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Today was basically a work day as we needed to arrange for travel back to the US. First we visited a travel agent who was helpful in finding what flights were available and who also contacted Varig Airlines, the Brazilian national carrier, to find out who we could talk to about help with the flight. Luckily, the Varig office was just down the road, so we stopped by and spent a couple of hours talking about ALF and trying to get the office manager to give us a free flight back. He wasn't able to help us with that, however he was able to give us 20 percent off the fare. This was great so we made our reservations to leave Rio de Janeiro on September 15th.

Bahia & down to Rio

Dbg
2005-11-04 19:27:54

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August 30, 2005

Today was basically a work day as we needed to arrange for travel back to the US. First we visited a travel agent who was helpful in finding what flights were available and who also contacted Varig Airlines, the Brazilian national carrier, to find out who we could talk to about help with the flight. Luckily, the Varig office was just down the road, so we stopped by and spent a couple of hours talking about ALF and trying to get the office manager to give us a free flight back. He wasn't able to help us with that, however he was able to give us 20 percent off the fare. This was great so we made our reservations to leave Rio de Janeiro on September 15th.

By the time we were finished it was already late in the afternoon, so we drove to the outskirts of Recife and set up camp with the truckers for another night.

August 31, 2005

Today was just a simple day, a short drive of about 260 km (160 miles) as we headed through the city of Maceio to a small beach, Praia do Frances. The draw here is an off shore reef just about 50 meters off the beach. At low tide local fishermen take people over to the reef where you can sit in natural pools right in the reef. In summer time, (now it is winter), local restaurants set up shop on the reef (not too environmentally savvy) from which they will have waiters serve you drinks and food.

We drove down to the end of the beach looking for a quiet parking lot to camp in when, surprise, we found a campground with three Brazilian motorhomes parked in it. We decide to join them for the night. We thought about swimming over to the reef as it didn't appear that any boats were taking passengers, but then we noticed a lot of foam in the water and realized that the water was actually quite polluted - so we changed our minds. We did get to watch the waves break over the reef at low tide.

That evening ...