Arraial d'Ajuda

This second special of BrasilPlayas.com(the first one was about Salvador de Bahía ) is dedicated to Arraial d'Ajuda, one of the most important and sophisticated destinations on the Bahia coast. This isolated district of Porto Seguro by a wide river without bridges, has beaches with a remarkable variety of landscapes, international population and cultural options typical of cities in the space of what is still almost a village.

Playa de Araçaipe - Arraial d'Ajuda

foto de brasilplayas.com - CC by-nc-nd

Arraial d'Ajuda vs. Porto Seguro

Only the width of the river Buranhem and 10 minutes of ferry crossing separate Arraial d'Ajuda from Porto Seguro, the absence of a bridge connecting the two most important tourist destinations in southern Bahia made Arraial d'Ajuda a destination clearly differentiated from the popular and hectic Porto Seguro. Just crossing the river with the Balsa and you can already see the radical urban change: the road that leads to Arraial is wooded, pleasant and surrounded by inns integrated into the landscape. Arraial d'Ajuda shows the good taste that its neighbor Porto Seguro lacks.

Playa Pitinga - Arraial d'Ajuda

Copyright VeraÁguia Fotografía

Unlike Porto Seguro(with its popular orientation and predominantly local tourism) Arraial d'Ajuda is one of the most sophisticated and cosmopolitan destinations on the Brazilian coast, and in its small size of a village it concentrates inhabitants of the entire world who once came as tourists and could not resist the temptation to return again and again to settle permanently: who comes to Arraial wants to stay.

Playa de Mucugê - Arraial d'Ajuda

foto de brasilplayas.com - CC by-nc-nd

Hippies in the 70s and international tourism in the 90s

First it was the hippies, who after exhausting coastal options further north, ventured to cross the river Buranhem in small boats and settled in Arraial when the place was almost nothing: only a suburb(that wants say arraial in Portuguese) of Porto Seguro that housed some indigenous populations and one of the oldest churches in Brazil nestled in a high plateau above a beach landscape of coconut trees, reefs, white sand and cliffs.

Playa Taípe - Arraial d'Ajuda

Copyright Peter Oechsle

Arraial d'Ajuda was secret, paradisiacal and virgin, and for the first hippies who ventured, an Eden chosen to settle and live in contact with nature in total freedom like the Indians; but the hippies, unlike the Indians, travel constantly and are accustomed to telling their experiences to other travelers: the great beach secrets do not remain hidden for long and thus; attracted by the exotic beauty and freedom of the place, travelers began to arrive from all over Brazil and the world: that place that was only a suburb, a peripheral place to another, and that was beyond the limits of the civilized, began to becoming an international tourist destination in itself, access to the place grew exponentially, the ferry-type transport here called "Balsa" was created, and mass tourism soon began to arrive.

La histórica iglesia de Arraial d'Ajuda

photo by xandelisk - CC 2.0 by-nd

Argentine and Israeli tourists began to arrive in the 90s, Arraial already had by then a complete infrastructure of services, and several restaurants by that time began to put posters written in Hebrew to attract new visitors, who despite not To understand a word of Portuguese, they took the place to the point where, in those years, it began to be said that here was "Israel d'Ajuda".

Beco das Cores - Arraial d'Ajuda

foto de brasilplayas.com - CC by-nc-nd

Then came the Europeans massively at the beginning of the 2000s, especially attracted by the cheap real against a euro then almighty. Many of those who fell in love with the place settled down to live and created inns and hotels, within the limited available space the inns sprouted side by side and Arraial d'Ajuda consolidated itself as one of the places in Brazil with the highest density of accommodation .

Of all those tourist waves the foreigners that were installed definitively showed their presence and brought their customs. Arraial began to be called "The Corner of the World", and became one of the most cosmopolitan places in Brazil, with people from all over the world who began to inhabit this place and to bring their compatriots, from these massive migrations of It became common for foreigners to intermingle in the ambient sound of the village dialogues in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Dutch, Italian, French, German and even Japanese ...

Arraial grew enormously since its hippy days and the square meter of land near the beach is one of the most expensive in Brazil; but it remains faithful to a refined urban simplicity and with good taste: the vital energy implanted by its first inhabitants remains and has been enriched to the point of having cultural offers difficult to find in another town of its dimensions and characteristics. Arraial d'Ajuda for giving an idea, has a Film Festival, a theater, art galleries, cultural centers and a multitude of musicians and artists of all kinds among its inhabitants.

Its history linked to the birth of Brazil, its numerous amalgamated cultural sources and especially its remarkable geography continue to delight Brazilians and foreigners from all over the world: lately it is the Italians, who, fleeing from the cold and the European crisis, arrive en masse to settle and they open restaurants, bars and inns in this corner of the Bahia coast.

Arraial d'Ajuda has an accommodation infrastructure of the most varied that can be found on the Brazilian coast, its exaggeration in terms of accommodation options makes Arraial one of the best options for off-season travel, competition between the posadas it produces unbeatable prices in later dates to Carnival and previous to end of year . In Arraial d'Ajuda there are all kinds of inns: from the cheapest to the most exclusive; the village also has a huge amount of international restaurants and bars, and the best night in southern Bahia, concentrated mainly in the "Rua de Mucugê", and in the numerous electronic music parties on the beach that are common in high season and during full moon nights.

That full moon coming out of the sea as well as parties and "happy hours" generates that everyone is hypnotized looking at the horizon. That huge, orange moon that emerges from the sea at the same time as the night every 28 days, and the spectacle it produces, has also been a powerful reason for many to want to stay forever in Arraial.
 
Those who stay say that there is a special energy here, an energy only found in a handful of places in the world. An energy that retains or prevents too far away without wanting to return.

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