The Right Side of Manguinhos Beach

Usually when Mark and I walk on "our" beach of Manguinhos, we turn left towards the commerce and the restaurants. It just seems more natural to head in that direction, and it’s an efficient and ecological way to get our shopping done. We rarely turn right, since, well, there’s no there there. And in order to walk to the right at all, you need an extreme low tide. But if we do manage to make the effort, and make the right turn, we are abundantly rewarded. The right side of Manguinhos Beach is exactly what many people yearn for in a beach: empty, quiet, remote, teeming with unusual vegetation, and even a little spooky.
                                                                                                                                                                                                 

               Lots of empty expanse.

Then all of a sudden, there’s a small, discrete mangrove right smack dab in the middle of nothing.

Most Búzios beaches are lined with huge mansions. These houses are more modest, if not totally abandoned. They do have a certain charm, though.

 No sense calling this meeting to order . . .

I never had the honor of meeting this surprising and surprised visitor to Manguinhos Beach. But ever since he was spotted wandering down our beach, and photographed by a courageous person for the local paper, I keep my eyes wide open!

            


                            ***NOTE TO READERS***
I’m taking a little hiatus for a few weeks. See you all around mid-July!

Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

There are three piers in our bay, though as best I can tell only one is used as a pier. That’s the Fishermen’s Pier, so-called because it juts out into the bay from the fish market and was originally meant to make life easier for the fishermen. This pier, a real tourist attraction here on Manguinhos Beach, sits off to the left of our house. To the right of our house is a private pier built by Barracuda Resort, a once-glamorous but now rather faded, resort hotel. Their Web site advertises this second pier as "a private jetty for your boat and for fishing." In ten years we’ve never seen anyone use it, not for tying up a boat, not for fishing, not for walking, not for sitting. Right between these two structures, and almost directly in front of our house, are the remains of an old rock pier built by slaves, which had been used for loading bananas during the period in which all of Búzios was a banana plantation. It’s only visible at low tide, when visitors and residents alike often walk out to its farthest point to hunt for crabs, take pictures, or reflect on its history. We never stop taking pictures of these piers. Here are but a few:

The Fishermen’s Pier

The Barracuda Resort Pier

The Rock Pier

Manguinhos Beach

For a lot of people, the burning question to us has been, "If you two don't go to the beach, why on earth are you living in a beach resort?" We were even rather aggressively challenged years ago by an Israeli, married to a Brazilian, who insisted that non-beachgoers should move to the mountains, period. (Lucky for us he has since moved himself. He was getting a bit strident and tiresome.) Anyway, I wish I had a snappy answer, but I don't. We like it here. We like the easygoing beach resort lifestyle. We like to look at the water from our veranda. We like to hear the tide rushing in. We like to walk on a beach in the early morning, or late afternoon. I can't see any reason we have to log in some minimum number of hours per week "going to" the beach in order to justify our being here.

I admit, beaches are Búzios's bread and butter. They're what the hordes of tourists mainly come here for. The official beach count — the count appearing in the tourism promotion literature — is 27. But if we don't have house guests whom we want to treat to the grand tour, there are a dozen or so beaches that we don't even see from one year to the next. Still, each of the Búzios beaches is somehow unique, and they're not just about beautiful scenery and stunning geography. Each beach has a history. In the coming year I will travel around the peninsula of Búzios and post a blog on each beach, my way of reconnecting with the beaches around me.

Mark and I have the privilege of living on Manguinhos Beach, so that's where I'll start. This is the beach where the first summer vacation homes were built, so our neighborhood has an older, more settled feel. It's anything but a touristy beach. With its narrow strip of sand, large clumps of algae, and fairly unclear waters, it might even be said that Manguinhos repels tourists. Lucky for us, because we enjoy a peace and quiet unknown to so many other Búzios beaches. Windy Manguinhos Beach is home to the nautical sports that keep our view lively: there's a constant tableau of wind surfing, sailing, kite surfing, kayaking and the newest addition, stand-up paddle boarding. The beach's history? Almost directly in front of our house are the remains of an old rock pier built by slaves, and used for loading bananas during the period in which all of Búzios was a banana farm.

Quiet, untouristy . . .

. . . rocky, muddy, pebbly, perfect

The old banana pier at twilight

Still a working fisherman's beach

And a wind sports beach