Itacaré, Brazil
Written on March 7th, 2026 by Dr Hobo
This is part of a series on my favourite places visited whilst backpacking.
Itacaré, Bahia, Brazil
Last visit: July 2014
Vibe: Barefoot surf town with a side of jungle magic
July 2014 in Brazil was mad. I was working at a hostel in Vitória, serving caipirinhas to people glued to the World Cup. When England crashed out early and the place emptied, I headed north for somewhere quieter.
Itacaré is a small surf town on the southern Bahia coast. Rainforest one side, ocean the other. No traffic lights. The main street is a lazy stretch of surf shops, juice bars and restaurant terraces, with hammocks instead of chairs. Everything runs at about half the pace you think it should, and within a day you stop fighting it.
The surf culture is real, and it comes with the usual surf-town attitude: a mild but unmistakable arrogance. Itacaré’s beach breaks and point breaks have been pulling serious wave hunters here for decades, and the locals know it. As a non-surfer you’re tolerated as long as you know your place. I knew mine and got on with it.
The beaches don’t really compete with each other. Each one needs a short trek through the rainforest to get to: Prainha, Engenhoca, Havaizinho. About twenty sweaty minutes a piece. The pay-off is that by the time you turn up you’ve usually got the place to yourself.
The Cleandro Waterfalls
The best bit wasn’t the beaches though. It was a day on the river.
I’d made friends with another bloke at the hostel, as you do, and we rented canoes from the beach and set off up the Rio das Contas. Nobody guided us, nobody warned us about anything. We just went.
Paddling against the current is the kind of workout you don’t notice until you stop, and then the river just quietly carries you back the way you came. After a while it narrows into a tunnel of mangroves, dense and low enough that you end up ducking, with roots dipping into the dark water on either side. Felt like another planet.
At the end you reach the Cleandro Waterfalls (properly the Cachoeira do Rio do Engenho), a few cascades dropping into pools cold enough to make you gasp. After a sweaty paddle in Bahia heat, swimming under them with the canoe bobbing nearby in the mangrove shade is hard to beat.
The paddle back, with the current doing the work for us, felt earned.
In sum: Essential if you want Brazil without the polish: raw beaches, proper jungle, and a pace that’ll slow you down within a day or two. Skip it if you need reliable WiFi or English menus. Perfect if you don’t.
Diary Extract — Goodbye Vitória
Written on the train from Vitória to Belo Horizonte, July 2014
What a great send-off I had from Vitória and my hostel ‘Onça da Praia’. Not only did I play one of my best ever games of football that evening — doing my part to save the face of English football after a disastrous World Cup — but to have all my friends party with me at Onça da Praia afterwards was amazing. I really will miss everyone here and I promise one day I will be back.
In fact it was almost too good of a party. I missed my alarm and was fortunate enough that my friend woke me up at 6am. It was manic. Instead of a relaxing shower, a little trip to the bakery for breakfast and snacks, and a leisurely bus ride to the train station, I was forced to run around like a headless chicken. I threw my shit together, praying I hadn’t left anything, and ran around Camburi looking for a taxi. I was still slightly drunk, I think, because I was convinced I had dropped something (I hadn’t) and told the taxi driver to drive in a circle around the hostel before going to the train station.
I made it though — indeed, I’m writing this from the train right now. It’s great, the best way to travel for sure. Comfy seats, a carriage as a canteen, a mini computer lab for your laptops and best of all — stunning scenery: misty mountains, bubbling rivers, horse ranches and untouched forests. And that’s the bits I did see through my dazed hungover state. If you get the chance I thoroughly recommend the Belo Horizonte–Vitória train link. The train is more akin to those you imagine as a child — not those sanitised, boring ones from home — more like something from an Indiana Jones film or an old Bond movie.
Anyway, with no firm plans yet for tonight’s accommodation, or any knowledge of how to get from Belo Horizonte station to Ouro Preto at 10pm, I leave you all in Vitória whilst clinging on a wing and a prayer.
