Bem Vindo (welcome) to my blog about Chicken Town (Porto De Galinhas), a wacky small beach town south of Recife in the state of Pernumbuco. Sadly, I wasn't invited to tag along one weekend on a seahorse research trip with Gabi and the Lab due to permitting restrictions, so instead of opting to stay in Joao Pessoa I opened up my Frommer's Brasil and decided to take a little weekend trip. I'm not really sure why it's called Porto de Galinhas (port of the chickens) because I didn't see any real live chickens but there were ridiculous chicken statues all over the town which you will see in the following photos. 
I decided to go with a friend of a friend who I had met in Fortaleza who was now living in Recife and in typical Brazilian style we took lots of photos, expressing our love for chicken town and all it's worth.
So this was the first chicken statue I saw while we were on our way to the beach. Right away I was stoked about this place, dude how cool slash weird is this? A chicken with snorkel gear!
And yes naturally here is the mexican chicken in a boat!
More chicken scuba divers! Infront of a scuba shop!
And for those music lovers, the chicken who plays the saxaphone. All chickens are welcome here. 
The boats reminded me of little flying scott sailboats that could hold up to 10 people at a time. No motors on these babies!
The boats would then sail a little ways out to the exposed reefs to let the tourists explore the natural beauty of the sea. Ok, so I'm making it sound fairly poetic. It wasn't that great. Read about how my experience in the natural pools in Porto De Galinhas: Part 2....but it does make for a good photograph.
So my friend and I are actually on a mission. Remember how I was disappointed I wouldn't be doing seahorse research this weekend? Well that might not have to be the case! The taxi driver told us that there was an estuary where people could go and see seahorses in Porto de Galinhas. He also told me that there were researchers in the town studying seahorses! Well, well well.....fancy that! So we have decided to go exploring by walking down the beach about 2 km to an area called Maracaipe. The photo above is of Maracaipe beach.
Here was the little hut were they took the boats of people to wait while the guide found a seahorse. Nice shack looking kind of place, fun to hang out in the water. I accidentally left my friend chilling in the shade on the banks of the mangroves because he doesn't know how to swim! Little did I know. So we decided to head back to the pousada where we were staying to have a little trial run of swimming and how to use a mask and snorkel.
Ok, so we get back to the pousada and jump in the pool. And let's just say that while my friend is not a natural swimmer, we got a big kick out of playing with the camera!
The instructor and the student all smiles after a day of exploring!
So this was the first chicken statue I saw while we were on our way to the beach. Right away I was stoked about this place, dude how cool slash weird is this? A chicken with snorkel gear!And yes naturally here is the mexican chicken in a boat! More chicken scuba divers! Infront of a scuba shop! And for those music lovers, the chicken who plays the saxaphone. All chickens are welcome here. The boats reminded me of little flying scott sailboats that could hold up to 10 people at a time. No motors on these babies! The boats would then sail a little ways out to the exposed reefs to let the tourists explore the natural beauty of the sea. Ok, so I'm making it sound fairly poetic. It wasn't that great. Read about how my experience in the natural pools in Porto De Galinhas: Part 2....but it does make for a good photograph.
So my friend and I are actually on a mission. Remember how I was disappointed I wouldn't be doing seahorse research this weekend? Well that might not have to be the case! The taxi driver told us that there was an estuary where people could go and see seahorses in Porto de Galinhas. He also told me that there were researchers in the town studying seahorses! Well, well well.....fancy that! So we have decided to go exploring by walking down the beach about 2 km to an area called Maracaipe. The photo above is of Maracaipe beach. We turn a coner and look at the sign we found! It says get to know seahorses in the mangroves, right here! Can you believe it? So naturally I have my mask and snorkel with me and I think to myself well if there are plenty of seahorses here that they can do seahorse tourism.....I must be able to find at least one snorkeling on my own right? I've been training for this for weeks (kind of) and I did find one on my own a few blog entries ago remember?
So naturally I found some. Here was the first one I found. It was a female, hanging onto a newly sprouted mangrove root. I found her in about 6 inches of water in one of the side areas of the estuary (featured below).
Right over on the left hand side, in the roots of the mangrove. So cool! I also found 5 other seahorses here and the tourist guys were pulling up seahorses right and left! How weird is it that I managed to half-hazardly find a place with seahorse tourism AND on my supposed weekend off find myself looking for seahorses anyway! I guess you can take the marine biologist supposedly away from the seahorses but you can't keep the seahorses away from the marine biologist?...... or something like that.
Here was the little hut were they took the boats of people to wait while the guide found a seahorse. Nice shack looking kind of place, fun to hang out in the water. I accidentally left my friend chilling in the shade on the banks of the mangroves because he doesn't know how to swim! Little did I know. So we decided to head back to the pousada where we were staying to have a little trial run of swimming and how to use a mask and snorkel. 
We took a different route back than we came before and look what we found! Cows at a pousada right on the beach! How ridiculous is this? The farm pousada is right on the beach. Does it combine the best of both worlds? For all you farmers out there (cough Lane) is this secretly your dream to have a farm pousada right on the beach?
Tada! Here's the sign for the fabulous Pousada Fazenda!
Ok, so we get back to the pousada and jump in the pool. And let's just say that while my friend is not a natural swimmer, we got a big kick out of playing with the camera!
The instructor and the student all smiles after a day of exploring! 
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