Brazilian Tropical Paradise

We’re slowly making our way up the beautiful Brazilian East coast via beach paradise after beach paradise. Salvador was great fun, with similarly beautiful beaches, good restaurants and some pretty good hostels. We stayed 6 nights in the end – more than i’ve
stayed almost anywhere in the 5 months travelling, except Santiago and Buenos Aires.

The highlight of the journey so far has been a tiny village, around 200km from Salvador along the Linha Verde, which will remain nameless to keep it as perfect as it was. There are around four Pousada’s on the beach, which consists of pure white sand lapped by beautiful clean atlantic blue water. A 20 minute walk north and you are totally alone with only the forest behind you and Atlantic in front. In the tiny village itself there are around five small restaurants, each serving tasty fish, pizzas and pasta, and all with a bizarelly upmarket feel considering the lack of people and size of the village.

When we arrived we walked past a house, called Casa Imballa, beautifully placed on the beach with a small wooden hut at one end, some tables with hammocks and the main building. A sign outside said ‘dormir aludar’ which means ‘rooms for rent’ so we knocked and called the number to enquire about prices. No-one was at home, so after waiting around 2 hours we decided, if they didn’t return, we would sleep on the beach.

We hid our bags in the small wooden outhouse which contained a washing machine, toilet and shower, and went for a walk along the beach. The sun was setting so we headed to an area where the river meets the sea and forms beautiful little natural swimming pools. Here, there were several huts selling beers and fish, however they have no electricity, so were all closing. Marju and I obviously looked a little lost, as a passing couple with their young
child asked (in English) if we needed any help. We walked down the beach with them toward the village where we talked about our travels and where we were from. Both Marcos and Claudia had traveled extensively around Europe so we all had loads to talk about. They invited us to accompany them to dinner at a restaurant where we shared a huge Mouqueca (a fish, shrimp, tomato and coconut stew) which was delicious.

After dinner we had a few beers then headed back to Casa Imballa to get our bags and sleep on the beach. Fortunately, the owner of Casa Imballa had returned from his day out and offered us what he called the ‘birds nest’ – the wooden hut overlooking the beach – for as long as we wanted for 90 Reais a night. The hut, with its tiny roof – too small for me to stand under – was perfect for us. We sat under a bright milky way, watching shooting stars and hunting for satellites before settling down in our little beach hut. In the morning breakfast, consisting of as much fruit, bread, ham, cheese and proper Italian coffee in an espresso pot as we could consume, was served on the veranda
next to our beach paradise.

I’ve decided not to name the village to keep it perfect and relatively tourist free, but post about the area around the Linha Verde as it is so beautiful. It was either that or write an article about just how crap it was! Marju and I said we would return in 5 years and hope to see it still has its charm and natural beauty.