Sunny Brazil: Porto de Galinhas

Porto de Galinhas  is a major tourist destination in Brazil, located 60 Km south of Recife, the capital of the Pernambuco state. The beach is famous for its bright and warm water and the natural pools. It has been voted "Best Brazilian Beach" for many times in a row by the Brazilian magazine “Viagem e Turismo” because of many factors combined: the beauty of the natural pools, the ecological trails, the hotel infrastructure and the proximity to a large city and the airport in Recife.

During the period of the slave trade and especially after its abolition in 1850, slaves were illegally smuggled from Africa and hidden under crates of guinea fowl and brought to the country. The arrival of these slaves was announced using the expression "there are new chicken in the harbour". The region eventually became known as "Porto de Galinhas" ("chicken harbour") and continues to be known as such until today.

Of course the first thing we did after arriving at the hotel and cheching in, was to go to the beach and feel the warm water of the northeast coast (average temp. 28°C).

Our hotel was located a little bit far from the village center, so we had to take either a bus or a van and drive a few kilometers (all the resorts are located in this farer area). It used to be a fishing village and it continues to be so. The typical boats (a fishing raft with sail) they use are also what makes the place famous and they're called jangada. In the aternoon, the beach is full of them.

One of the places we've visited was the Pontal de Maracaípe. It's the river Maracaípe's Estuary. On one side a beautifull blue ocean can be seen, and on the other side, the mangrove. The mangrove is the natural habitat for many species. We took a ride with a jangada and could experience the wild life there! 

                                               Seahorse                                          small crab

mangrove

The beautiful beach at the Pontal de Maracaípe

One of the things I first told Sven about, was the fact that Porto de Galinhas is located much closer to the Ecuador, therefore, warmer and the sun hits it directly. It means that a person can get a bad sunburn really easily, even with sunscreen. And that was the lesson that Sven learned, as one can see the sunburn right on his face, making the exact shape as where the sunglasses were!!

Sven's Sunburn

As I mentioned the story with the village's name before - "chicken harbour" - it's not to wonder why the chicken is a motive you see everywhere you go: in a bar, the hairdresser, talking on the public phone, you see chickens everywhere!!

The next day we did a typical brazilian thing: we went to the beach in the morning and sat under the umbrella, drank some delicious coconut water, enjoyed the sound of the ocean, the beauty of the place and -of course- tryed to ignore the many people passing by selling all sort of stuff to the tourists. Sven liked one thing in special though, the small bottles of cachaça with stuff inside (crabs, fruits, etc). 

When the level of the ocean is low, many natural pools are formed by the coral reefs and they are so close from the cost that tourists can take a ride in the jangadas and in little under 5 minutes from the beach, they can relax in a natural pool of crystal clear warm water and photograph the small tropical fish and the many hidden sea urchins. 

the coral reefs                                  sea urchins

One thing that also deserves comments was the hotel. Well, it was actually a really nice resort called Enotel. It was huge and right in front of the beach. There were so many pools and you can really spend the entire day swimming or doing some gymnastics in the water with an instructor, or drink something by the bar (being still inside of the pool). Really cool place!

                                       The pools at the Resort and the ocean in the back

So my friends, I know many of you have seen those pictures already, but I'm sure it was worth the explanation. What is also worth is a visit to Porto de Galinhas! If you like visiting beaches, that is the right place for you! 

UK: Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 km west of Amesbury and 13 km north of Salisbury. It is Europe’s most famous pre-historic monument.

It was a cold, wet day. It took us a little bit over 1:30 hour drive to get there. Once you buy the ticket, you get an ear set to hear the explanations and start your tour around Stonehenge.

The monument evolved between 3.000 BC and 1.600 BC. It’s composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks. The alignment of the stones leaves little doubt that the circle reflects the changing trajectory of the sun through the sky and the passing of the seasons. It I aligned with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, but its exact purpose remains a mystery. To quarry, transport and erect the huge stones, its builders must have had the command of immense resources and pools of labour.

As Stonehenge is located in the country side, there were ships grazing around it and the landscape was pretty nice.

This World Heritage Site is a source of inspiration and fascination for many, as well as a place of worship and celebration. It’s a mysterious and interesting monument and it makes one wonder how it was really built and the story behind it. 

Sunny Brazil: Rei do Mato e Maquiné Grottoes

My cousin Douglas was talking about the beauty of two Grottoes he had visited some time ago, and invited Sven and I to check it out. Although this region has many grottoes, we decided to see only two of the most famous ones: "Rei do Mato" and "Maquiné".

In the agreed day, we left Belo Horizonte and traveled with the car for around 70 km north on the BR-040 (a federal highway), in the direction of a town called Sete Lagoas. The first grotto we wanted to visit was the "Rei do Mato" one and it took us a while to find the highway exit and after many returns and hardly any signs, we finally found the grotto.

So, the name of this first grotto in Portuguese - "Rei do Mato" - can be translated to English as "King of the Bushes". According to some people, the "Rei do Mato" was the nickname of a fugitive from a 1930’s Revolution and he decided to make it his own "house" and therefore lived there for several years. This Grotto has four large chambers with numerous stalactites, stalagmites and limestone dams. In the so called "Rarities Hall" are nearly identical parallel columns, which are more than 20 meters high, our guide said something about it being unique in the whole world.  In a small cave next to the Gruta Rei do Mato, 4,000 to 6,000-year-old cave paintings were discovered, as well as the skeleton of an extinct animal.

Afterwards, we drove in the direction of Cordisburgo, where the other grotto - Maquiné - is located. Before entering it, we decided that it was time to eat something and the restaurant in front of the entrance offered some good home food, although bloody expensive...

As we still had to wait a few minutes until the tour guide would take us around the grotto, we made some pictures of the outside:

Inside, the grotto is really impressive, especially because of its size, there are some pretty big chambers! The Maquiné Grotto is the oldest and one of the most visited grottoes in Brazil. It is located near Cordisburgo, a small town located 143 km northwest of Belo Horizonte. 

The grotto was discovered in 1825 by a farmer Joaquim Maria Maquiné (the landowner). It is world-famous for paleontological importance detected initially by a danish palaeontologist called Peter Lund, which remained inside the cave nearly two years doing his research on the Brazilian paleontology, describing all the chambers, explaining the formation of stalagmites and stalactites and examining human remains and petrifaction of animals. The cave has seven huge chambers, amounting to 650 linear meters and unevenness of the ground of only 18 meters. With an internal temperature ranging between 26°C and 27°C, it is essentially horizontal, forming a continuous gallery with an average width of 9 to 12 meters and height of 15 to 18 meters. Its galleries and halls are the result of the job of water for many millions of years. Here are some pictures we took:

On our way back to Belo Horizonte, something cool caught our attention. We passed right in front of an Elephant House. We heard the man who constructed it also lives there at the moment. Quite creative isn't it?  

Elephant house

The two grottoes were very beautiful, it's really fascinating when you think of how nature transforms itself with time and how many millions of years of changes and misteries they've been through...


We hope you enjoyed this post. As Sven has left back to London and I'm still staying in Belo Horizonte for a couple of weeks, I'll try to post more about Brazil and some other places we've been in the past! Thanks for reading!