For all Caravelas’ attractions, there’s no doubt that the main reason people come here is to see the extraordinary profusion of marine and bird life in the Parque Nacional Marinho dos Abrolhos. The park consists of an archipelago of five islands lying 52km offshore. Among the clear waters and coral reefs you can see […]

On the banks of the Rio Caravelas, in the extreme south of Bahia, lies CARAVELAS, an attractive, unpretentious colonial town that makes an ideal farewell or introduction to Bahia. Founded in 1503, it became an important trading centre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today both the town and its nearby beach are – […]

Further south down the coast – more peaceful, but next in the developers’ sights – is TRANCOSO. You can get there either by bus (about five a day from Arraial d’Ajuda, taking fifty minutes) or on foot. It’s a beautiful walk – 12km down the beach from Arraial – but you have to ford […]

ARRAIAL D’AJUDA is the closest of the three to Porto Seguro and the easiest to get to: catch the ferry from the centre of Porto Seguro for the ten-minute journey across the Rio Buranhém. From the other side there are buses that climb the hill and drop you in the centre of town: don’t […]

The most popular destination in southern Bahia is the resort area around the town of PORTO SEGURO, where Cabral “discovered” Brazil in 1500. Founded in 1526, it has some claim to being the oldest town in Brazil, and buildings still survive from that period.
The story goes that in 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral and his […]

In literary terms ILHÉUS, Amado’s birthplace, is the best-known town in Brazil, the setting for his most famous novel, Gabriela, Cravo e Canela, translated into English as “Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon” – by far the most renowned Brazilian novel internationally. If you haven’t heard of it before visiting Ilhéus, you soon will; it seems […]

The route west into the sertão is along the BR-242, which skirts Feira de Santana and swings south, where a turn-off signposted to Brasília heads inland, into the heart of the sertão. The scenery is remarkably similar to that along the Jacobina road 200km to the north: you’re still in the tablelands of the […]