Álvaro Velho was a Portuguese

Portuguese people

The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

 writer that participated as a sailor or soldier in the expedition of discovery of sea route to India led by Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...

 in 1497. He was the attributed author of an anonymous logbook

Logbook

A logbook was originally a book for recording readings from the chip log, and is used to determine the distance a ship traveled within a certain amount of time...

, main direct source known describing the expedition. The "Diário de bordo de Álvaro Velho" (logbook of Álvaro Velho), or "roadmap to India", survived incomplete, and the original manuscript was lost. A copy is in the Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto. It was published in Porto

Porto

Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

in 1838, with the name "Road Trip on the Discovery of India by the Cape of Good Hope by D. Vasco da Gama in 1497." After this trip, Álvaro Velho spent eight years in Guinea (1499–1507).