Se você vai viajar para Maceió, confira nossas dicas! Versão completa em português aqui.
In September this year (2019) we went to Maceió, capital of Alagoas, Brazil.
Who went along?
From right to left, it’s me, Fer Montalvão, Jaque Ribeiro, Felipe Montalvão and his girlfriend, Tamiris Alves.
Hint: make plans in advance. As we bought our tickets one year before the trip, we managed to pay around R$350,00 for the round ticket (brazilian currency), leaving from São Paulo city, Guarulhos airport, going to Maceió airport, with a two-hour layover in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil.
For curiosity, we checked the price of the same ticket a few months before the trip, that is the way people are used to doing, and the price was between R$900 and R$2500,00, for economy flights!
Money saved buying tickets in advance: R$550,00
Other interesting point, if you have the option, avoid traveling during the main seasons, as December, January and July, and holidays, obviously.
Money saved buying tickets out of main seasons: a lot. kkk
During our trip, we rent a car at Movida. By making a reservation in advance, there was no substantial discount. Arriving at the airport, we went to the Airbnb where we had a reservation, everybody was tired. Our flight had delayed two hours for taking off, we arrived very late in Maceió.
Jaqueline and I had an Azul round trip ticket. On the way back, Felipe and Tamiris flew through Latam. They said Azul’s snack is pretty better.
Hint: we arrived late in Maceió and decided to go to a grocery store which was open 24 hours to buy some groceries for the next day, in special fruits. The prices were almost two times as the conventional. Avoid it.
First day – Praia do Carro Quebrado (Broken Car Beach)
On the first day, we were decided to go to the Broken Car Beach. On the way, there were many touristic guides, accredited or not, willing to take you there. The access to this beach is hard. When it was time to take the exit, we ended up stopping for one of them, and fortunately, we met the guide Adalberon, who is very famous as Padre Marcelo Rossi. He’s got many recommendations on famous trip websites, he is talented. We were lucky for finding him.
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When we got down from the lookout to the beach, we realized the symbol of the beach was a Fusca, what was reason for jokes – Felipe had a Fusca for years, and it was broken all the time kkk.
Padre Marcelo helped us to enjoy our trip, showed us points we hadn’t observed, and also showed us the famous stones people use to paint their bodies, and got us some nice pictures.
This beach has already been chosen as one of the ten most beautiful beaches in Brazil. It is worth the visit.
Hint: go early in the morning. When it is around 2 p.m. it gets desert, due to the hard access. And eat right before going there, there are no restaurants over there, just a man in a van who sells “bolinho de macaxeira”, it is a kind of a fried snack made of cassava, before you get down to the beach.
Second day – tour on the Rua dos Bordados (embroidery street)
While we waited for the girls finishing their shopping, Felipe and I stayed talking near an access to the sea, there were many people riding a jet-ski in this area – what seemed to be pretty cool, no one had ever riden a jet ski on the sea. Probably there was a marina or a jet rental nearby.
Despite Jaqueline and Felipe have amateur Arrais, a required license to pilot motorboats and ride jets, they decided not to try it this time.
We had lunch at the famous Imperador dos Camarões (Shrimps Emperor). They have a famous and original dish that they even decided to register its trademark. It is called Chiclete de Camarão (Shrimp Bubble Gum), which is “The authentic, recipe created by the Emperor in 2000. Obs; Registered dish. Salted in palm oil, in the five cheese sauce, with melt cheese on the top, it comes with white rice and French fries or potato sticks.”
Felipe and Tamiris chose this dish. Jaque and I chose Camarão Framboesa (Raspberry Shrimp). These two dishes were the best things we ever tasted in our lives – everything seemed to make sense after that, the purpose of life was eating shrimps in fancy restaurants!
After that, we spent the rest of the evening on Pajuçara beach, where people close the main avenue, so there are no cars on Sundays. There are only pedestrians and people riding a bike. There were a lot of people, including a street musician playing there. People were very delighted to listen to him (video below).
Pictures of the day:
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Third day – Praia do Gunda e falésicas (Gunga’s Beach and cliffs)
One of the nicest days. We paid about R$100,00 for each quadricycle, leaving from Gunga’s beach towards the cliffs.
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Fourth day– someone stealed us
Yes, you read it correctly. There was a theft in our house. On that day, Jaque and I woke up around 08 a.m., and when it was around 10 Felipe and Tamiris were still sleeping.
We decided to go to the city market without them. We were told that things were cheap there, and there were a great variety of fruits and cashew nuts.
The place looked like India. The traffic was chaotic, it was very crowded. After we managed to park, we started having a look at the products. A lot of cheap stuff actually.
After buying some stuff, we got a call from Felipe. He told us, sounding like he had run a marathon, someone had broken into our house.
When it was around 11 he went to a drugstore with Tamiris. This person who decided to break in in our house probably stayed out there watching us for hours or even more than a day. When Felipe left, the thief thought he was going to take long. But the drugstore was on the corner, and after 15 minutes Felipe was back.
The building had about 6 apartments. On the stairs, Felipe saw a very sweaty man, dressed in social clothes, going down very fast. Felipe even said “good morning”. when he got to the apartment’s door, he realized the door was open, immediately he started chasing the man.
The man was very thin and very fast. When Felipe got to the building’s entrance door, he had already left – it was a door which was only opened by someone who had a key, it wasn’t a conventional doorknob.
When Felipe got back to the apartment, he he realized what he described as a terible mess in my luggage (which was a mess I made myself, and not the thief kkk). He also realized one of the windows was open, and he had closed all of them before leaving to the drugstore.
There was no sign of breaking-in. The mean probably got in our apartment, opened a window in order to be able to hear when someone closed the entrance door and started looking for money in our stuff. Another interesting point is that he only took R$250,00 from the R$450,00 available in the same place.
We believe he had been doing that for a while. He gets in, steals some money from people, and as they are on vacation, they end up having a worse control over their expenses, they believe they spend the money in other occasions.
We told that on Airbnb’s website so people could be aware. We didn’t have our money back, we were refunded just the money we spent on the day of the house – because we spent the whole day waiting for changing the doorlock and going to the police station to register what had just happened..
Well, this day’s pictures are Jaque holding a 1 kg package of cashew nut for R$35,00 in “feirinha do artesanato” (a place with several small stores) on Pajuçara Beach kkkk and everybody together at Sal and Brasa barbecue house, which is a mandatory local to be visited for those who love barbecue. There was a pianist that night, who provided us with a delighting music, playing classics of great bands like Queen.
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The second part of this article, about the trip to São Miguel dos Milagres and Maragogi, continues here.
Please leave your comment below, on which other tours should we have gone? What is the most beautiful beach in your opinion? Which is the most delicious/ exotic that you have already eaten in this region? Do you think it was possible to avoid the theft situation? How? We want to know your opinion!
