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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 ....
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