretty marginal and they give her a conditional pass with edits required. But this eats up much of Kate's day. In some measure that's good as she was pretty hung over anyways and not up to much.

Later that day we (Kate and Reg) take a $25R cab to Olinda north of the city centre (recall the tour guide when we were buying our bikes). This is a UNESCO designated historic site with winding cobble stone lanes running up the hill to the Catedral da Sé São Salvador do Mundo. It's a pretty area yes, but we're swarmed by guides offering tours, kids begging hand outs, and tons of vendors selling trashy trinkets to tourists just like us.

The view from the look outs at the top of the hill here are quite good. You can see several more churches around the area all peeking out of the palm leaves. In the distance to the south we can make out Boa Viagem and, in the near distance, we have the harbor where we had our row boat crossing.

We buy some souvenirs (Reg asks again isn't the Pitu more than enough?) but return before seeing very much. We saw some lizards, guitar players, a man with a funny hat wearing a paper mache horse, all very interesting.

We had asked the taxi — no he told us — to meet again in an hour for our return. On the way back he gives us a slow drive through the area. It is very pretty, historic and probably very safe to wander about during daylight hours. But our time is short and likewise is our willingness to brave the city.

That evening we're meeting with Linda and Florence. Florence is a psychiatrist from Sao Paolo who Kate knows through her IRGGA work at KBS. She was at the Paris KBS (June 2002) but Reg never met her. There is a gang from the conference and we are meeting in the lobby to go to a dinner that Florence has arranged back in the old city. We're all going to Rua do Bom Jesus in Antigua Centre (where Kate and Reg had lunch the day of the bike purchase).

The nine of us zoom off in three cabs. They all drive off like they're loons just waiting to die but our cab, the last to leave, is the first to arrive. He had out raced everyone doing 100km/h most of the way on crowded city streets. The poor kids on motor bikes were really lucky that they didn't get run down. Cabbies flick their lights and toot their horns to get others to clear the path. And here's the interesting part — strapped to the dash board is a grainy B/W TV running some show that the driver is keenly watching as he drives!

An aside: we note that taxis slow down at lighted intersection but don't stop for the red lights. We learn that car hijacks often happen when cars are stopped at red lights!

Rua do Bom Jesus is an historic street with very colorful buildings with intricate Bric-à-Braca styling. We sit at tables outside on the sidewalk to be entertained by the music. A fellow plays guitar in the square under a sun-tent with amplification. We're constantly pestered by kids and vendors selling junk we don't want or need. Even the shoe shine guys are there offering their services — a different guy from our previous visit but the same deal.

We mostly have one of the may cod specials. Except for Linda who still hates fish. She'd not be impressed by the salt cod we have. It's not fresh sea food. Salt cod can be refreshed and quite tasty, this wasn't. But we had lots of conversation and drank lots of their Brazilian wines (good, but not great).

A shower came up and we moved along the wall of the building under a large awning to stay dry. It seems to rain several times a day. Never very hard or very long. Just enough to dampen your clothes and wash the streets.

The total bill, for all 9 of us, food and wine, with a 10% tip included comes to a little over $300R (about $100US). We all contribute to a cash pool. We'd like to leave a much larger tip — Linda tells us that the hotel staff only make about $70R per month. That 10% tip seems really minimal. But Florence, the rich psychiatrist with a maid, cook, gardener, and personal trainer from Sao Paulo and whose husband is a urologist, she pockets all the cash and puts it on her card without leaving any tip! She says, "We'll use that tip money for the cab ride back." Life isn't fair in Recife. We leave a cash tip of $5R for our waiter. But, in retrospect, damn we're cheap bastards too.

Our cabbie back is a little more sane but still toots and flashes his lights to clear the path. We take photos in the cab, of the street, of the cabbie, etc. He's not a race car driver and never shifts down. He just lugs the engine as he toots and waves at lots of friends as he chats on his cell phone.

Back at the hotel lobby bar — more caipirinhas! The girls are getting really silly, their conversation on husbands, men and lovers has been redacted to not embarrass anyone.

This is all getting far too silly and Reg toddles off to bed leaving the girls to their shenanigans. Later that evening he is awakened to some shrieking our in the hall and what sounds like a gang of vandals kicking over the tin ash trays. No, it's just the girls returning after the bar has closed. They are wild and quite drunk. I assume that again they closed the bar.

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 28

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Wednesday, August 28. This is the first real day of Kate's conference  — the First International Conference on Alcohol and Harm Reduction titled "Towards a Comprehensive Alcohol Policy in Countries in Transition and Developing Countries".

Reg has breakfast without Kate and spends most of the day in or near his bed recovering from the day before. Kate is busy with the conference. Perhaps Reg had too much sun, too many adventures and too much Pitu the day before.

Linda Sobell calls to our room late in the day to see if she might join us for diner when Kate gets back from presenting on her "Safer Bars" research. Later Linda comes down to our room and we share some wine waiting for Kate. Like us, this is her first trip to South America but she's been to Mexico a lot and even went on a language retreat in Costa Rica (of course Spanish and Portugese, while related, are not the same language). Over the next few days we spend quite a bit of time with her and have a lot of laughs.

Linda and Mark (her husband) used to work at ARF with Kate but they are now on faculty at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They have a big house with a pool and sauna in a gated community. Kate had worked with Linda, on a compendium project (a best advice, collected works book), when she was just starting out at ARF. Linda treated her pretty poorly at the time, but recognizes now that she had done so, and apologizes profusely.

We had the front desk call Tasca Restaurante/Cozinha Portuguesa, the Portugese restaurant around the corner (I just looked it up, it's about 5 city blocks away, a reasonable hike on foot). Tasca Restaurante | Cozinha Portuguesa is open tonight — 3rd time lucky! 

We're the first to arrive at the restaurant, unfashionably early, but we're hungry. And it's after 8:00pm anyways! We're looking for some excellent seafood (Portugese style) and are still trying. Linda hates fish and has veal. The menu has no English but we struggle through with some Port wine for an appetizer and Brazilian wines for the main service. These wines are good, not exciting but good. 

Back at the hotel, after our dinner, we have more caipirinhas at the bar until the conversation gets really salty and Reg toddles off to bed. Kate and Linda stumble into our room when the bar closes (perhaps they were asked to leave?) and finish off whatever wine that remains in our room. Reg tries to sleep through all the hub-bub and doesn't even recall when the party ended. It was late, he can confirm that.

The next morning Kate has a killer headache/hang over — no big surprise there!

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 27

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Tuesday, August 27. Let's ride our bikes to the Museum of Norte Este Homne — a fair distance away and, it turns out, well outside the tourist area. ... spoiler: we never made it there!

Reg has breakfast with Nina Rhen and relates the bike story — the good, the bad and the ugly. But David, our friend from the chair/umbrella/beach bar service, has repaired his bike already with a new sturdy seat post. We're set to go!

Kate and Reg set out for this museum and quickly discover that our bike tires are soft. We walk a bit, ride a bit on soft tires, and after a few kilometers find a place that does tires by the side of the road. It's a dirt floor hovel that seems to specialize in thread bare used tires (tires that were probably tossed out of Mexico after being tossed out of the US and Canada).

The fellow is happy to inflate our tires and we tip him $2R. Reg has him tighten the seat post on his bike as it's already loose and wobbly. He rounds the nut with a wrench that is only "close" to the right size. But, with his help, we're on the road again. Such is the state of mechanics here in Recife.

We cross over two canals on this adventure. Recife is a port city, there's a big river and many canals draining into it and the port. Some people will say that Recife is the "Venice of Brazil" (on a later trip we're told Manuas is the "Paris of Brazil"). But these are hyperbole at best. The canals here are fetid black open sewers way worse than the waters in Venice. Road side auto repairs often dump used oil down the storm gutters which will eventually make their way into the canals, the river, the port and the ocean. If oil is scarce in Brazil why isn't it recycled? Recall how we were worried about the kid swimming in the port when we had the row boat trip yesterday! There's good reason for our concerns.

For us, this area is bleak and nothing like Canadian cities. It's the 3rd world in spades. That night the politicos at the conference opening spoke about how beautiful Recife is. If this is great, god keep me away from Sao Paulo. It is quite beautiful along the beach where we are, modern even luxurious, but you only have to walk a block or two away from the beach to find a whole other world.

But we soldier on and cross another polluted bridge where we're starting to think this bike trip might be a bad idea. It's hot, the wind will be against us when we return, the roads are busy with only marginal room for bikes. But we are not alone, we see several locals riding bikes. Sometimes with, sometimes against the traffic. We decide we'll head back home by a circular route heading into the old city and finding the bridge to Pina and thence to Bao Viagem.

However, we are lost. And just about the time we're trying to navigate our steps back a car abruptly pulls up with a man and a woman, Antonio and Fatima, who are about our age, who leap out and address us. They don't speak English and we're struggling with their Portugese. They seem to be asking directions to our hotel and the Boa Viagem Paixa (our beach). We finally figure it out. It turns out they are very concerned for our well being. We are in a dangerous neighborhood and they want to take us home. Right now!

In their defence just before we met these kind strangers we had gone down a side street where a man looked very concerned and motioned for us to turn around in a way that others couldn't see his signal to us. Kate had also noted some gang graffiti. 

Antonio and Fatima insist that we simply must return to our hotel right now and they load our bikes into their car. They're quite forceful, we cannot decline. Kate is concerned that they are either a) stealing our bikes, or b) kidnapping us, or c) perhaps both! We have heard stories of tourists being forcibly taken to make ATM cash withdrawals and then "disposed of". But we agree to go with them. Reg and Antonio rode in their car, Kate and Fatima take a taxi we flag down. And it's back to our hotel. It's actually a fairly long ride back and we only vaguely know where it is.

Fatima and Kate arrive first and Kate had to stand there while Fatima went to every doorman and tells them where they had found us, that it was just terrible and how hotels ought to better look out for naive tourists like us. She didn't figure that was enough and went to the front desk where she berated everyone there for not taking better care of us!

Reg and Antonio arrive soon after with the bikes. We four hug and kiss and we are especially thankful for their kindness. We offer a drink at the bar but they refuse. They do proceed to tell all the hotel staff to watch out for these feckin' eejits from Canada. Fatima, gave us her card (as above) and told us to call — however with the language barrier we didn't see the point. We are however grateful for their kindness.

Later one of the English speaking staff took us aside to warn us that some parts of Recife are quite dangerous and that one ought not to be there. Especially with an expensive camera and such. "Oh thank you very much — why didn't anyone say so when we asked about buying bikes in first place?". Likewise, the conference organizers should have made an effort to document that kind of information. E.g., "When in Recife do see this and that ... But, beware of this and that..."

Anyways, suitably chastened, we showered, rested a bit and went back to the beach for a drink at David and Macelo's. A reasonably safe place we now know quite well and it's just across the road. How much trouble can we get into there?

Later that day we took our bikes down the beach about a mile or so to the craft market where Kate bought more souvenirs (Reg asks, "Isn't Pitu Pinga at only $2.50R a quart good enough?). Reg bought some sandals for $30R (he swears they were originally offered at $25R and then had to dicker them down from $35R). These sandals are made of old car tires — now we know what happens after they finally give up the ghost.

We meet up with Kate's gang in the hotel bar before dinner. They're drinking caipirinskis and caipirinhas made with a better quality white rum rather than the cheap Pitu Pinga on the beach. And we trust the ice at the hotel bar. But, perhaps we were wrong — bad ice might explain our rolling tummies the next day. Of course that might be explained by the fruit at the buffet, or maybe the limes on the beach, or just maybe by the long night of drinking and carrying on!

The hotel restaurant, where the gang of us share a dinner, is Italian and very good. We have some Botticelli Cabernet Sauvignon which we had picked up at the nearby supermarket. Reg has an entree chicken smothered in a creme sauce (like how the French would do it). He craves some grilled food (we did have grilled shrimp one day on the beach with David and Macelo) and has no need of more "MN hot dish".

The conference starts at 8:00pm that evening (9:00 Brazil time) and has some Balé folk dancing with dancers in costumes (ballet without the tutus). Reg has had enough and heads off to bed early. Kate ducks out early as well, at 11:00pm! She wants to avoid the rush of 500 conference attendees all rushing for the 3 elevators.

The elevators are a constant joy at the conference with plenaries on the penthouse level (20th floor) and work shops on the 2nd level. And, you always have to go back to another level to get your ticket, ear-phone, pass, etc. that ought to have been included in the conference registration packet in the first place. Kate found that impossibly frustrating.

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 26

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Monday, August 26. "Let's buy bicycles, they'll be great for getting around!" The simple plan: 1) buy bicycles and 2) tourist around.

Renting bicycles, from the hotel or nearby, did not appear to be a possibility. Kate talked to one of the staff at the front desk about buying bikes and he said you could buy them for about $120R (i.e., $60CA) at the nearby shopping centre, or, if we went down town, we could get bikes for about $60R. So, of course, we decided to go downtown, get some cheap bikes and see the city while we were at it. It's not far, perhaps 10km or so. And we have the cabbies figured out. How hard can it be?

We bumped into Nina at breakfast and she was interested in sharing a cab downtown with us. And so we did. The cabbie seemed to take us a very long way around (possibly due to the one way streets) and dropped us off at the far end of what seems to be the "main street". We walked along this very crowded, very busy little street — it's very much like very much like Nuevo Laredo or Juarez MX. There were a ton of street vendors set up with carts and stands selling fruit, batteries, coconuts, cashews, corn on the cob, plastic trinkets, clothes, leather goods and much more. We were surprised by the number of stalls selling fake plastic flowers — you're in a country where one would expect to have an abundance of real ones!

Haltingly we asked for directions from the Poletizia (police) we met on the street. They were very much present, although not as many as on Boa Viagem (our tourist area), and then we asked another fellow we met who spoke English and French. He said he was a tour guide for Olinda (that's an historic area just north of Recife) and that we should look him up. However, he sent us on a wild goose chase looking for the bicycle shops so it seems unlikely we'll seek him out as a guide.

We saw lots of old Mexican looking stucco churches and after asking directions from a woman in a department store we ultimately found our way to the city block where all the bike shops were to be found. This turned out to be very near where the cabbie had dropped us off. Very near where we had started.

Nina parted to explore on her own once we found the shops.

There were several bike shops in this area and the cheapest, for a one speed mountain styled bike, with no extras, seemed to be about $105R each (about $60CA). So we bought two, one each. Plus sunglasses and locks for a total of $R217 which went on our MasterCard. There was much confusion and some misunderstanding (we don't speak Portugese, they didn't speak English) as we paid. It turned out the clerk was offering to split/finance the bill, $72R per month, so we wouldn't get charged that huge amount all at once! That's an indication of the poverty here which we haven't talked about much as yet.

Once we had the bikes, the dilemma then was — where to go? The streets in this part of town are nuts: crowded, one-way, dense traffic, no fun. So we headed for the canal edge of downtown with the intention of working our way to the old city. That's a largeish island. On maps it's labelled as Recife. That's where "Mile Marker Zero" is and also Rua do Bom Jesus which you'll see mentioned several times in this blog.

On the way we happened across the train station and decided to go in and look around. Kate is fond of train stations, not so fond of churches and cathedrals. We had no sooner locked up our bikes when a well-meaning Poletizia came over and said, "Don't leave you bikes locked up like that. Those locks are useless, someone can snip them in a minute and your bikes will be gone." This is just perfect, we have brand new bikes to tourist around but can't stop anywhere without losing them! Feck!

We stopped at the Casa da Cultura — an old prison turned into a cultural centre where you can buy all kinds of crafts, linens, lace, art, wind chimes and much more. We bought a doll for Brenda, wind chimes for Cindy, a couple of inlaid whistles for Paula and Eva, and two tee-shirts for our bicycling adventures since we hadn't brought many and it was really hot and sweaty. It's tropical weather. You're at the equator.

We continued on with our bikes avoiding the streets and navigating dirty busy sidewalks where there are all sorts of vendors who have set up shop — shoe repair, key cutters, carvers and the ubiquitous street food stands.

A pretty young schoolgirl of about 10-12years came up to us and says, in flawless English, "What is your name?" She got to practice her English on us and we respond (one of the few phrases we know), "Como se chammas?" A young boy with her, in halting English, says "Welcome to Brazil". What a treat to meet these kids. That certainly brightened our day.

We wend our way to Recife Antigua (the old original city on the Recife Island) by bridges from Recife Velho ("velho" means old, "antigua" means gosh even older) and find our way to the Rua do Bom Jesus where the night scene and several good restaurants are located. Kate has read about a good restaurant in the area — she wants to hit all the good ones recommended in our Fodor's guide. We stop there to refresh with some water (god it's hot), a near beer (how did Reg make that mistake) and some god awful sickly sweet white wine (the Vinho de Casa) that's probably made with the Muscat grape (it's just too sweet and grapey, it's like Welch's grape juice). The highly recommended dish is a Brazilian "hot dish" (cf. how to speak MN) with shrimp, coconut, spinach, pumpkin and god knows what else. It's a good thing that we had ordered only the one dish to share — it's huge!

Kate is worried our bikes might get stolen as we can't watch them from the restaurant. Fortunately they're still there when we leave.

At the restaurant there are fellows who shine shoes for the patrons — there's that contrast between the very rich and the very poor. The shoe shine fellow has ratty shoes falling apart and uses his bare hands to apply the polish. The posh patron sits there and sips a martini. Such a contrast. 

We encounter another street urchin selling magnifying glasses (like one associates with Sherlock Holmes). That's not the kind of the product one would normally search out on the Rua do Bom Jesus. "Oh, I think I'll go out to dinner and pick up a couple of magnifying glasses." Other guys, for a tip, will help you park your car: "Ok, Ok, backup, Ok [Crunch], Ok stop."

Now we need to return back to Boa Viagem and our hotel on the beach. Let me try to describe the area (there's a map/photo in the album which might help). Rua do Bom Jesus is on the "Recife" island furthest to the north. Also called Recife Antigua. To the west, across several small bridges is Recife Vehlo (and the São José area) and across the large span of water, the mouth of the river, is the Pina area where we can follow the beach south to our hotel. There are some large bridges to the very west end of Recife Vehlo that cross the water to Pina and we suppose we can cross there.

However, at Mile Marker Zero (Praça do Marco Zero, officially Praça Rio Branco) we meet Lopez, who speaks good English (e.g. "Where are you from?", "Canada", "I'm from Brazil" ... I'm not surprised). He offers to take us and our bikes in a row boat across to the long narrow breakwall at the spit end at Pina and Brasília Teimosa, for only $20R. That's a very good deal for us and about a week's wages around here for him. We are relieved to have this solution.

Lopez, is the "finder", he has a buddy who has the rowboat that takes us across. It's about 15 minutes of rowing to a small monument/park area on the spit/breakwall. This is Parque de Esculturas Francisco Brennand. The monuments are very weird, there are bird like creatures with busts — nipples and all. He also speaks good English, and, like Lopez, he asks where we're from and again we find out he's from Brazil. He speaks good English because he works at the harbor (Recife is a busy port city). His chums are quiet and one of the younger ones was bathing/swimming in the harbor. The harbor would be very polluted, more on that later.

The long bike ride along the spit/breakwall to the Brasília Teimosa barrio at the start of the spit, or top of the Pina area, is uneventful. There are no tourists, but when we get to the end of the spit/breakwall there are some people swimming and bathing in the ocean. Probably kids from the barrio. The are some rusting hulks of old barges and some marina-like places along the sea side but they are all very small. At this end of the breakwall is a squatters' barrio. Very poor with dirt streets; we wonder do they even have running water? The poverty is so thick, so abysmal it feels like it just sticks to your teeth, or perhaps it's like you've just stepped in some dog shit and can't shake it off your shoes. It's awful and we just can't get out of there fast enough.

But of course this is the place where Reg's bike collapses. The seat post bends like a piece of licorice — a cheap bike with a thin steel seat post. I guess you get what you pay for. Perhaps it might have been strong enough for a kid but not strong enough for a 220lb lug like Reg. He straightens it out as best he can but it's basically fucked and so too are we — you don't want to stop and ask for help in this neighborhood!

We struggle home along the sea wall promenade from Pina towards Boa Viagem until we meet a bunch of Poletizia (probably the third or fourth group we encounter along the way). They stop us and the one, who speaks good English, tells us we can't ride our bikes along the pedestrian sea wall promenade — we have to take our lives into our hands along the Avenue Boa Viagem. It's a busy, fast road, one way, and the wrong way for us! You've got to be kidding. We're riding against the wind, on a broken bicycle at walking speed and you want us to do what? Reg is a bear, a mean tired angry bear. More than a little hot, very tired and really pissed. Kate says, at that moment, he's impossible to live with.

But we make it back to the hotel and go to the beach for a drink and to unwind from the previous adventures. Reg talks with David (the large black fellow who speaks good English and has a beach side chair, umbrella, and drinks service on the beach directly across from our hotel). We ask David to help with the bike. If he can repair the bike we'll give it to him next Sunday before we leave. He seems to understand what we're after and we leave the broken bike with him to fix. Which he does, thankfully, by the very next day!

Several days later David tells Reg it cost him $10R to fix the bike and Reg explains again that he can have the bike on Sunday. He seems to understand but I suppose being down $10R is a bit of a hit. We become regulars with David and Macelo at their beach side service. More so with David as his English is pretty good. He tells us he's been to Milan in Italy recently to visit family (he must be doing well to do that!). He likes working on the beach and says he likes the pretty girls in string bikinis but loves a good woman. He asks how long we have been married (we 22 years, he 18 years with 6 kids). He seems to have a good life.

He makes us caipirinhas with vodka, (God knows what's in those bottles — they refill them with the cheapest stuff they can find) and boasts about the quality of his ice. I'm already a bit queasy. We have been avoiding ice as our way of staying well. They scoop out the ice with their bare hands, the same hands used when they pee against the breakwall. There are no toilets, no place to wash up, and their personal hygiene is a worry — we don't want a stomach bug!

An aside: Caipirinksi, caipiroska, or caipivodka is a cocktail that is similar to a caipirinha, but prepared with vodka instead of pinga/cachaça.

There are beach bars that also serve pina coladas made and served with fresh coconuts. But we're mainly drinking caipirinhas and sometimes the local beer which comes in quart sized bottles.

For dinner that day we again walk over to the nearby Tasca Restaurante/Cozinha Portuguesa (the Fodor's recommendation) only to again find that it's closed. So again we taxi to Bargaco (of the night before) where we have quite a struggle with a Brazilian Chardonnay — it has turned and smells like Reg's home-made rot. After several false starts (sorry, we're out of that one) we have the same Marco Liugi we had the night before. It's very nice in the crispy sauvignon blanc style and dated 2002 (sic!). Don't give me any of that old wine, I want the fresh stuff!

An aside: Wine is usually dated by the year the grapes are harvested. The harvest in Europe is happening soon, but not for a while yet. I don't expect to see wines dated 2002 until at least 2003 at the earliest.

Our dinner for two this evening is a repeat of the hot dish we had for lunch earlier that day. In that respect rather disappointing. It's deja vu all over again. With rice it was quite filling and more than we could eat. The rain came up while we were at dinner. It was blowing hard and the rain was visible in the street lights. But it never got very wet inside and it didn't last long.

We are again seated by the garden/hedge and periodically a cat would go dashing by. Not begging, just passing through. It was a skinny scruffy young thing who probably lives on the leavings of the restaurant. We saw lots of cats scrounging in the garbage as we left to go home by taxi.

The cabbie didn't have a meter in his car but charged the usual amount. On Sundays cabbies charge twice as much — go figure. The cab we took from the hotel had no muffler and made a motor cycle like buzz as he squeezed into lanes not meant for man nor beast.

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 25

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Sunday, August 25: A day on the beach. 

We have slept well rising at 7:30am, the sun is up much earlier. Breakfast at the hotel is a feast of exotic fruits (the pineapple is to die for while the cashew fruit is one to lie down and avoid — they are just too weird). There's champagne (or at least a white bubbly) to make your own mimosas, bacon and eggs, omelettes made to order, lots of sweets and meats, and café com leite (Portuguese for "coffee with milk") in little thermos beakers. The breakfast room is overlooking the beach, across the road, where guys have been busy setting up their chairs, umbrellas and bar cart since the early morning hours. 

The sun rises each day at 5:00am and sets suddenly at 5:00pm; by 5:30 it's quite dark. Such is the sun cycle when you're this close to the equator; it's 12 hour days all year round. We're south of the equator at latitude 8.05S, technically it's their "winter". After breakfast it's off to the beach.

The beach is right across the street. (Boa Viagem Ave. is two lanes plus a parking lane running north to the city centre. Our hotel is at 4070 Boa Viagem; you could toss a ball to the ocean). There's a long string of similar high rise hotels and apartments like ours.The beach is called Praia de Boa Viagem (Praia is Portugese for "beach" and Boa Viagem is "Good Voyage").

At the beach we're greeted/grabbed by a toothless fellow with a 3 day beard who runs a chair, umbrella and bar service. Macelo steers us to his chairs and umbrellas. We order the infamous "Caipirinhas" (say "Ki-peer-ene-ya") from his bar. We/Kate were first introduced to this drink by Deborah Dawson in Washington DC.

"Caipirinha is a Brazilian cocktail made with , sugar, lime, and ice. Originating in the state of São Paulo, the drink is prepared by mixing the fruit and the sugar together, then adding the liquor." Wikipedia

The base is a white lightning, called "pinga" or "cachaça", made from sugar cane (they also make the same alcohol as a fuel for cars) that sells in the super markets for about $2.60R where beer sells for $1R/can. The cachaça they are pouring is a "Pitu" brand (or at least it's in a well used/recycled Pitu bottle). Pitu is Portugese for "shrimp" and is pictured on the label. For $4R they mix in some lime and muddle with sugar. We avoid the ice which they scoop out in their bare hands. For $2R they serve beer in quart bottles. Later on the trip we found "Pitu" in a supermarket in similar well used/recycled litre bottles for only $1.15R, wow!

The fellow running the beach service next to us, David, is a very black and fair sized. He has a similar gig on the beach with chairs, umbrellas, and drinks. He speaks very good English, our Portugese is minimal at best, "Duas caipirinhas, por favor", and we promise to sit on his chairs another day. The idea here is "little beach bars". Each with chairs, umbrellas and a "pool side" service set up on the sandy beach.

An aside: Reg was telling our dentist Peter Kyle about our struggles in Brazil. He told us about a dental conference he had attended, at a Hilton in Soa Paulo, where some of his mates were robbed, at gun point, at the hotel pool! It can be a very dangerous country.

From our hotel room we can see the "reef", exposed as the tide goes out, there are many small boats with blue sails and a United Airlines symbol, there's the beach itself and some sandbars are exposed. On the beach there are lots of dark skinned beauties in string bikinis; as well as lots of moms and near-moms in similar string bathing suits.

On the first trip to the hotel biffie ("biffie" is Graham for toilet). We go to the hotel to pee; god knows where everyone else goes because there's not a loo on the whole 7km of the beach. Kate meets a fair skinned, reddish haired woman in the elevator and says, "I hope you're wearing sun screen." They chat a bit and it turns out this is Nina Rehn, a WHO employee, part of the Jürgen /Gerhardt empire, and a coauthor with Kate and a cast of thousands on a number of Jürgen papers. We invite her to join us on the beach.

Nina reminds us of our niece Leslie, or perhaps Reg's friend Ellen Smout from Western. She joins us for a "quick dip" and spends the day with us. I recall ordering some shrimp that day from a beach vendor who had set up a little charcoal barbeque. At about 4:30, when things are starting to slow down on the beach, we drunkenly headed back to the hotel for a siesta (caipirinhas are strong, without ice they're deadly). 

Nina is from Finland (she hates it there and won't return even at Christmas even though she has family there). She lives and works in Gerhardt's group in Lausanne, Switzerland, but is paid through WHO. She was very nice and fun. Together, we three walked over to the Mercado, but it didn't really get started until after 3:00pm.

Our siesta: we slept in our room until after 7:00 recovering from our day on the beach. We walked for miles looking for a restaurant we had found in our Fodor's travel guide. Tasca Restaurante/Cozinha Portuguesa, was supposed to be only 3 blocks away. First we walked miles along the beach and then took a cab back to the hotel so we could start over! Eventually we found the restaurant, it's only 3 long blocks away, a little to the south, but not by the water. Unfortunately, when we found it, it was closed. Damn!

We took a cab to the seafood restaurant recommended by David (the biggish black guy, friend/relative of Macelo). It's on the beach and also recommended by Fodor's. We have a Piexe (fish) special for two and ask "What kind of fish?"; we are told "From the ocean." It was great! Stuffed with a corn meal/tapioca kind of thing with a few shrimp. Portugese potatoes are served on the platter with the excellent fish. 

We shared a bottle of Portugese "Marco Luigi" Chardonnay; very crisp and dry; perfect with the fish. For dessert we shared a coconut dish and an ounce of port. All in all; it was a great dinner and a nice introduction to Brazilian/Portugese foods.

The waiter was very nice. The restaurant seemed be indoors with an entrance and covered roof but opened on one side so you felt like you were sitting outside if you sat on the edge near the hedge as we did (both times; we came back).

In summary, it was a rather fun day in the tropics. But we are determined that the next day we would be more business like and see some of the sights beyond the immediate area around our hotel.

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife Aug 23-24

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Recife, Brazil, August 2002. Tentative Titles: Wrecked in Recife or Sagas of the Stupid Canadians.

Kate is invited to speak at a what seems to be a hastily arranged conference in Recife Brazil. This may have been a special meeting under the KBS umbrella. at this writing I can't recall, but when writing this up I discover:

"In 2002, Recife, Brazil, hosted the First International Conference on Alcohol and Harm Reduction titled "Towards a Comprehensive Alcohol Policy in Countries in Transition and Developing Countries". Researchers connected to the Kettil Bruun Society presented key international studies, including evaluations of the Safer Bars training program." from ResearchGate

It's early August and we're starting to make plans. There are many problems: getting there, you need a visa, to get a visa you need a passport valid for at least 6 months (ours run out in December), to get a passport you need a birth certificate, Reg's documentation including the birth certificate were stolen (the "Barcelona handshake") and Kate can't find hers. And then, because it's tropical, there are all sorts of shots you should have for things like malaria, yellow fever, hepatitis, etc. Oh dear, much to do.

Friday, August 23: Nevertheless by Friday evening we were in the Toronto Airport, passports and visas in hand ... the guy in front of us didn't know he needed a vias and was turned away! We were prepared!

Our flights are: Friday August 23, 7:30pm Toronto to Newark arriving 9:00pm; 10:30pm Newark to Sao Paulo arriving 8:30am (Saturday August 24); quick change leaving around 10:00am to arrive in Recife at 1:30pm. It's a long trip, pretty much 24hrs door to door, and our first to Brazil. Sao Paulo is quite far south, Recife is back to the north again, on the coast, very near the equator. The time zone difference to Recife is only 1 hour (they're east of us). It's not as brutal as flying to Europe or other places where the time zone is quite different. But it is a very long day.

It's about a 10hour overnight flight from Newark to Sao Paulo. We didn't sleep well on that leg of the trip — we might have gotten an hour of sleep in total in 10 minute stretches. You had your own TV in the seat in front of you and could watch one of 4 or 5 different shows that cycled through every 2.5 hours. Kate ordered seafood, which wasn't bad. Drinks were charged at $4US or $10R (Brazilian Real) except on the Sao Paulo to Recife leg (a little over 3 hours) where the wine was free and freely given.

Money conversions. On this visit $1US gives you $3R. We figure that $1CA is about $2R.

Saturday, August 24: We are staying at a high rise hotel, the Lucsim Recife Palace Hotel, on Boa Viagem beach a few miles south of the city centre. Across the street is the Atlantic ocean and a long sandy beach. I believe we took a taxi from the airport — it's nearby to the SW of the city. At this writing (2026) the hotel is now the Grand Mercure and the Lucsim Palace is elsewhere.

We were pretty tired when we arrived but hopped it over to a nearby shopping centre where we bought some wine, bread, cheese and water for our room. We then put on our togs and crossed the road to the beach for a swim. The water is rough with big waves. We were lucky we didn't crash our heads on the reef that was hidden by the tide. We thought the reef would be a mile or so out, but it's about 50 metres from shore! Sharks are beyond the reef, it's supposed to be safe for swimming within the reef. 

The sun sets early and, exhausted, we are to bed at 6:30pm to recover from our travels.

These notes are from a densely detailed travel log we kept at the time. Kate recently discovered it in August of 2026 and I have transcribed with minor edits, corrections and redactions so as to not embarrass the living ....

Recife, Brazil

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In August of 2002 Kate had a meeting in Recife Brazil with international colleagues. This was our first trip to South America and unusual as we usually hang around home in the summer – the weather is warm, the quarry is open, life is good in St Marys during the summer. We'd rather go to warm climes when the weather at home is wintery.

Recife (say "ray-see-fay") is just south of the equator on the coast of Brazil where it juts out furthest into the South Atlantic. I understand it's fifth largest city in the country so it's quite a good size (around 1.5 million). Like much of Brazil it's a strange mix of first world wealth backed by third world poverty. We flew to Sao Paulo first where we changed planes to fly on to Recife. From the air Sao Paulo, by far the largest city, seems to go on forever.

We stayed in a high rise luxury hotel, the conference hotel, right on the beach and spent quite a bit of time on the beach. There's a long sandy beach to the south of the old city center with luxury high rises along the water front. Just a few blocks in the rest of the world lives in pretty miserable circumstance.

Some stories of our stay follow.

We spent a lot of time on the beach which was just across the road from our hotel. There's a pretty good sandy strip,  a bit of protected water before a battered reef and then the ocean beyond. Beyond the reef it's a bit dangerous for swimming as there are sharks out there. But between the beach and the reef it's warm and pretty safe ... although I did see a Portugese Man O'War jelly fished washed up on the sand.

On the beach there are lots of vendors renting chairs and umbrellas, selling food and drinks; others wander the beach selling trinkets. 

We made friends with a couple of beach vendors who made dynamite caipirinhas and kept us entertained. That's David in the picture above. Caipirinha (say "ki-peer-ene-ya") is the national drink of Brazil. It's a simple recipe: take a lime, quarter it, squish it a bit in sugar, add some ice and Cachaça (sometimes called pinga — basically a white rum), shake and serve. If you use Vodka it's called a caipirinski. If you're in Texas and use tequila it's basically a margarita — another of our favorite drinks. They grow a lot of sugar cane in Brazil and a good deal of it is distilled for alcohol: some for fuel, some for the buzz. Cachaça is raw alcohol fresh from the still with little filtration — it's not a polished drink at all.

We had been warned to avoid the ice and for our first drinks on the beach we asked the vendor to hold the ice. No problem, sure. Now that's a potent drink. Thereafter we braved the ice. And actually you're pretty brave to do so as it's scooped out by hand and there are no opportunities on the beach for the vendor to actually wash his hands or take a leak.

Every thing in Brazil is quite cheap. Drinks on the beach were around three dollars, beer a lot cheaper but still over a dollar. One day we were in a super market and I found that you could buy Cachaça by the litre for about one dollar. So they made a good killing on the beach drinks. I wanted to bring a case home, damn the duties we might pay but Kate said no.

The beach was quite busy throughout the whole day with lots enjoying the sun and dipping into the sea to cool off. Brazilian women were usually in quite revealing string bikinis. There were sailboat rentals, a kids playing soccer or skimming on boards, there were even fishermen casting their nets.

We did explore the city a bit a couple of times. We took a cab with some friends to the historic old city one day -- Recife was the first slaving port in the Americas so it's quite old, originally settled by the Portugese (which remains the language of Brazil). Dinner and tipping.

This is only a place holder. There is lots more work on this blog and photo album to follow. In 2026 we discovered a diary we had kept; I'm working to bring that forward.

Ps. Photos were scanned during January 2021 of the COVID-19 lockdown from Fujichrome 35mm slides taken at the time. These are quick scans using a "Kodak SLIDE N SCAN Digital Scanner". Some extra photos have been scanned and added.