Once a quaint fishing village, Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, has watched as traces of its sleepy origins fade into yesteryear. Although the pace of life is still welcomingly calm on off days, easy village rhythms have been replaced by the modern buzz of vacationing crowds that flood in on holidays and weekends. This should come as no surprise for a place unanimously declared the country’s best beach for 10 years running. After all, where else is there such an incredible combination of a near-equatorial coastal location, natural pools a stone’s throw from the beach and ecological trails all within close proximity to the major state capital of Recife.

During low tide, natural swimming pools are easily reached on foot from Brazil's Porto de Galinhas village. Photo courtesy of the Secretary of Porto de Galinhas

In an effort to maintain its reputation as THE best beach in Brazil, the area’s infrastructure has been strategically developed to keep pace with the influx of holidaymakers. There is a plethora of Porto de Galinhas hotels, plus plenty of resorts ready to accommodate suntanned and beach-beaten guests looking to relax indoors. One option with a good reputation is Ecoporto, which is run by a welcoming couple from Southern Brazil. This pousada (Brazilian guesthouse) is located far enough outside the bustling town centre to escape the noise, but still within strolling distance of its restaurants and shops.

There are tons of things to see and do in Porto de Galinhas. Top of the list for most visitors is lazing on the idyllic white sands as waves break over the surrounding reefs, although gazing at beautiful fish in natural pools and diving to explore lost shipwrecks are both available as options. One truly amazing experience is observing seahorses in their natural habitat on a kayaking trip through the Maracaípe mangroves before paddling out to where the Maracaípe River meets the ocean.

Alternatively for those who like to feel the wind in their hair and the sand beneath their feet, jumping on a three-hour or full-day Buggy Tour is a wonderful way to explore the beaches in the area, while allowing the freedom to stop at will for a stroll on the shoreline.

Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, means 'Port of Chickens'. In the 18th century, when the slave trade was outlawed in Brazil, the traffic continued in this port town. The code for explaining that a shipment had arrived was 'new chickens were in town.' Courtesy of Pedro Paulo Capelossi

No matter what you do, most days are finished off in the same way – with caipirinha drinks at a local watering hole.

The whl.travel local connection in Porto de Galinhas is Pedro Paulo Capelossi and his team at Trip Noronha, who also cover the Brazilian island paradise of Fernando de Noronha. “I am pleased to finally bring the local community and small inns of Porto de Galinhas the technological tools to reach a market they never could before,” said Capelossi. “Our mission, in addition to bringing quality information to travellers, is to encourage sustainable tourism in this region where it is still not a common focus for many tourism providers and accommodations.”

As with any booming tourist destination, many suppliers in Porto de Galinhas are driven by the ever-mighty bottom line. However, in the name of truly responsible tourism, Pedro seeks out tour providers and accommodation operators working toward improving the sustainability of this gorgeous beach destination by hiring local people, recycling, utilising green energy systems and improving awareness of the local culture.

As an avid diver, Pedro’s responsible practices extend to his concern for Brazil’s oceans. Over the years he has completed over 5,000 dives and accompanied over 20,000 divers. Trip Noronha has also been involved with noteworthy projects like the Spinner Dolphin Project and conservation efforts for rehabilitating overused dive sites in Fernando de Noronha.

www.portodegalinhas.travel is the latest addition to the ever-growing network of destinations covered by whl.travel partners all over Brazil.

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EM PORTUGUÊS / IN PORTUGUESE:

Outrora uma exótica aldeia de pescadores, Porto de Galinhas assistiu com o tempo os traços das suas origens singulares desaparecerem no passado. Embora o ritmo de vida ainda seja tranquilamente convidativo em certos dias, a aldeia teve os compassos substituídos pelo buzz moderno das férias e multidões que a inundam em feriados e fins de semana. Isso não deve ter sido nenhuma surpresa para um lugar que por unanimidade foi escolhido como a melhor praia do país por 10 anos seguidos. Afinal, aonde mais existe esta combinação incrível de um local paradisíaco, com piscinas naturais a poucos passos da praia e várias trilhas ecológicas? E tudo nas proximidades de uma capital de estado.

Em um esforço contínuo para manter a sua reputação como a melhor praia do Brasil a infraestrutura da região foi desenvolvida para manter o ritmo com o fluxo de turistas. Existe uma infinidade de hotéis em Porto de Galinhas, além de resorts prontos para acomodar os que procuram relaxamento. Uma opção com boa reputação é Ecoporto, que é gerido por um casal do sul do Brasil. Esta pousada está localizada distante o suficiente do centro da cidade para escapar da agitação, mas ainda assim a curta distância dos seus restaurantes e lojas.

The locals have capitalised on the town's catchy name and craft chickens can be found all over the village, even though the name is rooted in a time of slavery. Courtesy of Pedro Paulo Capelossi

Há várias coisas para ver e fazer em Porto de Galinhas. No topo da lista para a maioria dos visitantes é espreguiçar nas areias brancas enquanto as ondas quebram sobre os recifes ao redor, contemplar belos peixes nas piscinas naturais ou mergulhar para explorar nasvios naufragados são passeios disponíveis. Uma experiência verdadeiramente surpreendente é observar os cavalos-marinhos em seu habitat natural em uma viagem de caiaque pelo mangue de Maracaípe antes de remar para fora, onde o Rio Maracaípe encontra o oceano.

Alternativamente, para aqueles que gostam de sentir o vento em seus cabelos e a areia sob seus pés, um passeio de buggy de três horas ou um passeio de Buggy o dia todo é uma maneira maravilhosa de explorar as praias da região.

Não importa o que você faça, pois na maioria das vezes os dias terminam da mesma forma – com caipirinha em um bar!

Agora, além do portal WHL de Fernando de Noronha, Pedro Paulo Capelossi, da Trip Noronha compartilhou conosco como ele está “satisfeito de finalmente trazer ás comunidades locais e pequenas pousadas de Porto de Galinhas, as ferramentas tecnológicas para alcançar um mercado nunca antes explorado. A nossa missão, além de trazer informações de qualidade aos viajantes, é promover o turismo sustentável na região, pois ainda não é uma prática comum de muitas pousadas e prestadores de turismo locais”.

Com o crescimento do turismo em Porto de Galinhas, as grandes operadoras turísticas começaram a comercializar o destino de forma desordenada, e é aonde a verdadeira essência do turismo sustentável entra em jogo. Pedro procura trabalhar com fornecedores que tenham a preocupação em desenvolver um turismo sustentável a fim de preservar o destino, contratando mão de obra local, reciclagem de lixo, utilizando energia solar, evidenciando os aspectos da cultura local. Pedro é um instrutor de mergulho experiente, com mais de 5000 mergulhos e já acompanhou mais de 20.000 mergulhadores de todo o mundo. A Trip Noronha apóia e já auxiliou projetos como o Projeto Golfinho Rotador, e também participou da exploração de novos pontos de mergulho para reabilitar pontos de mergulho já saturados em Fernando de Noronha.

www.portodegalinhas.travel tem muito orgulho de participar de uma extensa rede de destinos já lançados no Brasil.

Ecotourism for people in wheelchairs? You may wonder what that looks like, how it’s done. You’d be pleasantly surprised to learn that in many destinations there are efforts in place to improve tourism infrastructure to better serve people with disabilities. Brazil is one such example.

Accessible Tourism

Travel and Tourism is recognized as the largest service sector industry, and as such it is imperative that people of all ages and abilities are allowed access to its activities. Accessible Tourism is a movement that has evolved to represent this important concept, as well as to represent a group that is too often denied desired travel experiences due to inaccessibility and a lack of knowledge at many destinations worldwide. Groups such as the European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT) promote extended travel opportunities for people with disabilities by establishing partnerships, networks, educational material and certifications/guidelines pertaining to the accessibility of service sector facilities and operations.

Accessible Tourism recognizes the universal right to participate in tourism by having access to “independent travel, accessible facilities, trained staff, reliable information and inclusive marketing,” and notes its wide-spread benefits. “Accessible tourism benefits everyone. More individuals enjoy the opportunity to travel; the tourism industry gets more visitors, longer seasons and new incomes. Society as a whole benefits from new job opportunities, more tax revenue and an accessible environment for both inhabitants and visitors.” (ENAT, 2011)

Virtual Accessible Tourism Project

Thankfully, these days one can find many accommodations and operators in Brazil that have adapted their facilities to receive individuals with decreased or limited mobility. Recently the Brazilian company Acessivel – Turismo Adaptado (Accessible – Adapted Tourism) has developed a new project featuring an online tour guide for travelers with reduced mobility.

This unique guide, only in Portuguese for now, is posted online through oviajanteespecial.blogspot.com and will soon become a website with information about Brazilian accessible tourism destinations. The aim of this guide is to enable people with disability and reduced mobility to travel throughout Brazil. Adriana Braun, who uses a wheelchair herself, is responsible for coordinating this project.

Adriana Braun: Active Adventurer on a Wheelchair

In 2001, Adriana was the first person in a wheelchair to travel to the Fernando de Noronha islands, a popular ecotourism destination in Brazil. Adriana realized that with a little guidance and specific training for local guides and service sector employees, accommodations could improve their offerings so that people in wheelchairs may travel more. Thus began her instrumental work in accessible ecotourism. For Adriana, ecotourism and responsible travel experiences represent an excellent tool for rehabilitation to people in wheelchairs.

Accessible Ecotourism in Brazil

Fortunately there are many ecotourism destinations in Brazil that can be visited by people in wheelchairs, yet there is one that deserves special mention: the beach settlement of Itacaré, in the region of Bahia on the eastern coast of Brazil.

Itacaré is revered as one of the most beautiful places on the coast of Bahia. It is synonymous with beautiful beaches and relatively few people, protected Atlantic forests, pristine rivers, amazing waterfalls, and a very lively town during the summer. Nowadays this small town of Bahia is very popular with visitors, and especially surfers, who are attracted to the local beaches and their famously rough waves.

If you are a traveler in a wheelchair and want to visit Itacaré, you can be assured that there are many opportunities for accessible tourism and recreation in the area. Many local service operators have met with trained ecotourism guides and consultants in order to enable them to better cater to the needs of travelers with special needs. Because of this, it is possible for people in wheelchairs to go hiking in the local forests, to visit the beautiful beaches, to walk in the mangroves, to visit stunning waterfalls and even to enjoy adventure sports such as rafting.

Giving It a Spin

The spinner dolphin is a tropical oceanic dolphin that lives in groups numbering three to more than two thousand individuals. Of the 37 different dolphin species, it is the third most abundant in the world and is named for its tendency to shoot out of the water and complete as many as seven rotations whilst airborne.

The dolphins usually surface during boat rides, showing off their acrobatics skills as they leap out of the water and putting on a real show. The stunts they perform are more than simply fun; they’re an important form of signalling, drawing the attention of the boat, which, in turn, protects the rest of the pod from potential predators. The communication system consists of different types of jumps and beats made with the body on the surface of the water, producing turbulence when the dolphin completes its dive.

The daily routine for the spinner dolphins in Fernando de Noronha involves feeding, primarily during the night, followed by a morning relocating to the appropriately named Dolphins Bay. They arrive in the bay at sunrise and depart for various feeding areas in the afternoon.

Seeing and Understanding through the Spinner Dolphin Project

Dolphins Bay (Baia dos Golfinhos), located off Sancho Beach, is a top destination for dolphin spotters. The bay’s waters are the calmest and deepest in the entire archipelago, ranging from 0 to 25 metres but averaging about 15 meters in the centre. The floor of the bay is composed predominantly of volcanic sands with scattered rocks and can be accessed by a single trail that offers a good vantage point from which to observe the activities of the spinner dolphins. One ideal point from which to observe Dolphins Bay is Dolphin Lookout, set 55 metres above sea level. It can be reached via a one-kilometre-long walking trail that begins in a parking lot at Sancho Bay.

Sancho Bay, on Fernando de Noronha, has what many consider to be one of the county's 10 best beaches

Early in the morning is the best time to visit. Between 5:30am and 8am the dolphins can be seen entering the bay, sometimes engaging in communication activity. Monday through Saturday, from 5:30am until one hour after the last dolphin leaves the bay, researchers from the Spinner Dolphin Project (Projeto Golfinho Rotador) are on hand to help visitors understand the dolphins’ behaviours. They explain the importance of Dolphins Bay by answering questions, giving information and providing binoculars for a closer look (usually available from 7am).

The Spinner Dolphin Project was established in 1990 and strives to develop environmental awareness in the local population, train local teenagers to work in ecotourism, promote research of the natural history and behaviour of dolphins in Fernando de Noronha, study the interaction of the dolphins with nautical tourism, propose standards for the preservation of spinner dolphins and propose and implement actions aimed at conserving the area in general.

It is a wide-reaching partnership that includes the Aquatic Mammal Centre, which is a specialised centre for the study of marine fauna, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation and the Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment. The centre is a non-governmental environmental organisation of Fernando de Noronha and is sponsored by the Petrobras oil company.

The spinner dolphin is common to the waters of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, and most famous for its acrobatic displays. Some have been seen completing 14 spinning jumps one after another.

Local Tourism Involvement

Trip Noronha, my locally based tour company, interacts often with the Spinner Dolphins Project. We make every effort to promote their admirable initiatives whenever we can. My experience as a dive instructor has been utilised by the programme on several occasions to help maintain buoys in Dolphins Bay. As Fernando de Noronha is well known as a diver’s paradise and many of our tours use dive sites near Dolphins Bay, visitors need to know the correct way to behave underwater near dolphins. Our tour guides are therefore responsible for educating guests about these beautiful animals, not only for the sake of safety but also to increase awareness of the dolphins and the issues they face.

We are thrilled to have the resources of the Spinner Dolphin Project in Fernando de Noronha dedicated to actively spreading knowledge about the correct way to coexist with this amazing species. In the future, I hope to see more organisations such as this one becoming active the length of the northeastern coast of Brazil since the spinner dolphins are free roaming and should be protected in all of their habitats.

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For more information about the Spinner Dolphin Project in Brazil and anything else in Fernando de Noronha, including accommodations, tours, activities and lots of insider tips, contact your local whl.travel connection: Pedro Capelossi and the team from Trip Noronha.

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Visit the whl.travel Flickr photostream for a set of more pictures of Fernando de Noronha, including a previous Photo of the Week of eagle spotted rays.

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This kind of ray is normally seen in schools and is, for me, one of the most beautiful animals. Fortunately they are easily captured on film because they allow us to get close.

For the lovers of underwater photography, Fernando de Noronha is one of the best places in the world to take nice shots because of the huge diversity of marine animals and the superb water visibility (about 20 metres).

Visit the whl.travel Flickr photostream for a set of more pictures of Fernando de Noronha.

To learn more about Pedro Paulo Godoy Capelossi and his work in Fernando de Noronha, read this interview with him on Jungle Drums Online.

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If you thought visiting Brazil in summer was all about crowded beaches and hordes of tourists, think again! The tiny island of Fernando de Noronha, 340km off the northeast coast of Brazil is a peaceful gem waiting to be discovered. With the government limiting the number of visitors to 420 people at any one time in order to preserve the pristine environment, you’ll find unspoiled beaches, secluded bays, stunning sunsets and spectacular marine life.

Another awesome sunset from Forte Nossa Senhora Dos Remédios on Fernando de Noronha

A lot has been said about Fernando de Noronha’s sunsets, as it’s the only place in Brazil where you can see the sun swallowed by the sea. However, what many don’t know is that another phenomenon, just as beautiful, takes place right after it, on the other side of the island… the moon rising! Ask locals for the moon rising time and go to the viewpoint at “Buraco da Raquel” (Raquel’s Hole), the only place to watch this incredible sight. To get there take a bus or a taxi to the Shark`s Museum or Port Santo Antonio, the last stop of the bus line (bus – BRL3.50 / buggy – BRL10.00).

Fernando de Noronha’s pristine waters are a haven for divers and marine enthusiasts. However, if you miss your close encounter with a shark whilst diving, head to “Anpesca” (Noronha’s Fishing Association). Every afternoon just before sunset, fishing boats dock in Anpesca’s pier to clean their catches. You can imagine the agitation! Around the edge of the rocks are lemon sharks, sandpaper sharks, butter rays and other big fish fighting for the leftovers. The sharks sometimes actually run ashore in their frenzy, making for great pictures. Take a bus or a taxi to the Shark`s Museum or Port Santo Antonio (bus – BRL3.50 / buggy – BRL10.00), and try to arrive before 7pm for a closer view.

What a reward: the view of Dolphins Bay after a pleasant hike

One of the most sought after trips on Fernando de Noronha is the trail to Baía dos Golfinhos (Dolphins’ Bay). The conventional outing starts at 5am to see the dolphins entering the bay after their long night hunting in the outer sea. However, if you’re not a morning person, don’t worry; the dolphins play in the bay until around noon. You can even go without a guide as the trail is clean and well signposted.

Fernando de Noronha has some great restaurant options, such as Zé Maria Inn’s, Maravilha Inn’s, and Teju-Açú Inn’s. However, there is also a little-divulged restaurant called Palhoça da Colina (‘Hill’s Shanty’). With capacity for only 10 people and only one table and no chairs, this unknown hideaway is a local favourite, open by appointment only. Customers are invited to sit on cushions around the table and savour the delicious seafood options. The view from the restaurant is beautiful and the atmosphere pleasant and cosy. Reserve through your pousada, or visit their website.

A meal being prepared at Palhoça da Colina

Whilst there are no direct international flights, getting to Fernando de Noronha is fairly straightforward by plane, with regular one-hour flights operated by Varig Airlines and Trip Airlines departing from Recife and Natal on Brazil’s northeast coast. All flights on arrival circle the island to align with the runway. Passengers sitting on the plane’s left side get panoramic views of the archipelago – a great opportunity to take incredible pictures.

For more information about Fernando de Noronha, including accommodations, tours, activities and lots of insider tips, contact your local whl.travel connection: Pedro Capelossi and the team from Trip Noronha at www.noronha.travel. Trip Noronha works tirelessly with locals and tourists to ensure the ongoing preservation of the island’s untouched natural environment.