Brazil without the football
Explorer and TV presenter Lucy Cooke reveals what soccer fans are missing as she treks into the rainforest, leaps into cool waterfalls and surfs on the perfect beach
THE sleepy state of Bahia in Brazil has long been a magnet for culture vultures who flock to its capital, Salvador, to wander along its World Heritage streets, dance to AfroBrazilian beats and marvel at its baroque churches.
As one of the country’s key World Cup cities, Salvador will also play host to thousands of football fans this summer. But with almost 700 miles of palm-fringed coastline and some of Brazil’s last pockets of Atlantic rainforest, I was keen to explore Bahia for its most overlooked asset: its outstanding natural beauty. I was going to attempt the unthinkable and take an active holiday in Brazil’s laziest state.
I began my adventure by heading inland from Salvador to explore the epic scenery of Chapada Diamantina National Park. It’s a lost world of table-top mountains swathed in semi-tropical jungle, dripping with waterfalls and peppered with vast water-filled caverns.
After a sweaty, seven-hour drive from Salvador, I arrived at the peaceful hilltop town of Lencois, a colonial time warp of cobbled streets and candy-coloured houses.
The air was filled with thousands of migrating butterflies and the heady scent of jasmine. The overall effect was quite intoxicating, rather like standing inside a heavily perfumed snow dome.
BRAZIL is the home of the B&B, usually small family-run inns known as pousadas, which if you’re lucky offer not only a cosy and affordable place to sleep but a charming host with local tips to tailor your stay. Alison, from Hidden Pousadas, helped me plan my trip and booked me into Alcino Estalagem, which has, she claimed, the best breakfast in Brazil.
In my experience as a presenter on National Geographic Wild, Brazil is many things, but a gourmet destination is not one of them. To most Bahians, breakfast is a sort of styrofoam sandwich made from tapioca and lined with molten plastic cheese, so my expectations were low.
But my prejudice was soon thwarted as a steady procession of little plates filled the communal breakfast table. Along with perfectly scrambled eggs, toasted granola and impossibly exotic fruits from Alcino’s very own orchard were some delightfully unconventional choices – crunchy home-made falafels, circles of squash topped with blue cheese, and spiced poached apples.
It was all utterly delicious and the perfect way to start the day ahead of a long trek. Alcino also organised my guide for the day, Roy Funch, an avuncular and humble American who played a pivotal role in creating this national park.
When Roy arrived in the 1970s, Chapada’s sweeping mountain scenery reminded him of Arizona’s Mon- ument Valley, only greener. But he was alone in seeing beauty in these ancient weather-worn sculptures. In contrast, all the locals wanted to do was blast them for diamonds.
From the mid-1840s, the Chapada had been the source of the finest black industrial diamonds that went on to shape much of the modern world – drilling the Panama Canal and even our very own London Underground.
But after 130 years, the boom had gone bust and Lencois was reduced to a washed-up, poverty-stricken mining town.
However, Roy’s enthusiasm for the landscape convinced local bureaucrats to petition for national park status. Now Lencois is a thriving eco-tourism hub and the sons of dynamite-happy miners make their money preserving, rather than destroying, the landscape. They guide tourists along old trails and show off the unique flora and fauna that includes exotic orchids found nowhere else on Earth.
Thanks to Roy, Chapada is one of those rare things – a genuine conservation success story.
Adventure here comes in all shapes and sizes, from five-day treks sleeping in centuries-old miners’ stone huts to rappelling down waterfalls or snorkelling in the aquamarine waters of giant flooded caverns.
Roy took me on a simple single-
day hike, tracing the path of the Ribeirao river to the Sossego waterfall. At 65, Roy is an advert for following your passion; he bounced over boulders like a mountain goat while sharing his encyclopaedic knowledge of Chapada’s history and biology.
It was a brilliantly sunny day, with temperatures hovering around 85F, so clambering along the rocky river bed was hot work. To cool off, we splashed about in Chapada’s natural pools, where curious fish nibbled at my toes. My final dunk was a 15ft jump into the falls – terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
My action-packed holiday continued back on the coast, 190 miles south of Salvador in Itacare – a serious candidate for the most beautiful corner of Brazil. Here the volcanic rock headland is dotted with crescents of sand so soft that it squeaks underfoot. It is also cloaked in rainforest so special that it’s been declared a global biosphere reserve by Unesco.
My base, the Pousada Tanara, boasts the best views of the gorgeous Tiririca beach. From the comfort of my hammock I watched surfers practise a succession of tricks as the sky turned pink.
The sleepy fishing village of Itacare was discovered by surfers some 25 years ago and, thanks to a selection of breaks catering to all skill levels, it’s one of the best places to learn the sport.
Being a little rusty, I booked in for a refresher course with a wonderful teacher called Jane. After a 20-minute trek through the pristine rainforest, we reached Jane’s secret surf beach. It couldn’t have been more perfect: the emerald ocean was the temperature of bathwater, and we were serenaded by cicadas as we surfed a lazy point break designed for beginners. I was in heaven.
After spending the next four days surfing, my body was in need of a rest, so I headed north to my final destination: the Marau peninsula. This 30-mile spit of sand is essentially one very long golden beach. With no paved roads and only a smattering of pousadas, it was virtually deserted.
Running down the centre of the peninsula is a series of freshwater lakes, fed by underground springs. In some places their distance from the sea is less than 50 yards so you can take an energising tumble in the surf and then rinse off with a relaxing float in still, sweet water. Bliss.
The lakes are surrounded by a peculiar forest, straight out of Jurassic Park. Huge twisted trees laden with giant bromeliads, a relative of the pineapple, are so large they support their own unique ecosystem of frogs, bugs and butterflies.
I stayed at the super-chic Butterfly House, located on the beach about halfway up the peninsula. Its British owner, Chloe, was a disillusioned nurse when she decided to move to sunnier climes about eight years ago. ‘I threw a peanut at a map and it landed on Brazil,’ she told me.
She searched along the coast for a place to stop until one night she saw an orange full moon above Cassange beach. ‘I knew this was where my peanut had landed,’ she said with a smile. And lying on this deserted golden beach, listening to the sound of the surf, I could understand why.