Brazil Rio Santos Highway: Paraty to Santos

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Paraty

   Paraty is a small colonial town on a bay of the Costa Verde, where the Serra do Mar mountains drop in green folds to a sea scattered with islands. It was a port of the gold rush in the eighteenth century, when gold from Minas Gerais came down a mule trail through the forest, the Caminho do Ouro, and was loaded here for the voyage to Rio and then Lisbon. The town is remarkably well preserved, with whitewashed houses with coloured door frames, a handful of churches, and streets paved with big uneven stones that are laid, so they say, to let the sea flush them clean at the highest tides.

   Read the complete Paraty write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Paraty is where the day begins. Next is Ubatuba.

2. 2. Ubatuba

   Ubatuba has more than eighty beaches, and surfers say the exact number depends on how much you walk. The name is from the Tupi language and is often said to mean place of canoe-trees, referring to the big trees the Tupinambá carved into boats. Beyond the beaches, the town sits between the sea and the Serra do Mar, a steep mountain wall covered in Atlantic forest, one of the richest and most threatened ecosystems in Brazil. The result is a coast where you can swim in the morning, walk to a waterfall in the afternoon and see toucans at dusk.

   Read the complete Ubatuba write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ubatuba comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ilhabela ferry.

3. 3. Ilhabela ferry

   The ferry from São Sebastião to Ilhabela is a short crossing of about fifteen minutes across a narrow channel, and it is the only way for vehicles to reach the island. Ilhabela, the largest sea island in Brazil, is a steep, forested mountain rising out of the Atlantic, with beaches, waterfalls and a handful of villages scattered around its shore. The mainland side is São Sebastião, a port town of over seventy-five thousand people with a historic centre of colonial churches and a working harbour.

   Read the complete Ilhabela ferry write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 151 km into the recorded legs you reach Ilhabela ferry. Next is Santos.

4. 4. Santos

   Santos is Brazil's great port, the largest in Latin America, and for a rider who has spent the day on the coast road from Paraty, arriving feels like landing in a different century. The city sits on São Vicente island, across a channel from the mainland, and the harbour is crowded with cranes, container stacks and ships waiting for berths. Nearly everything Brazil sells to the world, coffee above all, passed through here at some point, and the old coffee exchange building, now a museum, still has its stained-glass ceiling and a tasting room.

   Read the complete Santos write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Santos closes the day.