08/16/2021 12:46
Clarín.com
Travels
Updated 08/16/2021 12:46 PM
A selfie with the flags and
"Danger" notices
, a patterned T-shirt, a fridge magnet or a shark-shaped keychain divide space in the tourist city of Recife,
Brazil
, where more and more tourists flock to their beaches in search of sharks.
The
shark attacks
on the beaches of urban Recife, Boa Viagem, Piedade and Candeias, recur with some frequency for three decades, but despite warnings and prohibitions of the authorities, the number of
increases curious tourists increasingly
.
Most of the
attacks
, including the last two in July, occurred in the vicinity of the church in the Piedade neighborhood, a Carmelite chapel practically built on the seashore in the municipality of Jaboatao dos Guararapes, in the metropolitan region of Recife and nearby to the international airport.
A danger sign warns of the presence of sharks.
Photo EFE / Diego Nigro
The attacks began to be recorded in sequence
from 1992
, but the first of which there are official records occurred almost five decades earlier, in 1947, when a young friar who resided in the church decided on his rest day to take a bath in the sea and was mortally bitten by a shark.
At the beginning of the 90s the attacks reappeared because a nearby slaughterhouse dumped the blood from the slaughter of cattle into the sea and that attracted sharks.
Despite the fact that the place no longer works, the
presence of sharks was already inevitable
and the situation worsened with the
remodeling of the port
of Suape.
Various studies suggest that the
natural habitat of sharks was affected
by the expansion of the port, currently the main one in the state of Pernambuco and one of the largest in the country, and the animals began to search the beaches of neighboring Recife to feed and, in the case of females, spawn.
A tourist shows a magnet with the image of a shark.
Photo EFE / Diego Nigro
Special souvenirs
With the high tide and the heavy rains that hit the capital of the state of Pernambuco (northeast) these days, the authorities of Jaboatao dos Guararapes have
prohibited the entry of bathers to Piedade beach
and lifeguards, metropolitan guards, firefighters, lifeguards and policemen take over the surveillance of the place.
However, taxis, transport cars via mobile application, minibuses and tourist buses constantly make stops in front of the tourist church in which visitors, in addition to the photographic record in front of the religious building, do not miss the opportunity to take a picture with the notices the dangerous.
A woman takes a selfie with the poster that warns of the presence of sharks in the sea.
Photo EFE / Diego Nigro
Vendor of drinks and sandwiches on Piedade beach, Guilherme Augusto, said that new tourists make a pilgrimage to the beach "
to find out where (the attack) was
."
This is the case of the tourist Thais Leao, from the Amazonian state of Pará, who admitted that despite the "fear" of approaching the beach, she did not stop "taking risks" to take photos on the seashore right at the same point in the one where the last two attacks occurred.
For the travel agent Verónica Veve, "there is now a request in almost all excursions and tourist walks to go through the 'beach of the sharks'".
Sale of shirts with the image of sharks.
Photo EFE / Diego Nigro
In the traditional
Plaza de Boa Viagem
, where a
permanent handicraft market
takes place
, the shark key rings are always out of stock and the best-selling T-shirt is the one that has a hungry shark with pointed teeth stamped with messages alluding to a character that already it is part of the daily life of Recife.
"Tourists who look for objects always want a symbol of the shark and there is not a single key ring because they are all sold. Of the bottle openers they do not like any other than the shark", related the artisan Rómulo Ramos.
Waldheim García Montoya / EFE
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