Porto De Galinhas

Porto De Galinhas.

You got to love a town where the saturday night hot spot is called the "Chicken Club". Porto De Galinhas, or "Chicken Harbor", got its name from post abolition times when the area continued receive shipments of slaves. The slaves were code named chickens to help disguise the now illegal trade and when a boat came in the word was spread- "there are chickens in the harbor." Porto is an hour and a half south of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, and was recommended by a Brasilian friend from Pipa, along with neighboring beaches Maracaìpe and Tamandaré. On my first trip to Brasil in 2002, I spent one of our last days in the country shopping for drums in Recife, while Rebecca took the bus to Porto De Galinhas to check things out. She liked it and I've wondered since what it was like, so here I am. Actually right now I'm on a plane to Rio, so I finally have time to write something down about Porto.

I spent nearly two weeks in Porto. It was quite nice. Not fantastic, not even top five I don't think, but nice all the same. It had everything I needed, and I think I was ready to hold still for a little bit. There were a couple of surf breaks, food and bar options, parties, beach activities, and I scored a nice room with a whole third story covered patio with hammocks and couches. I surfed a lot and took long walks on the beach. The evening drink usually came from a nice sidewalk cafe next to the beach at the end of the pedestrian boulevard- called Cafe Brasil.

Porto's claim to fame are the "piscinas naturais" right off the main beach. Along much of the shore in this region a natural coral reef lies just off the beach. It becomes exposed at low tide, creating a tranquil and turquoise wading area between it and the sand, with the pounding swell trapped outside. The reef is not like most I have seen. It rises 3 to 4 feet out of the sand, then is perfectly flat on top. It covers a large area, with the occasional natural opening or pool (piscina). At low tide large numbers of fish become stranded in these pools and mill about. The way this has been developed as a tourist attraction is somewhat appalling, but fun nonetheless. Huge numbers of people come to the beaches at Porto all year round. They sit on the beach, play in the calm pools, swim out to the reef and- walk on it.

Stepping on coral of course kills it. I guess this is why almost the entire reef is dead. Only in the little cracks and crevices and pools too small for a human to get into is there any living coral. There is no sense on anyones part that there is anything wrong with this. Swarms of boat men with tiny, shallow draft boats ferry families out to the reef all day long so they can step right off the boat and onto the coral. The boat men move their boats along by pushing off the coral with their paddles. Kids jump in the pools and feed cereal to the fish, to the point where the surface of the water starts to get a bit brown and filmy. It's basically an ecological disaster in full swing every day. The only nature left to enjoy is the fish, and they are only there I believe because they are fed so well, but they are fun to watch. They swarm in schools in the pools when they are stranded, roiling in place and aggressively approaching any human or offered tidbit (finger, toe, whatever). When the tide starts to come up and they are slowly liberated, they flop out of their pools in water too shallow to swim in, twisting sideways and flapping about, chasing humans with baggies of cereal. It was definitely surreal to have these swarms of fish swimming right over my toes, as I walked across the reef in two inches of water.

I later met a local ecologist whose job is the protection of local reef habitat. His explanation was that they let the main tourist beach at Porto get trashed, in return for trying to preserve remaining areas off the beaten path.

Porto sits on a point in between two sandy coves. To the left Cupe, a beach of about 4 km and filled end to end with beach homes and hotels. There are a few surf breaks midway down the beach. In the other direction Maracaipe, a much less developed beach of 2 km or so, with a great surf break midway and small developement of pousadas and bars called Maracaipe- the surfer hang out. At the end of this beach is a river mouth and mangrove swamp area. Supposedly sea horses can be seen with their tails coiled around the roots of the mangroves. I didn't see any though.

On a walk down that way I met Renata, Carioca (Rio dweller), an oceanographer who works with the EPA on oil rigs in the Rio Area. We pal-ed about for a few days, checking out the local natural wonders and the nightlife options. All portuguese, and no problem. After a couple of days I was somewhat shocked to realize I'd been speaking nothing but portuguese for days, and not just ordering food and drinks. One night we had drinks with four other folks from Sao Paulo Renata had met on the beach. They spent their time in stitches over the things I would say. I was a little bewildered and not totally amused, though rolling with it. I kept trying to figure out what was so funny and apparently I wasn't saying things wrong, just a bit funny, or not quite the way a brasilian would, or something. I think I understand now why my buddy Ian from the UK isn't amused when I spend all night with my friends laughing at his UK accent and his manners of speech. It was all good and one of them now has the permanent nickname of "bunda pequeninha," thanks to me.

After the weekend things slowed down a bit and we talked about going south to Tamandare. Turned out that she had two friends from college who were involved in environmental work in that area and had a house in Tamandare. We took a bewildering series of small vans through even smaller towns and eventually arrived in Tamandare. May is a very low season for Brasil in general and Tamandare was very quiet. It's another series of scenic palm lined coves with offshore reefs, vacation homes, fishing boats, an older "downtown" with a couple old churches on the shore. Renata's friends Joao and (oops forgot girls name already) picked us up downtown and took us to their home.

We stayed for several days and though Tamandare was scenic the best part of that time was easing into a social group that was purely brasilian, and educated and professional at that. Since I also have degrees in Ecology and Biology, it was interesting to be part of the "work talk" discussions of the issues they were facing in that area. Everyone was really great and it was a great challenge to be so immersed. Beyond that I probably won't return to Tamandare. It was quite beautiful but I have come to the place where beautiful is not enough, at least on this trip. The living situation was a bit intense, no ac or even windows on the house, just a small floor fan and wooden shutters that did nothing to impede the swarms of mosquitos. The intense mugginess of the nighttimes left me with the option of either allowing myself to be sacrificially feasted on all night long or to cover my whole body and face with the sheet and asphixiate while I slept in my own sweat. Neither option very appealing I usually mixed the two and woke with little sleep. One day we took a hair raising ride on moto taxis to a waterfall. The only taxi options in town were motorcycles, so we each piled on one and soon were jamming down the beach. That was fun then it was off into town for cigarettes and social calls for our drivers, despite our protests and raised eyebrows. Eventually we got on the road and motored through some scenic areas, before turning down a muddy track or some off road action. Renata did ok but I ended up splattered with mud and dropping my feet to help keep us from going down every other puddle. The waterfall was pretty though cold, and was good for washing the mud off.

Another day we took a fun cruise. There was about twenty of us (all brazilian but me) on a big catamaran motorboat, full forro band playing for us, and cooler of beer. We motored around a little bay to various scenic snorkeling spots and a food break. One stop was a spit of land I'm not sure why we stopped at. Renata knew of a lookout that was worth seeing and taking a picture of, so we set off on the trail by ourselves, the boat driver giving us ten minutes. We walked a short ways, snapped a few shots, then walked back on a sandy track through palm trees and by grazing donkeys. As we neared our landing spot we heard a horn and were surprised to see our boat sailing off without us through the palms. We yelled and ran out to the beach, but they couldnt see us and by the time we were out of the woods they had turned a corner and were out of sight. We were marooned on a deserted spit of sand. I just smiled, it was definitely a first. Renata went running down the beach in an effort to catch them, I just strolled and grinned at the situation. I figured they would probably come back, plus I still owed them for a couple of beers. Sure enough they rounded the corner soon and came to pick us up, the whole somewhat drunk boat load laughing and us grinning sheepishly, I guess we'd been gone twenty minutes. The innuendo was what were we doing those twenty minutes?

After several days and as the weekend neared I felt myself itching for some music and some nightlife- back in Porto De Galinhas. Renata wanted to keep exploring the reefs and beaches to the south, so we parted ways and I went back to Porto. I stayed there for a while, reading the books my sister sent and Laecee brought for me, surfing, walking, dancing at night and meeting locals. I lost a bit of the track of time but eventually I felt ready for a change and got on the bus for Canoa Quebrada.