6/17 - Day 4

Dear Dick,

Today Bill and Charlie are flying to Rio. They're leaving in the morning, while Neal and I will be checking out of the airbnb house around noon and going back up to Natal for on night. We have no way of contacting the guy who is supposed to meet us to get the keys, so Bill is sending a message to the owner, Monica, via the airbnb site in hopes that she can get word to him to meet us at noon. You can pretty much anticipate that this is not going to work out.

Neal and I went into a store to get a SIM card to try with our phones. I put it in the two old ones I got from Dawn's daughter, but it would not work. I think it is because they are locked.

You know, I'd like to be able to enjoy this vacation without worrying about technology. I wouldn't mind it if I could get by without a phone or wifi, but there are a lot of things that we need to coordinate with others. This is really a shitty way to spend a vacation, wasting hours dealing with technology problems. I would setlle for a pay phone if such a thing were available here.

So the guy was not at the house at noon. We found an internet cafe that had phones we could use, so there's that. I called the guy and had an ambiguous exchange that seemed like it might end in us meeting him at the house. The cafe was 10 minutes from the house, so by the time we got back there he was not there. Neal put the keys in a plastic bag, rolled it up, and threw in in a planter like trash. Back to the cafe, this time Neal left a message for the guy and Monica both, hoping they would coordinate and take care of it.

Frustrated, we ditched Pipa and drove up to Ponta Negra, which is the upscale area south of Natal along the beach. we had a reservation at Nautilus Apart Hotel, and apartment bulding that was rented like a hotel. We found it with little trouble and lugged our bags up the narrow spiral stair to our room.

If I can say anything good about this day, it is that we found some good beer. We wandered out to watch the first half of the Brazil-Mexico match at a bar. at halftime we decided to get some beers and go back to the hotel to watch the second half. The store we stopped in had imported some American ales. Without looking at the prices, grabbed two Anderson Valley (CA) IPAs, one of their double IPAs, and a Founders dry hopped pale ale. At the counter we were surprised to learn that they were $15 each. Well, we deserved them.

How about Ochoa's goalkeeping? He was amazing in that game. We watched the second half while connected to the semi-reliable hotel wifi.