Wings clipped on the way to Piba

We had a relatively short ride with Tacio as our guide to Piba so it was a leisurely departure.

100 meters from the hotel Wing's rear bearing failed again. To cut a long story short it took 4 hours and 2 trips in to the local town by Tacio & Catchya to buy two new bearings and weld up his rear hub that had cracked, oh plus a piece of coke can to give the bearing a tight fit!

One point of amusement amongst us linguists was the "Borracharia". Boracho is a drunk in Spanish but a mechanic in Portuguese. This one, although you can't see in on the photo, advertised himself as a 24 hour Drunk. I suppose you had to be there.....................
We were all in our riding gear and it was hot sitting and waiting. village life went on around us which included an English guy stopping for a chat when he saw the bike. He was a dispatch rider in London and moved out here 20 years ago. He was very chatty and told us that he had hosted Ted Simon (writer of Jupiter's Travels - one of the first Motorcycle diaries to be published) not so long ago.

The local s were passing by with their horse and carts which are still very much a part of Brazil commerce. Brazil appears to have the most extreme range of wealth and poverty, but again no one seems to be starving

The fix was done and we got going about 4 hours later towards Piba - with a very apologetic Wing.

It was a nice drive but we did arrive in Piba in the dark which is not the best way to do things, especially having to negotiate sand roads and cobbled streets whilst they are having a political rally.

Rather than sort accommodation we decided to have a beer, the decision was helped by this lady trying to get us in to her bar. Caiparinhas were the order of the day or Caiparouska (vodka). Oh and the music was Rock & roll with some heavy Metal thrown in - Thomas would have loved it Smoke On the Water seemed very popular. The myth that you only hear Tango in Argentina and Samba in Brazil is busted!

Piba is a real party town but this time of year is reasonably quiet. I should think it is manic in season as the roads in and out are very narrow. It can take 3 hours to get a table for dinner.

We went round in a few circles before we found a place that had parking for 4 bikes. Showered then dinner in town, funnily enough we ended up back at Anna's Restaurant (the lady above) for dinner.

Next day we were off to Taciio's home town Recife but before we left he took us through the lanes to the coast at Piba. The coastline is stunning and goes on for hundreds, if not thousands of miles.

This is a rocky cliff top that you can ride to and look down on the sea.One of the best spots on the tour.
To get there were a few small sections of sandy roads - I was the only one to drop a bike! Show me some sand and I will show you an accident!

This is looking back at the spot of the earlier picture.From here we continued south.................