After surviving our adventurous arrival on the coast, we were anxious to enjoy the beach in Barra de Santo Antônio. Unfortunately our bad luck (remember the black cats?) continued: It rained a lot on our first day on the beach! Luckily, there were 3 nice Germans in our pousada (a few times I felt that knowing German is more useful to make friends in the Northeast than Portuguese!) and so we got through the rainy day together. We exchanged travel stories, and in one of them they told us that the previous day men with machetes had robbed a woman as she was walking along the beach where we stayed.
Aiaiai… the black cats, the rain and now this story made us want to leave for our next destination as fast as possible. We did not want to leave, however, without knowing the famous Carro Quebrado (broken car) beach. The following day the sun was back and we went. It is really beautiful, uninhabited and framed by cliffs colored in various shades of red. Yet, despite its beauty, we felt that it was not well looked after and that also here security was lacking. Our guide told us to walk only where there were other people and to not even take our camera with us.
Once the goal was reached, it was time to leave. We left Barra de Santo Antônio for Porto de Pedras, also in Alagoas. We wanted to get to know the beaches Patacho and Lage that were highly rated in our guide books.
On the way (what takes about 1 hour by car, took us about 3 by bus) I realized that I knew very little about Alagoas. The only thing I remembered was that it was the home state of Fernando Collor de Mello, the only Brazilian president who had been removed from office because of corruption.
This is why we decided to find out more about the history of this piece of land, whose waters are so beautiful you don’t want to look away. We found out that the state was called Alagoas because the Portuguese had really liked its lakes (lagoa is lake in Portuguese); that it used to belong to the Captaincy of Pernambuco and that is was also occupied by the French and the Dutch, not just by the Portuguese; that in one of its mountains ridges, the Serra da Barriga, run-away slaves had established the Quilombo dos Palmares, a centennial movement of black resistance against slavery led by the legendary Zumbi.
We also found out that in economic terms little had changed since the times of the sugar mills (engenhos) and slavery. The main economic activities of the state today are the same as during those times: sugar and cattle. What we saw along the roads confirmed this. Starting in Penedo in the extreme South of the state until the Northern Coast the landscape is almost always the same: sugar cane plantations and cattle farms as far as the eye can see!
Crossing the state by bus we saw another similarity with former times: Power and wealth continue to be concentrated in the hands of a few. The villages along the roads and next to the sugar refineries are almost always a mix of small poor houses, half naked children, people without teeth and very little infrastructure. The disparity between rich and poor in Alagoas somewhat explains a very obvious problem: trash.
We were troubled by the amount of trash ever since Maceió. There, we spent one morning riding rental bikes along the city beaches. While the sea presented itself in an almost Caribbean green, the sand beaches were littered with pieces of plastic, PET bottles and many other objects.
Our trip until the Northern shore of Alagoas did not revert our first impression. In the bus between Barra de Santo Antônio and Porto de Pedras a lady passed – without the slightest bit of embarrassment – 2 empty coke cans to her daughter to throw out of the window. Also the streets of the villages were littered with trash.
The scene reminded us of the lesson we had learned talking to Roy: poverty is one of the worst enemies of nature. After traveling through the interior of Alagoas and seeing the trash associated with poverty, we understood that it is not possible to establish a more harmonious relationship between humans and nature without at the same time re-evaluating the relationship humans have with other humans.
When we asked about activities fighting local poverty, we heard lots of stories about corruption, exemplifying that a majority of the upper and political class does not care about the poverty surrounding them. According to locals, a bridge that would link the two parts of Barra de Santo Antônio is under construction for over 10 years and probably cost 5 times more than necessary. In Porto de Pedras the local elections for mayor were nullified because of irregularities… and so forth.
This reality also directly affected our trip through Alagoas. The touristic infrastructure leaves much to be desired and many times there are very few mid-range accommodation options. When we arrived in Porto de Pedras we had to walk about 2 hours with our backpacks to find a place to stay. The town had few options that were cheap and clean and to get to the better pousadas, we would have needed a car.
To not leave Alagoas without getting to know the side that makes thousands of tourists go there every year, however, we decided to spend more money than planned. We ended up spending a weekend in one of the pousadas de charme of the region, the Pousada Patacho. When we arrived (the owner Christian had picked us up in Porto de Pedras), there was no doubt that we had arrived in paradise. Paradise had been very close all this time. We just had to spend more and join the elites of Alagoas and the rest of the country. As if that was not enough and to confirm our feeling, a white cat called Margot welcomed us!
The Pousada Patacho is situated directly on the Patacho beach. This beach and the one called Lage are among the last uninhabited beaches of Brazil and are surrounded by coral reefs and natural pools that form in the reefs. The color of the sea is of a very light green that fills the heart with peace.
On top of its location, the pousada is a show in itself. We enjoyed it for its good taste, great service, the food of its Chef Dudu, its philosophy and the friendliness of its owner Christian. It was worth every penny: if you are ready to spend money, Alagoas is a piece of paradise!
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