Why the name "Porto de Galinhas?"

Porto de Galinhas literally means "Chicken Port." The city used to be called Porto Rico. This changed when Brasil outlawed slave trade. The slave trade market was big in the northeastern part of Brasil and so slaves would continually be smuggled in. One place where this happened in a big quantity was the Port of Porto Rico.

Obviously the slave traders couldn't openly go against the law of Brasil so they hid the slaves on their ships and also brought in a great number of chickens. When asked what they were bringing in they would show all the chickens and state that they were chicken venders.

I read where, once they arrived, they would let slave buyers know that new slaves had arrived by going to the beach and using the following code, "There are new chickens in the port."

So the name changed from Porto Rico to Porto de Galinhas.

Our tour guide told us one day that they aren't proud of the history of this name but it stuck and so they make sure they tell the story so that no one forgets the history involved with the city.

Although there isn't pride in the way the city was named, the city won't let you forget the name. Even if you didn't have a clue as to the name of the city, after a 5 minute walk through the main street you would gather it had something to do with the flightless chicken as noted by the slide show below. We took these pictures in the city on our first day there.

Back to our Trip-The First Couple of Days

The weather wasn't great the first couple of days we were in Porto de Galinhas. This worked out well for us as it allowed us to just chill out and enjoy some shopping and exploring in the city.On our first day we enjoyed a great lunch at a restaurant called "Peixe na Telha" or "Fish on the Roofing Tile". We, of course, ordered the fish on the roof tile.

I'm not a big fish eater and I loved it. There was no fish left over after we finished. Benay said the mashed potatos were the best she had ever had. We had a great lunch with a great view.
We then went and visited more of the town.

It's a pretty simple little town. Someone told me the city has about 5,000 people living in it. The city was about a 10 minute drive from our resort.

On of the common things about wherever you go in Brasil is that there are always people asking you for money. It's done in different ways and there are many different, creative ways that Brasilians do this.

A man came up to me as I was sitting on a bench waiting for Benay to come out of a store. He asked where I was from. I said the United States (normally we say Porto Alegre) thinking this might stump him in coming up with a song but he went right to it with a good song full of American things including President Bush. Impressive.

We saw this man selling cashews out of his wheelbarrow.

Then in front of every store there seemed to be these little guys carrying leaves from coconut trees and following people. We discovered that they would come up to you and present you with something, "as a gift", and then keep following you and asking for any money you might want to give them.The first one we saw do this was a little guy who was right outside of the restaurant where we ate lunch. When we came out we saw that he was making something with his leaves.

We started taking pictures and he then made some things for Benay out of the coconut leaves. As Benay spoke with him, he told her he was 13, went to school in the morning and did this in the afternoon. We couldn't count the number of young boys trying to earn money by selling these things on the streets. He made a rose and a cricket. Very impressive. We had a great time visiting the city. At the end of the day we were tired but, as we say, "it was a good tired." It was a good start to the week.

The Journey to Porto de Galinhas

Philippians 4:6-"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

Why start this blog about our recent trip with that verse? You'll understand after we explain about our first day of the trip.

Since we've been married, Benay and I have never taken a trip together (just the two of us) for longer than 4-5 days. We've been blessed to take quite a few 1-2 day trips but never one that lasted a week. So, we were both trying not to be anxious about getting away but we were anxious to begin our week together.

One thing that excited us about this trip was that we were going to be leaving at 6:45 in the morning. It was going to take about 5 hours to get there (with one layover) and so leaving that early was going to make it possible for us to be on the beach on the same day.

We got to the airport at 5:15 and we were met with this:

A 2 mile long line waiting to go to our airline check in. "Do not be anxious about anything." A beautiful thing about Brasil is that they always move the elderly, the handicapped, women with kids in their laps and PREGNANT women to the front of the line. I love this about Brasil. We've literally been pushed to the front of lines before, by other waiting customers, because of our kids or because of Benay being pregnant. So, we moved in front of all these people and were checked in 5 minutes later. At 5:45 we were done.

As we left the check in woman said, as we were leaving, "You'll be called to board as soon as the runway is opened up."

Okay thank you......................what?

Benay didn't even hear that part and I barely did. What was she talking about? This is what she was talking about:Heavy fog had cancelled all flights. "Do not be anxious about anything."

So we settled in and enjoyed a little reading and drinking some beverages while we waited on what would surely be just an hour or two delay. Then 7:00 became 8:00 and 8:00 moved to 9:00 and no call for us to board. About 8:30 the fog started to clear and they began to call the 1st of 4 flights, that were scheduled ahead of us, to begin boarding. We were hoping that by 9:30 we'd be rolling.

Then there was another delay. The people had boarded the first couple of planes and were ready to take off but couldn't because of birds on the runway. Are you kidding me? Birds? Another delay. "Do not be anxious about anything."

What do you do when you can't take off because of birds? You call the cops.

I know it's hard to see but in the photo above you can see a police truck on the runway with a policeman in front of the truck. I think he popped off a few rounds to chase away the birds. Whatever he did it worked. Here's (below) the first plane taking off on the far runway with the police truck on the closer runway.

Now we have to be close to our turn to leave. We then saw one plane leave and then the next and before we knew it, we couldn't see any more planes from our airline. I started thinking of the Seinfeld episode when George kept screaming, "Serenity Now!!" I needed a little bit of that right now. No planes? Is this a joke?

No joke. We then saw them post the notice below. We are the second flight down from the top. You can see that it says going to Recife and that it was scheduled to go at 6:45 and now was scheduled at.........10:50. "Do not be anxious about anything." Benay didn't seem to be having such a hard time dealing with the delays as I did. As we talked about not being anxious during this delay we reminded each other that God had a purpose for the delay. I began to feel the anxious feelings go away and I started to enjoy my delay time with my wife. We reminded each other that even though we weren't on the plane we were still on our vacation. This helped both of us as we enjoyed more time together while eating a snack......

.......and reading.......

......and more reading.

We finally left Porto Alegre at 11:15 and made it to Recife and we arrived only 3:15 later than was scheduled. For some reason we skipped the short layover we were scheduled to have and the pilot told us he would get us there faster than planned because we had a good wind with us. We arrived safely and praised God for teaching us even more about turning everything over to Him. Something about being near the ocean helps release any anxiety as well doesn't it? Within a few minutes of walking on the beach we had already forgotten our hectic day.

We're Home

On July 16 Benay and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We always take a small trip somewhere on our anniversary and, as has become our custom, we try to take a really good vacation on the 5's. Over the last 2-3 years we've been saving money, when possible, that people have given us for our birthdays, Christmas or just as gifts. These people made it possible for us to take a really great trip this last week.

We went to a place called "Porto de Galinhas" or "Chicken Port" (we'll explain later) in the northeastern part of our country. The distance between this city and ours is roughly the same distance between New York city and Los Angeles, just to give an idea.

We are a little tired but had an incredible week. Over the next few days we will blog some about our trip. God's beauty in this place is too incredible not to share and, who knows, it might help some people to learn a little bit more about Brasil and want to come and visit this great country.

Here is a little picture I found on the internet that gives you an idea of what it looked like in the area where we went. It was warm there and we were happy to escape the cold of our city for a week.