I travelled with the Swiss couple, Simone and Bruno, who also headed down South. We stayed in Porto Seguro for a couple of nights to organize our onwards journeys. I ended up buying a plane ticket back to Salvador because it was only 10 EUR cheaper than the 11 hours bus trip (a good advice for Brazil travellers: if you need to do a long haul, double-check on the internet for cheap flights - I was lucky with TAM, but there are various cheap airlines: Varig, Voegol, Voebra. If you find a flight go to a travel agency and ask them to book it for you. Unfortunately you can´t book flights online for Brazilian airlines if you don't have a Brazilian personal ID number).
Porto Seguro has a charming historic district and for evening entertainment the "Passeio d'Alcool" (I guess I don't need to translate that). There is a big crafts and souvenir market along the passeio (Porto Seguro is a popular holiday spot for Brazilians), a lot of really nice stuff, also loads of horrible kitsch, but my absolute favorite was this stall (I would live entirely on "bolos" as cakes are generally called, if I could my body could process that much sugar):
The Lonely Planet recommended to visit nearby rustic and magical Arraial d'Ajuda, that supposedly is attracting a wilder crowd of "nouveau hippies" (whatever that is, it sounded interesting). As it turned out, my 2005 Brazil edition of the guidebook was not quite accurate (as it turned out to be for quite a few things, so wait for the upcoming edition if you can. Although, I am not saying that LP is a bad travel guide - I use it for all my travels and I can highly recommend it!), anyway, the place was quite dead, full of upscale shops and deserted restaurants, elegant pousadas and not a single wild hippie in sight (also maybe the fact that it is deepest off-season and the weather was rather shitty that day had some influence on that...)
The really beautiful Praia Pitanga was a good 40 mins walk away but worth the effort. In the beach barracas were a few lonely middle-aged, white and apparently wealthy tourists, a rather weird sight after the great mix of locals and young people on the beaches of Itacaré. Maybe if the weather had been nicer I might have gotten to like the place better...
The next day we moved over to Trancoso, which is around 2 hours south of Porto Seguro and muito simpatico. The town square of the size of a football field is surrounded by little shops and restaurants and actually is a football field, since it is only grass and no cars, no concrete, very romantic, especially when lit up in the evening.
The beaches are much closer and very pretty. Unfortunately the weather was still kind of shitty and I spent one afternoon as the only guest in a beach barraca sitting beside the pizza oven (to keep warm) chatting with the restaurant staff - it turned out to be a rather entertaining afternoon in the end and I made new friends :)
The next day I was finally lucky (Bruno and Simone unfortunately had to take off that day and missed the good weather). I went to Praia Espelho - it is in the top 10 of Brazil's most beautiful beaches, a lot of effort to reach but really worth it!
There are 2 buses a day, one that goes there at 8 a.m. and one that comes back at 5 p.m. They travel along a dirt road and break down on a regular basis. I was lucky, not only did the bus break down before it reached Trancoso and not when I was on it, I also met a nice couple from São Paulo, who went the same way.
From the bus stop it is a good 4 km walk to the beach, but when we got off the bus, some guys on horses rode by and the couple bargained for us to go to the beach (and return) on horseback for a very cheap price. So we conveniently reached the beach and on top of it got some local stories from the guys. One of them told us, for example, that he bought his house in the area 13 years ago for a hammock, a walkman and 50 tapes! (now its worth much more, since the place developed)
Here are some more pictures of Porto Seguro, Arraial d’Ajuda and Trancoso:
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| Porto Seguro & Trancoso |
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