MACEIO

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A short few hours from Recife lies Maceio, a popular Brazilian beach resort. The beaches are fronted by medium-rise hotels, coconut palms, bars, beach football and volleyball pitches and has a nice holiday feel to the place. The sea is a gorgeous turquoise colour but is sadly a bit polluted.

Our plans to take a schooner trip for the day to nearby Islands were foiled by the weather so we spent the day running errands (booking bus tickets, banking etc) and walking the beaches.

The next day we took a jangada (sail boat) out to the reefs where there are large natural rockpools. The boat is very unique, a cross between a punt, row boat and sailboat. However there was hardly any wind so our captain had to punt then paddle for half an hour to get out to the reef.

When we first arrived at the reef the rock pools were fairly clear and you could see hundreds of small stripey tropical fish around you. People had brought bread to feed to the fish and it caused a bit of a frenzy at times. The snorkelling was OK, but got cloudy very quickly and when the bulk of the tourists had arrived the water wasn’t great at all.

Our guidebook mentioned “floating bars” out at the rockpools - what we saw was a man with a couple of foam eski’s (coolboxes) from which he was selling drinks and snacks, wading around the water with them.

Later that day we went to Bali’s Icecream Parlour, a self-serve with very good icecream and toppings. Amy loves the fact you can choose any flavours and put any toppings on yourself - a great concept.
Off to Salvador on the overnight bus tonight.

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Photos

Corn snack
The vendor kindly cuts the corn off the cob, butters and salts it then puts it in a cup for you. Tasty!

A families dinner being cooked
A homeless family with a shelter of plastic tarps was preparing their dinner