Recife - PostScript

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Kate lists things we like about Brazil/Recife and/or the conference:

• Except for the people who supposedly will rob, kidnap and/or kill you (and except for the hotel staff who are trying to get us to leave) most people are really nice and kind.
• Things are really cheap — largely due to the devaluation of the Brazilian Real. If we had come three years ago, when the Real was on par with the US Dollar, it would have been very expensive. On this visit $1US gives you $3R and we figure that $1CA is about $2R.
• We like our friend Bia, from Brazil, who now lives in Seattle.
• Caipirinhas of course. On the beach, in the bar, where ever!
• The softest sand ever on the beach
• The Balé Folk dancers at opening and closing of the conference
• Hanging around with Linda and Robin
• Pineapple at breakfast
• Interesting Brazilians at the conference
• The staff member at the hotel who showed us how to get to the roof
• Indian head dresses
• And Reg adds, string bikinis on swarthy young beauties.

And some things we hate about Brazil/Recife and/or the conference

• The abject poverty and entrenched class system
• Which means it is a very difficult city to navigate
• And we are pestered incessantly by people trying to sell things to us or beg from us
• The days are very short being so close to the equator
• The beach is owned by the guys with their chairs and umbrellas.
• Too much wind and waves at the beach
• Conference speakers and audience went on and on — a timetable means nothing
• No conference information about what was going on around the conference. E.g., where to dine, what to see, and what to avoid.
• With no public lavatories people pee on the beach, or on the street, where ever they have to
• Sexist cultural values
• Bia, who lives in Seattle, can't ask her daughter to do any work around the house. She's afraid the daughter will tell her father or grandmother in Brazil and they'll call it "child abuse". I.e., house work should be done by the lower class maid.

A very late postscript: Several months after the conference we're at home, back in Canada, when we receive a phone call from our Bank of Montreal Mastercard. "Did you just buy a bike in Recife, Brazil". "Well yes, we bought a couple of bikes back in August when we were there but that cleared a long time ago". "So you didn't just buy a $1,500 bike?" "No we did not." Our card had been skimmed! So the card is cancelled, the purchase is declined, we get a new card and all is good again.

At first we thought it was the bike shop that was responsible and we were very disappointed. They had been so nice to us and had offered to defer payments over time (which we declined). Some months later, at another conference, we bumped into a Swiss colleague, who had been with us in Recife. She was also a skimmed. Worse yet, they had put through a much bigger charge, it was on her Diners Club card, they hadn't detected the fraud up front (as Mastercard had for us), and they ended up with their bank account overdrawn, cheques bouncing, a real mess for them. Our arm chair detective work leads us to believe it was the staff at the front desk of the hotel who skimmed the cards. There were times (check in/check out) when a staff member asked for our cards and took them back to some room behind the desk.

While we didn't get robbed on the street, we were robbed at the hotel. Fortunately, no guns were involved.

In December of 2012 we returned to Brazil. Kate had a conference in Rio de Janeiro and afterwards we did an Amazon River tour out of Manaus. That was fun.

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 Sept 1

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Sunday, September 1. Homeward bound

Linda Sobell phones to tell us that she didn't make her connections in Soa Paulo but that the exit fee is buried in the ticket already. We were trying to figure out how this exit fee was handled and did we need the cash to pay it at the airport. We'd never heard of a country were you have an "exit free". A visa to get in, sure. But an exit fee as well?

She also asked if we could buy a replacement CD for the one she had bought and lost on the flight from Recife to Sao Paulo. We tried, however, the CD store never opened, so we couldn't get that done.

Because of her experience, we decided to leave for the Recife airport early, in the hopes of getting an earlier flight to Sao Paulo. Which we ended up doing. But first a few things before we go.

Before we went for our final bike ride we had packed up a lot of our gear in our hotel room and had left out $50R for the chambermaid. We encountered her on the way out and thought we told her that, as we were leaving later that day, she should come back later to clean. But no, when we came back from our bike ride, she and another woman were cleaning our room. We said "Oh no, you shouldn't have. We're leaving later today!" and they said in sign language, Portuguese and broken English, "Yes, but you might just as well have a clean room." We did notice that the $50R was gone. And, as they was leaving, she held it up and said "For us?" and we said "Yes indeed! Bien sur!".

After going on that final bike ride to the nearby market and south end of the beach, we handed our bikes over to Macelo and David (the fellows running their chairs, umbrellas and drinks service on the beach across from the hotel). It was quite the scene. Macelo's nephew/son (the young good looking guy about 17 or 18) was quite panicky to make sure that we gave one bike to them and that we would sit with them on their chairs, under their umbrellas, on their part of the beach. We had only promised a bike to David but Macelo was a good guy as well.

David's cart was closest to the walkway so Reg gave him his bike first. You may recall we had promised David the bike when he fixed it for us. Macelo's boy looked at Kate with some anxiety. Then we took Kate's bike to Macelo, who was extremely busy serving drinks, setting up chairs and umbrellas, catering to his beach clients — it was the peak of the day. We gave him the sales slip for the bikes and he nodded and said "documentation". They all wanted to give us a drink but we were hot from the bike ride and a bit overwhelmed by the hub-bub we had created on the beach. 

One guy in particular, kept after us in a really obnoxious and in your face kind of way, "Mama, Papa — give me a bike too. What's for me? I have no shoes! etc. etc." Despite his obnoxiousness pleading, Reg ended up giving him his "car tire" sandals that we had bought earlier at the market.

We had created such a hub-bub that, after our showers, we decided to have our final caipirinhas in the lobby bar where they were much cheaper than on the beach and the ice is less risky! After a couple we got up our nerve to go down and say goodbye to Macelo and David and give the idiot Reg's sandals (the ones made of old car tires). Macelo and his young man made us a drink but were very busy so we said our goodbyes and took our drinks away with us. We took the risk this time of having them with ice, which is far nicer. 

We shopped a bit at the Recife airport — Linda said they had good stores. On the short flight from Recife to Sao Paulo, because we were flying standby, we didn't get seats together. But Reg changed seats with the guy beside Kate and we got to meet and chat with Gabriella on Kate's other side. She was from Uruguay but works in Buenos Aires and had been on holidays in Brazil. She's the director of a music school. It turns out she's twice divorced and has a daughter of 18 years, who she must have had when she was only 2 years old. She was sort of the whole earth, crystal and healing type. We exchange email addresses. She wrote notes about her trip and highlights up in yellow. 

At Sao Paulo we make our flight switch without much hassle and have the middle three seats to Newark where we dash to make our flight home to Toronto. Our luggage got stuck up with others and we are back home by 11:00 the next morning arriving in Toronto early in the morning (our car was there). It's been a long day of travel, it's nap time and so the story ends.

We're sitting outside in St Mary's as we write this. It is so quiet here and, by comparison, so noisy in Recife. We like the quiet life here far more. ... although the weather is awfully nice in Recife.

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 .....