GOING WITH THE GREEN
Brazil’s Costa Verde lives up to its reputation for beauty and biodiversity. Enjoy it at your leisure, suggests Chris Moss
ICOULD relax. I’d found a restaurant without candles, without couples, and without piped bossa nova. Paraty is quite possibly the most romantic town in the world. Full of cute, pastel-coloured, colonial buildings, it’s a photogenic backdrop for honeymooners. As a solo traveller, I’d considered missing it altogether, but as it lies bang in the middle of Brazil’s Costa Verde — the 560km “green coast” between Santos and Rio de Janeiro — it made for a convenient sleepover stop. And it is beautiful.
I’d started in laid-back fashion in a male solo traveller’s comfort zone — football. From São Paulo, I transferred directly to Santos, one of those lovely towns everyone ignores. With its long city beach and busy promenade, it has a lived-in, energetic air as well as a coffee exchange and a maritime museum.
It also has the Museu do Futebol in an annexe of Santos’s stadium. My guide, Diego Leme, took me on a tour of the changing rooms, wall displays and arena. After showing me photos of the striker Neymar, he announced: “Neymar is the prince of the club.”
Then he pointed at a massive photograph of a familiar, smiling face. “But, of course, this is the king.”
Pelé, who scored more than 1 000 goals for Santos and helped the club to win six Brazilian championships, is saint, king and god in this city. It was Pelé, more than anyone else, who inspired the club’s 2012 centenary motto: “One hundred years of football art.” Next year, if all goes to plan, he will get his own dedicated museum.
That night I decamped to Guarujá, a resort town on Santo Amaro island, a five-minute ferry ride from Santos.
Here I stayed at the smart Sofitel Jequitimar and dined on grilled sea bass with salad, on the balcony with a glass of Brazilian Casa Valduca cabernet sauvignon. The wine isn’t going to worry Chile just yet, but the setting was memorable.
In the morning, I walked along the beach. At either end were low hills clad in the dense vegetation of the Mata Atlântica, a threatened ecosystem that once dominated the Brazilian coast. Just 8% of the forest on the Costa Verde is virgin, most of it here in the southern states. It’s a habitat for more than 1 000 bird species (188 of them endemic) including hummingbirds, eagles, toucans and parrots. There has been degradation since the 1500s but now a lot of stretches are protected.
The coast road has several zigzags going up steep hills. The climbs open up vistas of the many beaches on São Paulo’s northern coast — 33 of them, a local assured me. Some were long, surfer-friendly, classically Brazilian; others were coves at the feet of cliffs. Along some were gated resorts, and even helipads; on others were shacks and official signs about grant money — São Paulo’s Costa Verde is being redeveloped.
The first beach I visited, Toque Toque Grande, south of Maresias, had a bar, a tiny church and not much else. My bungalow for two nights, at Ilha de Toque Toque, a boutique hotel named after a tiny offshore island, overlooked the short strip of sand. I had a lunch of ceviche and chatted to the owner, Edson, a former lawyer for AOL, who gave up his day job to work
Neymar is the prince of the club … but, of course, Pelé is the king
in a place where he used to holiday.
“I’ve been trying to get nonBrazilians to come to this beach for seven years,” he said, waving at the view. “Look! It’s as pretty as Paraty and it’s closer to the airport.
“The authorities don’t promote São Paulo state.”
I suggested that people easily confused São Paulo state with the sprawling state capital.
Even guidebooks often limit their interest to the northern Costa Verde, close to Rio de Janeiro.
After lunch, I walked to the beach, descending vertiginous, moss-covered steps. An angler was casting into the surf and two young lads were riding into the waves on boogie boards. The ocean slapped the sand with force and I sat, hesitating to swim for fear of rips, until a little boy dived headfirst
I sat, hesitating to swim for fear of rips, until a little boy dived headfirst into a curling wave
into a curling wave. I went in too.
Edson took me on a walk to a second beach, tiny Calhetas, where you can see the sunset even though you’re on Brazil’s eastern seaboard.
We passed the beach house of Émerson Leão, a former goalkeeper for Brazil, and then hiked up to see a waterfall with a 90m drop.
A funny sort of alienation awaited me at my next stop, on the island of Ilhab beach, w slugged beers. O Bardot surfing tangas. every p always
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