Home for our 3-day stay in Varela was Chez Helene. It was not a difficult choice, as it is the only hotel in town. In fact, after the first night we were its only guests. Fortunately, it was the perfect place to enjoy such a peaceful town. This photo is of one of the bungalows.

Chez Helene is run conscientiously and with great warmth by Fatima and Franco and their friend Pino. Franco is Italian and met Fatima when she went to college there. Fatima was born in Guinea Bissau to a woman of Portuguese descent and a man originally from Rio de Janeiro. He himself had a French/Portuguese father and a black mother.
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Abraham, in the blue shorts, joins in and helps haul a canoe up the beach. A small section of one of Varela’s beaches is a base for fishing canoes. We went down one afternoon to discover the canoes coming in with the day’s catch.
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Varela has two large, sweeping beaches separated by some cliffs. The beach stretching south from town is where the fishing activity is and where we saw more people (but still not that many!). These boys were curious about our presence. The loved looking at their pictures on our digital camera screen.

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