Finally finding the beach

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Today, the last day before leaving Itacaré, we finally reached it. THE BEACH. Prainha. The one we, way back in January, saw on a photograph and decided, we just had to visit


You can't go to Prainha by road. You have to trek a couple of miles inside the jungle, which surrounds Itacaré.

This jungle is one of the last, large expanses of Atlantic rain forest left in Brazil, and - especially in the early morning - it is teeming with animal life. There are monkeys like brown howlers and masked titis. There are sloths, armadillos -  and even jaguars! The other day an old man had been attacked by a jaguar not far from our town.

With all this in mind, we actually found it quite exciting trekking down the narrow jungle paths, not knowing what waited at the next bend.

Being extremely nervous about snakes, Rita has a feeling they are almost magnetically drawn towards her. And it might be true: She's  come across snakes around the world in places, where they shouldn't be - an, as she often shouted:  Here I am, walking inside a bloody rain forest!

We kept a very, very keen lookout, and luckily, this time we saw none, and no bird spiders as well (At least no live ones. We actually saw a dead spider, bigger than the size of a grown man's hand, lying next to the path!).

Birds were crying from deep inside the heavy, dark green foliage and suddenly, just a few meters in front of us, two barrel-shaped capybaras, the largest rodents in the world, came scurrying across our path.

Lost our ways
Before going into the woods, we were told which directions we should take (mostly to the right whenever there was a bifurcation, a few times to the left) but not having a compass (or a local guide, for that matter), we eventually got lost.
 


We weren't that lost, though. Michael went out scouting, we backtracked, climbed up a ravine, crossed a waterfall and found the right path, which finally led us up a slippery slope.

And there it lay, spread out below us  - Prainha - a long crescent of white sand stretching between two palm overgrown promontories, and far out, a small group of young surfers balancing on their boards, traversing the waves.
  
  

We had finally arrived and we spent a lovely, relaxed day, until we had to leave; not risking to get caught by nightfall inside the jungle.



Best - or not
Several times the last couple of weeks, we've heard Prainha mentioned as the most wonderful beach on the entire Brazilian coast.

We're definitely no experts. We found it to be nice, but probably not that much nicer than some of the other, far more accessible beaches we have visited around Itacaré. You probably couldn't write a novel about Prainha like Garland did about his legendary beach in Thailand!

Anyway. The ultimate beach  or not. Prainha served its purpose. It led us to Bahia and - as is often the case with targets: Their value do not necessarily lie in the targets themselves but in the paths, which you are taking towards them.

Tomorrow, a new path takes us on a 24 hour long bus ride south - along the Atlantic - towards Rio.

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