Maragogi Beach

On the bus to Maceio, we had been recommended a beach just outside Recife, and that was our goal for the day. They said the beach was supposed to be absolutely perfect, so we had to check it out. We took the very local version of a long-distance bus, which stopped at every little village along the way, doubling our travel time to three hours instead of one and a half. The bus didn’t take us all the way to the coast at Maragogi, so we had to hop on an even more local bus for the rest of the journey. We were packed in tight on the seats. The more passengers, the more money they make! :) Finally, we arrived, and it didn’t take us long to choose a pousada, Solar do Pusada, for a total of 40 reais. It was right by the water, so we had an ocean view from our room. The man who had walked us to the pousada also had a menu for a boat tour that we could join that same day—just 20 minutes later! We barely had time to change clothes before we were out the door again. We sailed on a catamaran to a protected area with great snorkeling opportunities. A couple of kilometers from the coast, the boat stopped, and we could jump into the water, which only came up to our waists. We brought along some “fish food” that smelled a lot like cat food, so we were quite popular with the fish, who came right up close to us. There was also an option to dive, so Honny rented equipment for 50 reais for 40 minutes. The visibility was 8 meters, which was perfect. I lounged on the deck soaking up the sun while he dove. We were back around 4:30 PM, and since we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, we were getting pretty hungry. We found a restaurant on the beach where we managed to order some really good food from the Portuguese menu, using our limited vocabulary, which is slowly growing since very few people understand even a little English. :) In the evening, we strolled around the town, where there were some shops. It felt safe to walk around, so we didn’t have to keep taking taxis. We even found a place with internet access. From there, we had a nice view of the town, where some kids were practicing their dance moves in preparation for the upcoming town festival.