Travelers Guide To Jericoacoara, Brazil

Nestled among the dunes of coastal Brazil, like a ripe fig in a beautiful woman’s cleavage, lies the small town of Jericoacoara. Once a small fishing village, Jeri — located only 300 kilometers from Fortaleza — is now most famous for being one of the world’s best sites for windsurfing. And if you don’t feel like strapping yourself to a wobbly plank and hurtling around on the waves, well, there’s also gorgeous Brazilian men on horses, capoeira classes, seasonal lagoons and a massive dune that the entire town climbs every night to watch the sunset.

To get there: Fly to Fortaleza, take a 5 hour bus to Jijoca where you’ll switch to a beach truck for the final 40 minute drive — on sand — to Jeri. Don’t try to drive by yourself in a rental car- you leave the pavement behind in Jijoca and the streets in Jeri are also sand, so normal cars are basically useless.

To stay: If you feel like splurging, go for the Pousada Vila Kalango. Singles are about $84 to $110 a night. For cheaper lodging, the Pousada Tropical Brasil has beds from $16 to $52. Pousada Tirol offers camping space for about $3 a night. For a longer stay, ask around town to see who has rooms or villas to rent.

To eat: Papagaio restaurant serves good fish, as does Planeta Jeri. “Tapioca,” a.k.a tapioca flour pancakes, are delicious topped with cheese and are served everywhere. Açaí served as a drink or as a puree with yogurt is delicious and gives you a major buzz. The Moqueca de camarón is another hugely popular dish.

To do: Jeri is a beach town, so surfing, windsurfing, swimming and sailing are all popular options. Praia da Malhada is one of the more popular beaches. You can also take a guided dune buggy tour to the nearby seasonal freshwater lagoons where entrepreneurs set up lunch shacks and hammocks right in the water. After sunset there’s always a roda de capoeira (capoeira circle) on the beach that you can watch from the edges (or leap into, if you feel like making an ass of yourself). The nightlife is both really fun and overpriced. Multiple discos pop up inside beachfront restaurants and vendors set up caipirinha stalls outside the few bars and discos so our recommendation is to get your booze from those stalls and just go to the discos for the music. If you want to be super cheap about it you can just stand outside the discos to dance because most of them are semi-open air and the music is just as loud a few feet away. Ask someone to teach you the forró, the most popular dance in northeastern Brazil.

Jeri is probably one of the only places where you can get a bikini wax on a broken mattress in some lady’s attic, trip over a cow sleeping in the street and then run into a Victoria’s Secret model sauntering around town, all in the same day. Surreal, beautiful and crazy, Jeri is on our short-list of places to see before we die.

Jericoacoara [Wikitravel]