Itacare is a town located on the coast, south of Salvador in the state of Bahia. Notorious in colonial times as a hide out for pirates and smugglers it is the surf, adventure, as well as some of the most unspoilt Atlantic Amazonian rainforest that now attracts visitors to this beautiful area of Brazil.
Itacare Travel Booking Resources
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Getting to Itacare
The main town on the Itacare coast is Ilheus, which has daily flights to most major cities in Brazil like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. For international connections, however, you need to look a little further north to Salvador. It’s not that far and there is a good new road linking the two, but from the UK most people will find it more convenient to fly to either Rio or Sao Paulo and then get a flight to Ilheus from there.
Top Things to Do in Itacare
The coast of Itacare is dotted with beaches decorated by palm trees and framed by the luscious green rainforest.
On the beaches close to the town you can find bars and restaurants where a lively nightlife persists. You will hear many sounds emanating from the bars on the beaches of Itacare, with many providing live music as well as DJs to entertain customers. In particular, you will hear live bands playing forró, a Brazilian folkdance, in packed-out bars and clubs.
Entertainment in Itacare usually goes on into the morning with no set times for venues to shut. One of the highlights is to stay up until sunrise when you can witness the fiery sun rising out of the ocean to the sounds of forró, capoeira and the majestic bird calls projecting from the rainforest.
But if you are after something au natural, one only has to venture slightly further from Itacare town to find beautiful untouched beaches to lay out on and simply listen to the waves lapping the shore.
Adventure Sports in Itacare
One of the main draws to Itacare is the range of adventure sports on offer, in particular the surfing, as it is situated in a region of the Bahian coast where the continental shelf shrinks to a shallow depth that allows for the delivery of good, consistent and strong waves.
Alongside Florianopolis, Itacare is probably the best surf spot in Brazil. The geography has allowed for the availability of a huge range of different activities in the Itacare area with the combination of forests, rivers and beaches serving as a playground for canoeing, white-water rafting, trekking and mountain-biking amongst many other things.
However, whilst play is certainly encouraged, so is a respect for the locale that it occurs in and there are many ecological treks through the rainforest that allow visitors to gain a deeper understanding and respect for this part of the world which has been designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.
Wildlife Tours
The area of Atlantic rainforest found around Itacare is considered to be one of the most rich and diverse in the world, in terms of both animals and plant life, with it being divided into two principal conservation areas; the Serra do Conduru State Parkland the Area of Environmental Protection (APA), which is a ‘Heritage of Humanity’.
Visitors are able to experience the wildlife and fauna on offer at this unique site on trails through the rainforest and canoe trips up the Contas River and may, if they are lucky, get to see endangered wildlife such as the yellow-breasted twig monkey and the ring-necked sloth.