Everyone likes the seaside. Even the truck loved it.
We drove from Belem down as far as Pipa on the Atlantic coast of Brazil. After spending almost a week on the Amazon barge, we decided to take the slower but more beautiful route down the coast, following the beach towns and sandy tracks as much as we could. North East Brazil is famous for it’s beaches, and we thought we would like to take a look. In the amazon we were really hit by the heat and humidity, and were wondering what the coast would bring. We found great onshore breezes which were most welcome when camping.
We had visited Brazil very briefly once before in early 2012, when we visited Iguassu falls. But, that was a good few thousand kilometers from this part of Brazil. That’s right – Thousands of Kilometers away. Probably about 5000 by a direct route, maybe 8000 to follow the coast. This is one seriously large country!
Small bridges = big inspection.
Our route brought us over a few small bridges. Luckily none that even creaked or groaned, so I’d be happy to say that anyone who wanted to drive this route could do it. We’re probably just over 7 ton and were fine.
We were heading for the town of Barreirinhas. We had heard they had some great dunes with super clear pools for swimming in. We did find it, and while it’s a small sleepy little place, we stayed there for 2 nights. We parked up where you get the ferry to the dunes area, and we went with a 4×4 tour to the actual dunes. The camping trucks were spared this one 🙂
Not in the Mog, but a good bit of fun none the less
Footloose in the sand dunes
Sarah on the Dunes
Clear fresh water in the Sand Dunes
Storm coming to the Dunes
The wind creates some amazing patterns on the top of the Sand Dunes
From here, we took a great wild 4×4 route to the town of Paulino Neves. We did it this way as it was about 100km on the sand instead of 500km+ by tarmacadam. No contest!
Unimog Camper on its way through the sand dunes in Brazil
Unimogs, contrary to popular opinion, do not really love deep soft sand.
I was not digging out the Unimog, I was looking for my keys…..
We did meet a little traffic on this route, a guy on a tractor towing a jeep of some kind. He was a bit surprised to see trucks out there. Once he dropped of his “client”, we followed him back to town. He gave us a tip for a space to park with just some light traffic.
The local traffic going by
Parking by a pond
Within 20 minutes wading on foot through these lagoons, we were in some wonderful wild dunes with an impromptu dune bar that arrived at the weekend! The dunes are a great hangout place for people during the day, and strangely, for goats during the night!
Beach bar
Friendly locals at the dune bar
Straight ahead to wade to the Dunes
This last light of the day looks like it might have been last light ever.
These pink flowers came out at dawn and had disappeared 2 hours after sunrise when it got too hot for them.
We ended up staying there for 4 days, but that’s mainly because the next bridge on our route was closed for repair! This is a small fishing and farming community, and tourism is a pretty new thing for them. Well worth a stop if you have our own facilities. Once the bridge was fixed we were off again.
Small Ferry in Camocim could not take us, so we had to detour by road
Dad teaching his son how to fly a kite in Jeri
Jumping wild
Dune buggy ride
Dune buggy ferry – definitely not unimog sized
In the town of Jericoacoara , or simply Jeri, we got directed to the short route back to the coast, and we took it. It was fine, but as we discovered later it is not allowed to take that road in a truck in case they get stuck! No signs, no warnings – nothing. When we arrived at the coastal town of Jeri (yes, the same name – a bit confusing), the car park attendants told us the police wanted to see us for driving that route. We waited for them for a while, but they never showed up. We are suspicious they got stuck on the road we had just traveled, and never had the nerve to tell us we might have gotten stuck 🙂
Jeri was a nice spot to stay, we camped in the car park as no cars were allowed into town, just beach buggies. At night the atmosphere was superb, live music, great shopping and cool spots just to hang out and have a beer. The central streets are still just sand, even some shops and pubs. They got it right!
Ferry helper
no idea.
Dune buggy about to cross 4 inch deep water….
Oyster time
Ever eat fish in a restaurant, while other fish nibbled your toes?
Grilled red Snapper. Best we ever had – big enough for 4.
Good times
We moved on from Jeri along the coast to Pipa, stopping off here and there. Some of the little spots did not have vehicle access, you had to take a bus, hike, horse and cart or even a boat in the case of Galinhos. You do not see to many foreign tourists in a lot of these places. Definitly they get Brazian visitors, but they are not on the main backpackers or “must do” circuits. That made them nice, and they were all very welcoming to us. All along here we were made to feel very welcome, and very safe.
Fishermans boat
Wild beach camp, we stayed for 2 nights
End of a days work
After some rains, the route got interesting.
This route brought us all the way to Pipa, a really cool surfers town, and a great place to watch the World Cup! More next time!