ALAGOAS (04)
On the Way to Praia do Gunga I
Destination Maceió, capital of the state of Alagoas.
Episode 4. On the way to the paradisaical Gunga Beach.
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The Minas ‘Corner': marked with a banner,
complete with cheese, cachaça, and the
red triangle of the state flag.
Introduction
After our first encounter with the beaches of Maceió – Ponta Verde Beach got the honor to be the first -, we met other students who literally had arrived from all directions within the Brazilian borders. From Santa Catarina, who had hitchhiked with our bus; from Bahia, for them it was a travel ‘just around the corner'; from Amazonas, she had to pay an expensive airplane ticket; from Ceará, a relatively short bus travel, and our group from mountainous Minas Gerais, who had to cross the mountains of Minas and the interior of Bahia. For me, it was a very interesting encounter with a variety of cultures and habits from different Brazilian corners. During the following days, I would meet and travel with small groups of students from different states. The introduction party took place on the university campus, an open air party. We regularly had to seek shelter for another downpour that night. Like Brazilians herrings in a small wooden barrel, we stood tight to each other, under a small roof. It was anything but silent, percussion instruments kept on producing their rhythms.
A bus travel through the green sugar cane fields
Bus travel
Our bus drivers offered us an interesting, low-cost day trip. We only had to pay the fuel. We gathered our group, and the group quickly increased with interested students from other states. Almost all bus seats became occupied. The destination of that day was Praia do Gunga, one of the favorite beaches of the bus drivers. We left the campus at nine-thirty. The distance from the campus to Gunga Beach is about fifty kilometers. From Downtown Maceió, the distance is pretty much shorter, about thirty-three kilometers. The bus travel went to Barra de São Miguel, on the AL-1010 highway. The bus drove a bit too far, past a bridge crossing a river, and the bus had to turn on the narrow highway. A piece of a cake for our experienced bus drivers. In a while the bus was turned in the opposite direction. They then quickly discovered the entry of the fazenda, from where a secondary road leads to the beach. At the entrance, there were welcome texts in various languages: English, Spanish, and even German. This beach must have a nice international reputation. The bus driver negotiated with the sentry, about the entrance fee. We were admitted to enter, for one real per person. The road was not paved, the low branches scraped against the roof of the bus. The bus bumped over the holes and bumps in the unpaved road. About fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the entrance of one of the most paradisaical Brazilian beaches that I have witnessed….
The raining season was in full progress
Rolling hills with vast sugar cane fields
Flooded thanks to excessive rain.
From little streams….
To large rivers that divide the greenish landscape.
Fishermen along the river margins…
By Adriano Antoine Robbesom
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