Costa do Descobrimento resumes tourism and promises a ‘summer of summer’ in Bahia

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A shuttle boat travels along the south coast of Porto Seguro, linking beaches such as Caraíva, Satu, Espelho and the village of Trancoso. On the strip of sand, tourists prance over sun loungers and feel the cool breeze that caresses and attenuates the heat of a 32-degree sun.

With cell phones in hand, they don’t want news about the pandemic and its new variants. They take portraits of themselves, listen to music and try to relax this November, which heralds what must be the “summer of summers” on the Discovery Coast, south of Bahia.

After facing a difficult year in 2020, the Porto Seguro region —the second main tourist destination in Bahia— started the resumption of tourism in July this year, with the definition of health protocols and the gradual return of parties, concerts and events.

At the beginning of another summer, inns and hotels are with occupancy above 95% and a full schedule until next year. Even with public New Year’s Eve parties canceled and Carnival threatened after the appearance of the new omicron variant of Covid-19, the atmosphere is one of optimism in the region.

“Our expectation is for maximum occupancy in the coming months. Porto Seguro, without a doubt, will have the summer of summers”, says the deputy mayor and municipal secretary of Tourism Paulo Cesar Onishi, known as Paulinho Toa Toa.

In addition to the repressed demand for travel after nearly two years of the pandemic, the economic scenario was another push for the region: the rising dollar made Brazilian tourists opt for destinations within the country itself.

In Trancoso, a resort that is a destination for well-heeled visitors, the recovery gained traction in the second half of 2020 and has remained high since then.

Even in the midst of a second wave of the pandemic, New Year’s Eve was marked by lines to land jets at airports in the region and by clandestine parties that contradicted a court decision banning end-of-year festivities in Bahia.

High tourist demand remained in the off-season, gaining even more traction as vaccinations advanced and resulted in a slowdown in Covid-19 cases and deaths in the country.

Owners of Pousada Alecrim, in Trancoso, entrepreneurs Karine Hardoim and Wladimir Bruzigueci spent at least six months with the seven-room inn with closed doors after the start of the pandemic.

They took advantage of the period to renovate the structure of the inn, already with an eye on the restoration, and put into practice the project of a second inn with bungalows on a more isolated beach in Trancoso.

The reopening of the inn after the renovations took place only this year. Since then, the movement has been intense. The closer to summer, the greater the demand for new reservations: “We practically don’t have any more vacancies until January”, says Karine Hardoim.

On the streets and beaches of Trancoso, the atmosphere was almost normal among tourists in the last week of November. Were it not for the use of masks by passers-by, there would be no memories of a pandemic that still persists.

In the Praça do Quadrado, where the Church of São João Batista built in 1656 is located, a group of young people played football at dusk while families of tourists walked along the dirt paths between small colorful houses in the historic site that used to house fishermen.

At night, visitors crowded the bars, restaurants and designer stores installed in the houses of the historic site. In bars, sitting at tables under amber lights, they enjoyed concerts by local artists in the format of voice and guitar.

The program is mandatory for tourists visiting from Trancoso and serves as a continuation of what invariably begins on the beaches of the Porto Seguro district.

On the beaches of Nativos and Coqueiros, the most popular in the village, tourists enjoyed their laziness sitting under umbrellas, while sipping and tasting regional dishes. The wide strip of sand provided safety for tourists who walked without masks and held up cell phones to take pictures.

“Now, we feel a little safer to travel, especially in a place where we can be outdoors”, says public servant Daniel Louro, 37, who came from Vitória da Conquista, in southwestern Bahia, to spend a week in Porto Seguro between the beaches of Arraial D’Ajuda, Trancoso and Caraíva.

At the beach tents, tables are full on demand almost every day. Supervisor of a restaurant standing in the sand on Coqueiros beach, Johnny Bonfim, 25, says that establishments in the region no longer feel the impacts resulting from the period of closed doors: “I would say that the movement is even better than before the pandemic “.

In addition to tourists staying in Trancoso, the beaches also receive visitors who arrive in cars and vans to spend the day in the village, in a round-trip scheme organized by tourist agencies.

For those who prefer a more peaceful scheme, there are also beaches that are off the trendiest circuit.

Surrounded by high-end condominiums, which have horse farms and even a private airport, Rio da Barra beach is to the north of the village and is practically untouched. To get there, however, you need a car and the patience to face about five kilometers of dirt roads.

In a scenario that includes cliffs that rise from the sea, tourists have at their disposal an almost empty stretch of sand. On an early afternoon on the last Friday of November, visitors were rarely able to walk on the sand or enjoy the sea.

The tranquil setting is different from the beaches to the south of Trancoso, such as Praia do Espelho and Praia do Satu. Despite being isolated, both receive a large influx of tourists who arrive in speedboats, cars or vans.

To the south of Trancoso, Espelho beach is highlighted by the landscape that unites cliffs, native vegetation and the sea. In addition, reefs form natural pools at low tide.

Even further south, the village of Caraíva is also filled with inns and a large influx of tourists, who leave their cars on the left bank of the Caraíva river and cross in canoes to the village, which has around 600 residents.

In addition to the village’s beaches, bars and restaurants, visitors can also take buggy rides to the isolated beach of Corumbau, in Prado, or you can take a boat to the Porto do Boi Cultural Center to learn more about the culture of the Pataxó indigenous people.

For the coming months, an influx of tourists is expected due to the end-of-year festivities, which take place from the most popular villages like Trancoso to the most isolated ones like Caraíva.

The Bahia government’s pandemic decree allows parties with a public of up to 5,000 people in the state. But the trend is for events to be more restricted in smaller villages. The city hall limited the public for private parties to a maximum of 850 people in Caraíva and 2,000 people in Trancoso.

The goal is to prevent a new spike in the pandemic in the city, which since last year has registered around 29,000 cases and 246 deaths from Covid-19.

The emergence of the omicron variant made the city of Porto Seguro review its reopening plan. The decree releasing the wearing of Covid-19 protective masks in public spaces, which took effect in early November, was repealed two weeks later.

With or without masks, hordes of tourists are expected to continue arriving in the region in search of moments of respite after nearly two years of the pandemic.

“It’s obvious that we don’t feel completely at ease. On the beach, we always try to take a distance to be without a mask. At the hotel, the mask returns. It’s not ideal yet, but it’s what you can do”, said merchant Arthur Ricoldi, 31, while enjoying the sun in Caraíva.

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