At Recife airport. I found out that my first choice for hotel was closed, and my second choice was also closed for renovations. I chose a small 1 star hotel in Boa Viagem (BV), the touristy part of Recife, to spend my first night while I looked for a different hotel. Upon arriving at my hotel I discovered that it was having a sale on rooms. It was charging R$17 per night on a limited number of rooms instead of the regular R$40 per night. They were sold out of those discount rooms so I had to pay the regular price.
After a nap I went out walking through BV. I discovered that my first choice of hotel was more than just closed, it was demolished! A 30 (or so) story luxury condo/hotel complex was being constructed on the lot where this hotel, the kindergarten beside it, and the gay club beside that, used to be located. This was not a surprise to me since when I stayed there on my previous trip to Recife, there were 3 high rises under construction in the same area. This was just part of the construction trend in BV.
In walking around, I also discovered that ALL the hotels were offering some sort of promotional discount. I found a semi-luxury hotel called Hotel Boa Viagem that overlooked the beach and was beside Praca BV. They were charging R$62 per night instead of their regular R$87 per night. I moved there the next day. I continued exploring that evening and took it easy that night because I wanted to speed up my recovery. The next day, Wednesday, I called the ladies I wanted to meet. I had more success with the numbers, only one was out of service. Another lady was out of town on a trip. A third was rarely at home, work and school, and her mother gave me her cell phone number. I also called the friend I had made on my previous trip but her brother said she was out. We did connect the next day. I was able to contact 3 women, all of whom agreed to meet me; one the next day, one the next evening, and one on Saturday. I also sent emails to 2 women for whom Latin Euro did not have telephone numbers. They responded to me only after I returned to the US.
