My parents are here!

I’m not sure if I mentioned before that this was happening but after reading/hearing about my great experiences in Brazil, my parents decided to come over and sample some of this amazing country for themselves, and obviously meet up with me along my route!

So on Weds afternoon, following my stadium visit, I made the 10 minute walk from my hostel (hence why I decided to stay here) to their hotel right on Boa Viagem to greet them. After they checked in we went to the hotel bar to catch up and later also had dinner in the restaurant – it was a very rainy afternoon here in Recife so not much option to go outside.

Yesterday (May 1st) was a public holiday here and with the sun back out we went for a stroll up the promenade and found a stage had been built at the northern end of the beach – Brazilians don’t miss a chance to party!

Spot the tourists

We then took a taxi to the historic centre where it seemed a cycling festival was taking place – superb!

Great to see so many cyclists (there were MANY more than this) enjoying the coned-off cycle lane through the city

And bizarrely we also saw this going on (possibly for Japanese TV since they play the Ivory Coast here in Recife during he World Cup)…

Big heads

Big ball

After that a beer was needed so we found a little street bar next to a cool bike shop, then later we wandered around a bit more.

Maybe Legover needs a repaint?

Street art or graffiti?

Bridge statue

Igreja = church

Back at Boa Viagem the beach stage was now drawing a huge throng of locals and the music was much less to our taste so we strolled south and found a lovely restaurant for lunch.

The plan was to meet up again last night to maybe catch some Forro music after dinner, but as it turned out both Mum and I had dodgy stomachs, presumably from the paella we’d shared at lunch! So I had to stay at the hostel to recover ready for cycling today, d’oh!

As you can see, I’ve so far failed to take a photo of the three of us together, will try to do so when we meet today as I cycle out of the city on my way towards Natal, where we’ll meet up again in 4 days time…

UPDATE – here’s that photo:

I’m wearing my awesome new Samba Velo cycling top (by Hackney GT)