Porto de Galinhas, Brazil

You will be very pleased to hear that the next few blogs are going to be short and sweet because we have been visiting some pretty small towns with not much to say about them, woo hoo.

Porto de Galinhas was a town that we would have almost certainly missed had we not been given a recommendation to go there. After our bus escape from Maragoji we were dropped off on the edge of a motorway junction with a sign pointing to Porto de Galinhas and thankfully after a few minutes a collectivo (a little white local mini bus) appeared and bundled us in. An hour later we were shown the door and unbundled into the town of Porto de Galinhas.

The name of this town translates as Port of the Chickens and comes from the days when the town served as a major trade port for slaves who were illegally trafficked and disguised in amongst shipments of guinea fowl, when new slaves arrived they would say that the chickens are in town as code. As a result of this history the name has stuck and Porto de Galinhas has embraced the name and the town is now filled with sculptures, models and souvenirs of every shape, colour and size of chicken.

Porto de Galinhas is absolutely adorable, it is about as perfect a tourist town as you can hope for, it has a stunning beach, shallow sea pools that you can walk to or join the many boats making their way out, you can sunbathe, eat or just shop in one of the many souvenir shops or posh boutiques selling designer swimwear. Being just a short drive from Recife this is a popular holiday and weekend destination for locals and we can see why.

We immediately relaxed into the town, we enjoyed the pool and sunbeds at our hostel, we ate well, we pretended to be real tourists poking around the souvenir shops selling tat and just had an all-round great time relaxing and talking in the atmosphere.

Just to top off a perfect town our hostel had a rather fine selection of cats who lived there and some who just wished they lived there who spent their days munching on the piles of biscuits which were loving piled outside the hostel. We were regularly kept awake by the sound of cats ‘partying’ into the night and even found one of the older models passed out on the breakfast table with an unopened bottle of Smirnoff ice. Bliss.

Sadly we can’t pretend to be tourists forever and there are only so many chicken photos that we can take so it is onwards and upwards to Recife.