By David, on January 18th, 2010 After Aracaju, we travelled again by bus (40Rs per person) to Maceio. The bus station (Rodoviara) is 4km outside the centre so you will have to get through the hordes of local bus card sellers and use a local bus to the main Rodovaria (bus numbers 33 and 34). Pay the lady at the barrier to board rather than the touts by the turnstiles. The bus company we used was Real Alagoas with 3 buses a day – we took the 12.30pm but the is 6am and 6pm (comfy, A/C and quick – but loads of mosquitos and even a cockroach on the bus 
). The other company is Bomfim but they had a massive queue at the window and the bus was full.
We first stayed in the Shangri-la in Paracaju – which is not the fancy posh hotel chain but a small pousada which was a real dump. The owner appeared to be off his head on Cocaine with manic verbal diarrhea mainly in portugese with the odd english word thrown in. The room was small and bed uncomfortable, but the main disaster was the breakfast – chocolate milk and dry crackers! I guess i’ve become a snob about breakfast in Brazil. At the start of my travels i’d not have even expected breakfast, however i’ve stayed in so many cheap cheap hostels with awesome breakfasts in Brazil. Loads of fresh fruit and coffee. Now, when I pay 100Rs a night (over £40), I expect a good feed!
The next morning we moved to another hostel again in paracaju – this time with better breakfast than shangri-la, and better rooms. As with much of South America, hot showers are rare, and when you do find them, they consist of these ‘rose-head’ electrical shower attachments. They look deadly and usually are. I would expect them to most certainly be banned in the UK and Europe. I got a massive electric shock from the tap which appears to be connected to the shower. If you turn the electric on the shower, you cannot touch the taps!
On day 3, after wandering the streets for several hours finding everywhere in the Praia Verde area of Maceio full, these two guys who spoke great english picked us up in their little chevvy and drove us from hotel to hotel until we found somewhere. They were great guys who restored our faith in Brazilian travel, just as we were starting to get down! We eventually settled at Nossa Casa in Jaipura, which had nice air conditioned rooms and good breakfast for the same price as the other two terrible places.
Maceio is generally pretty crap. The beaches are ok, but nothing on the tropical beaches of the Linha Verde. We already miss Bahia and wish we’d stayed longer, but no point crying over that. Onwards to our next destination – a tiny fishing village somewhere is the aim…
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