Paraíso

So to pick up where I left off, on Monday it was time to set off in search of the perfect beach. We had a vague idea of our destination: a town called Maragogi just over the border in Alagoas. So we jumped on a bus headed in that direction. However, when it was time to jump off the bus, we were a little (or a lot) confused. The short version is that after more than enough walking with all of our stuff in sun and heat, we ended up in another town, São José da Grande Coroa, and stayed at the first pousada we saw. Which happened to have previously been a shopping center, so instead of an outside wall our room had one of those metal things to pull down over closed store windows. I don’t know how helpful of a description that is, but just trust me, it was weird. They don’t exactly get tourists many (or any) tourists there, so we got to see what normal people do – go to the beach and have Children’s Day festivals complete with amazing hot dogs, apparently, and that was what we did too.

Then the next day we went looking for Maragogi again, and were much more successful the second time. We found a nice place to stay (with pillows, towels, breakfast, and Internet – chique chique) and then went to check out the passeios às piscinas naturais. Various people tried to rip us off, but our Portuguese skillz and jeitinho helped us negotiate a good price and we made friends with the kid who sold us the tickets. Luckily we showed up not on Brazilian time because the boat amazingly left when it was supposed to. Then after listening to a prayer and long spiel to convince us to buy unnecessary things, we got to go SNORKELING. It was amazing, there were all kinds of fish and corals and eels and starfish and sea urchins. Now I want to learn how to scuba dive! And there was free coffee when we got back to land, which is always a highlight in my book.

After our amazing breakfast buffet the next morning, we decided we would try to find the peixe-boi/manatees a few towns away. It sounded simple enough to us, but little did we know… We made one town south, and that was where transportation got pretty sketchy. So instead of paying for mototaxis, we decided to walk along the beach the 10km to the next town – it’s all just training for the Appalachian Trail, after all (minus the mountains). I don’t feel like I can adequately explain just how beautiful it was, but I took a whole lot of pictures the random things we saw along the way so go look at them! We finally found the little ferry to Porto de Pedras that people had kept mentioning when they tried to give us directions, and we kept going to the farol/lighthouse. Some lockpicking skills would have come in handy since we couldn’t actually get inside it. There was also an “historic tree” nearby that emperor Pedro II had stopped to rest under several hundred years ago – if you want me to come sit in your yard so you can put a plaque up when I’m famous, just let me know.

We also turned into regulars at a “regional food” restaurant in Maragogi. After the guy in charge rattled off the options and saw our blank stares in response, he seemed to come to the conclusion that we didn’t know what we were doing (not far from the truth) and proceeded to make all decisions for us, meaning that dinner the first night was just steak and manioc (not my favorite, although it’s grown on me). At least the next day we got a saladinha as well. One of best things about Maragogi is the many cheap ice cream shops there (with flavors like coconut with strawberries and banana with cinnamon too), and I think my new life goal is to go back there and open my own.

When it was time to say goodbye to Maragogi we took the bus back to Recife (never as simple as it sounds) and then went to find our CouchSurfing host’s apartment. And I’ll end with that for now, while I go off and dream of perfect beaches…