The Northeast is the Brazilian region that receives the most tourists, from the country and abroad.
The reasons are obvious: any corner of its immense coastline is capable of adorning the pages of tourism supplements and magazines.
Here you will find the elements of the archetypal tropical paradise – blue sea, white sand, coconut palms. And sun, lots of it, every day.
The beauty – of course – is irresistible and justifies, on its own, a trip anywhere. But the Northeast is much more than a row of beautiful beaches. Its soul is also in its cities and the history they carry.
In the region where the first Europeans landed, the marks of the past are scattered everywhere: in the baroque churches that suddenly appear in the midst of the modern buildings of the capitals and the silent squares of the villages; in the fortresses that still seem to watch the coast waiting for ancient invaders; in the townhouses, the tiles, the fountains.
See the map of northeast Brazil
But there is another past, even more remote, that remains alive in northeastern lands: the one that is glimpsed in the rock inscriptions of the Serra da Capivara, in Piauí, or in the fossils of Santana do Cariri, in Ceará, two among the many archaeological sites scattered throughout the hinterland; what is seen in Sete Cidades, also in Piauí, where the work of the wind over millions of years has sculpted immense rock formations.
Genipabu no Rio Grande do Norte
In this vast interior – the sertão
Here, the journey is difficult, the landscape arid, and there is no luxury.
But those who have the patience to brave the hardships of the stony roads and the discomfort of the rare lodgings will be rewarded with the handicrafts produced by masters and their apprentices, with St. John’s festivals rocked to the sound of the accordion, with street markets full of sounds and smells.
Other surprises: in the Chapada Diamantina, tourism is rapidly professionalizing. Its waterfalls, rivers and caves, where unsuspected blue lagoons are hidden, attract travelers who transform the daily life of the small towns in the region, born from the brief wealth brought by diamond exploration. In Lençóis Maranhenses, tourism is still in its infancy.
Visitors must have an adventurous spirit to enjoy what lies ahead: a landscape of strange beauty, composed of white dunes permanently swept by the wind and interspersed with blue or green lakes, winding rivers and small fishing villages.
The people who live among the sea of white hills tell their stories – of entire towns swallowed up by the sand, of ghost ships hidden under the dunes, of voices and lights perceived on a full moon night.
Inexhaustible, the Northeast unfolds in many pleasures. Those of the body and soul, fed by music, dance, batuques and carnivals of afoxés and maracatus.
On the table, experienced with the acarajés, vatapás and carurus from Bahia, with the delicate cakes and sweets from Pernambuco and Piauí, with the cuxá from Maranhão, the ubiquitous tapioca. And – why not? – that simpler, easier pleasure brought on by the sight of a beach with sea and coconut palms – and lots of sun, every day.
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