Arraial D'Ajuda: A little bit of OB in Brazil...

Bom Dia,

 

While we were in Porto Seguro for a few days, I wanted to check out the small town across the river and down the coast and few kilometers away.  Ozell was up for the trip so we took the ferry across the river and then a bus to the town of Arraial D'Ajuda.  The limited literature we had read about this town described it as a laid back enclave of 8000 people with brightly colored houses and shops on top of a coastal bluff.  If it was in Southern California, it would have been a surfer and hippie type of community.  Hence, why I compare it to OB.  They were your typical shops and local businesses along with artist workshops.  The biggest similarity with OB though was the small cottage style buildings.  This has been dying out in OB long before I even moved there 8 years ago, but you can still see the remnants of tiny houses and surf bungalows scattered throughout the lower areas.  I think Arraial D'Ajuda looks like OB did 50 years ago. 

 

We walked around the town and took some pictures.  We stumble upon a local festival which seemed to be reason enough for the townspeople to drink beer and eat Brazilian BBQ on a Tuesday afternoon.  We had lunch at a local restaurant along with a couple of cold beers under the shade of a large tree.  This town was also very vegetated and had plenty of old trees- yet another reason I liked it.  For as much as Porto Seguro had turned into a tacky Myrtle Beach, Panama City Beach, or Ocean City (although without the condo towers of those places), Arraial D'Ajuda seems to have hung on as a town of the locals and for the locals.  The town has a few hostels and pousadas for travelers and backpackers, but I would hazard a guess that most of the travelers who choose to stay in this hilltop town have the same carefree, live-and-let-live disposition of the locals.  Those travelers seeking a beach vacation and more comfortable accommodations would most likely stay in the more upscale pousadas along the beachfront at the bottom of the bluff.  There were plenty of those.

 

After a few hours in the town, we walked down to the coast ourselves and then strolled the 4km stretch of beach back to the ferry to return to Porto Seguro.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean