Friday, July 20, 2012

Porto de Galinhas

Have I mentioned that I love the beach?  Because I really do.  BUT I just discovered a new favorite beach.  It's called Porto de Galinhas, and it was soo cool!  The waves were huge (the bigger the better, right?), and the water was a perfect temperature.  The sun was wam but not too hot, and the sand was super soft and fine.  *sigh*  It was easily the best beach I've ever been to!

First, we got to boat out to the reef and see/feed a bunch of fish in the natural pools.  They were super pretty!  None of my pictures turned out great of the fish because the sun was reflecting on the water, but some of the fish were dark with bright purple heads! (those were my favorite)  We also got to get in and swim with some of the fish, and it was super cool, but also a little weird to have them touch your leg as they swam past.  

ALSO there were sea urchins EVERYWHERE.  I was super nervous I was going to step on one, but luckily I didn't.  :)  (Dad, tuku misi is sea urchin, right?  And are there a lot of different kinds?)

This beach was also really cool to me because of it's history.  Porto de Galinhas is "Port of Chickens".  There were chicken statues everywhere, some advertising stores, others just there as decorations.  But the port actually received this name because it was an illegal slave port.  Boats would come in full of illegal slaves from Africa (I want to say they were dominantly from Angola, but don't quote me on that..), and to avoid getting in trouble for importing slaves they would put chicken crates on top and declare their cargo as chickens.

It's crazy (but super interesting) to hear about stuff like that.  It seems so long ago, but I think it's also important to remember the history.  I bet most of the people at the beach with us don't know that story about how it got its name.  And even though it's kind of sad, I think I appreciated the whole experience more because I knew more about it.

Moral of the story:  Learning about places and culture make experiences so much more meaningful!


And....some pictures:
 The boats we rode out to the reef

 A tide pool shaped like south America

 Me feeding the cute little fishies :)
 Me and the wonderful Tawnya
(She really is fantastic.  I love this girl!)

 I love her so much she got two pictures in one post :)


And me and Natalia!

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