In April 1500, the Portuguese fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral, sailing for India, sighted land on this coast and anchored near what is now Porto Seguro, in southern Bahia, making the first recorded European landfall in Brazil. The country took its name from the pau-brasil, a tree whose red wood was valuable for making dye and was exported in huge quantities in the early colonial period, nearly wiping it out. The CEPLAC experimental station near Porto Seguro, an agricultural research facility, lies within the Atlantic Forest reserves of this coast, listed by UNESCO in 1999 together with other protected areas of the Costa do Descobrimento.
CEPLAC is the Brazilian federal body for cocoa research, and southern Bahia was for a long time the heart of Brazil's cocoa industry, until a fungal disease, witches' broom, devastated plantations in the late twentieth century. The station protects a stretch of Atlantic forest, with tall trees, epiphytes and a rich wildlife, including rare birds and primates, and has contributed to the conservation of pau-brasil trees.
Porto Seguro is today a busy tourist town, with beaches, nightlife and a historic upper town, the Cidade Histórica, with colonial churches and a view over the sea. South of the town, across the river by ferry, Arraial d'Ajuda and Trancoso are laid-back beach villages with a bohemian atmosphere, set on cliffs above long beaches. To the north, Santa Cruz Cabrália has a monument marking the spot where the first mass was celebrated in Brazil.
For riders, the roads of southern Bahia are a mixed bag. The BR-367 links Porto Seguro to the BR-101, the main north–south highway, and roads along the coast connect the beach villages, some paved, others sandy or rutted. Traffic can be heavy in the tourist season, and speed bumps are frequent. The heat and humidity are intense, with heavy rains from April to July.
Porto Seguro, about fourteen kilometres away, has fuel, shops and restaurants of every kind. Bahian food is rich and flavourful: try moqueca, a stew of fish or shrimp cooked in coconut milk and palm oil, or acarajé, a deep-fried bean fritter filled with spicy shrimp paste, sold by women in white dresses on street corners. And sit on the beach at sunset, with a fresh coconut, and think about the sailors who first saw this coast more than five centuries ago.