Brazil is absolutely packed with great beach spots, many just a short bus ride from Rio de Janiero. Some are jam packed with people (though none as much as the famous Copacabana in Rio) while others reward the extra effort in getting to them with pure tranquillity and an excellent sand to person ratio! We started out north of Rio in Buzios then headed South of Rio to Ilha Grande and finished up in Paraty before flying out of Saõ Paulo.
Buzios is located on the coast about three hours north of Rio and is considered to be the Brazilian Saint Tropez. In other words, it’s pretty fancy and is a place where people from Rio with cash take off for holidays. It has a nice, quaint central town area with plenty of good restaurants, shops and a few bars (though we certainly didn’t find it a very lively destination when we were there). Our main reason for visiting (and our reason for spending three nights there with Krystal) was to eat well and soak in the sun on the beach.
There are heaps of beaches scattered around but we focussed on the two nearest to our hotel. The main beach, Praia João Fernandes, was cute but fairly busy with locals (complete with overly skimpy swimwear) sitting on sun loungers on the tiny patch of sand. When the tide comes up the sun loungers are covered in water but no one seemed to mind!
We preferred the smaller cove beach, Praia de João Fernandinho, just a short walk away that was quieter but still had a couple of bars/restaurants and plenty of sun loungers. We enjoyed chilling here, drinking coconuts, and people watching. At sunset the people leave and the almost empty beach hosts dozens of birds diving into the water for their dinner – a cool sight that reminded us of the Galapagos Islands.
The beaches were also a great spot to watch the sunset.
There are plenty of eating and drinking options but our favourites were:
- Taverne 67: a French restaurant right in the centre, serving fusion French/Brazilian dishes. The moqueca (Brazilian fish stew) was awesome – not something I’d usually order but I was glad I did. The French expat owner was also very friendly.
- Bananaland: Brazil is famous for its pay by the kilo buffet restaurants. These vary from cheap eats to very high quality cuisine and this one definitely fits in the latter. We ate lunch here two days in a row it was so good!
- Libertas Point: a tour agency / restaurant / bar with great tunes and really friendly staff. We had surprisingly good burgers washed down with some cold beers. It turned out that we were the first ever Aussie visitors. Buzios in general doesn’t see that many foreign tourists!
We stayed a little out of town at the top of quite a steep hill at a boutique hotel Buzios San Francisco. The views from the pool area and from the hammock on our balcony made it well worth the hike up (although realistically we Ubered up almost every time).
The town was made famous by French actress Brigitte Bardot back in 1960s – it wouldn’t be a complete summary if I didn’t include a token pic of her famous statue in town.
Ilha Grande is an island (a big one if you didn’t guess by the name) a few hours drive South of Rio followed by a 30 minute fast boat ride. Unlike fancy Buzios, Ilha Grande is famous for being more natural, rustic and real. It was just that and it was perfect for us! With no road connection to the mainland (and hence no cars on the island!) it reminded us a lot of Gili Air in Indonesia.
As with pretty much every island in the world the reason for visiting Ihla Grande is to relax and have some beach time. The difference though is on Ihla Grande mother nature makes you earn the beauty by hiking through the Atlantic Forest to get to her beaches.
We spent a day hiking the stunning route from the main town of Vila do Abraã to Lopes Mendes Beach along routes T10 and T11. The walk was easy to moderate and took about two to two and a half hours in total – but this is one of those walks where the journey is just as good as the destination. Walking along the green forest trail we passed four different beaches and each would have been easily good enough to stop and spend a few hours at but the ultimate beach, Lopes Mendes was probably one of the best beaches we’ve ever seen. Stunning white sand, beautiful waters and only a small number of other people to share the beach with! To return to the main town, we got a boat for a couple of bucks from Pouso Beach. The beauty of Lopes Mendes is that there are no boats and Pouso Beach (which is about 20 minutes walk away) is the closest beach from which you can get a boat to and from town.
The walk to Lopes Mendes starts from the far end of the main town beach and is clearly marked with a sign for the T10 walking route. Pretty quickly the walk rewards with some good beach views.
After a decent walk (about an hour) we hit the first beach, Praia Palmas. There were probably about five other people on the beach and it was temping to stop and spend the day there.
We should have kept walking to the end of this beach to continue on the T10 path but we took a wrong turn and ended up at a little secluded beach that had a simple hostel on it (Google tells me it was called Pousada Cabanas Paraiso). Again this beach was perfect and it would have been nice to come back and spend a couple of nights there.
After heading back the correct way, past Praia Palmas we hit the next beach, Praia Mangues, (which is one of the places you can cheat and get a boat to/from) then to Praia Pouso which is where we ended up coming back to for our boat back into town.
From Pouso we walked through the jungle until we reached our target – Praia Lopes Medes!
The next day we took it a bit easier and walked around 45 minutes to an hour to Praia do Abraãozinho and explored the beaches on route and around.
Our favourite beach of the day was one we randomly discovered just a few minutes back from Praia do Abraãozinho. Google maps tells me it is an unknown location with nothing there! The unknown beach had a little hotel on it and we weren’t sure if it was meant to be a private beach but we chilled there until it started to cool down – we shared the beach with one cute puppy and no people!
There was a busier beach we briefly stopped at on route back – Praia da Crena – the sun seemed to last a bit longer in the day here so we soaked up a few more rays before heading back to town. As the tide came up we ended up walking half of the way in water, at one point the water level almost reaching my waist.
There are plenty of places to eat and drink on Ihla Grande. We liked:
- The massive sharing portions of food (we had a giant steaks and veg) at Restaurante dom Mario. At the end of the meal they gave us free (strong) mojitos!
- Really fresh, home made pasta at Las Sorrentinas with food so good we were tempted to return.
- Vegetarian burgers and fresh salad bowls at Cafe Bistro Jardin – though the service and food wasn’t as good as Google told us it would be.
We stayed in town (i.e. not on the beach) at Pousada dos Meros. The rooms were really comfy with a hammock outside the room for relaxing after the long walks. They had a good breaky and free afternoon tea!
We headed from Ilha Grande to Paraty using Easy Transfer who provide the ferry to the mainland and a connecting mini-bus to Paraty which worked well apart from it taking ages for the connecting bus to arrive and get going. The ferry ride was pretty cool on foam mats on the top of the ferry.
Last but not least, Paraty (pron: Par-ar-chee) is a cute Portugese colonial town a few more hours further south on the coast. Paraty is famous for its colourful buildings and cobblestones streets that almost break your ankles every time you take a step.
We were in Paraty for Brazilian Independence day which meant this sleepy, charming town was absolutely packed with locals enjoying the first major vacation of the summer and partying all night (yes, Brazilians can party!).
Although we’d already been spoiled by the beaches in Brazil we decided we needed to visit one more and headed for Praia do Sono. Google told me it was easy to get there – grab a local bus to the trail start at Laranjeiras and walk an hour and a half to a quiet beach! Google was wrong. The local bus station was pretty feral and we spent way too long trying to find out which bus to get. Fortunately after about 90 minutes we were on a bus to Oratoria, which is the correct name of the bus to look for. The hike was similar to those in Ilha Grande and very enjoyable. We passed a few people hiking in with full camping gear and once we arrived at Sona Beach we realised it is a really popular place to camp and party for the holiday. The beach was still stunning but had hundreds of tents and hammocks pitched and loaded with people chilling out by day and we assume partyinh by night.
There were plenty of small bars and places to eat for those who had pitched a tent (and usually a hammock!).
For our other day in town we relaxed and strolled through the cute streets. We discovered excellent coffee at Montanita Cafe where we chatted for ages to the friendly owner.
We ate three meals (in two days!) at Maria Fulô Bistrô Natural e Tapiocaria – we loved the tapioca pancakes (made from casava) and the palm heart lasagne!
We were also really keen to try the local frozen snack – Açai – and found an awesome place where you choose your own toppings called Boutique do Açai. We ate here a couple of times!
Sadly I don’t have a good pic but the beers in Brazil were always served icy cold (almost frozen) and in an insulated container that kept them super cool. Whenever we sat for a cold beer we didn’t need to wait long for an enterprising local to come past selling tasty peanuts served in a paper cone. I think we saw this in every place we visited in Brazil.
Our hostel in Paraty was comfortable but very noisy (not from the hostel but from the all night parties). Overall, it wasn’t good enough for me to name and recommend.
We loved our time on the coast in Brazil – each destination offered something a little different and we know there is plenty more to explore. From Paraty we had a long (and very delayed) bus ride to Saõ Paulo. We had hoped to have a half day to explore the city but due to the delay only had about four hours at our hotel before we had to head to the airport.
Next up: we head to Peru to hike off some of the food we had Brazil.
