Praia do Perigoso

Hello everyone! Remember me? Afraid my whirlwind trip to England didn’t leave any time for blogging – just eating, drinking and catching up with old friends. For those of you suffering the heat in Rio right now, I won’t torture you with detailed descriptions of the English winter weather – let’s just say that the mornings were deliciously frosty.

Back in 40 degree Rio, we are all looking for ways to cool off. The beaches of Zona Sul are packed, especially on the weekends, and although I enjoy the social nature of Rio’s beaches, I think we all dream from time to time of having the whole beach to ourselves.

Well I have the answer! But you’re going to need a car, an appetite for exercise and plenty of water.

If you take the road that runs west through Barra da Tijuca, after about an hour you will eventually see the turn-off to Barra de Guaratiba.

As far as I can tell, the journey from Zona Sul (that is Ipanema in green) to Barra de Guaratiba (the red mark) is not feasible on public transport – by bus it would take around 3 or 4 hours.

This is a smallish town [Correction: apparently it’s officially a neighbourhood of Rio, but to me it felt like a separate town] with a little strip of shops and bars running parallel to a rather pretty beach. On a sunny weekend however, you’ll find the beach is almost as busy as Ipanema – that’s a long way to go for a fairly similar experience.

Pretty. But also pretty crowded.

So what were Mrs Eat Rio and I doing in Barra de Guaratiba on a hot sunny Saturday morning in January? We were looking for a beach of our own. If you’re prepared to walk a bit there are 5 beaches to visit – a couple of which have rather disconcerting names!

Praia do Perigoso (Dangerous Beach) and Praia do Inferno (Hell Beach) sound inviting don’t they?

We walked to the end of the main street, asked some locals for directions to the “trilha de Praia do Perigoso” and before long we were on our way.

It was a hot day and this dog barely had the energy to give me a perfunctory growl. He looked relieved when I moved on so he could go back to relaxing.

The trail is one of those rough, dusty tracks that can be a little slippery from loose earth and stones but totally doable in shorts and flip-flips. There are a few steepish sections which left me with achy legs the next day, but nothing too strenuous.  A word of warning – although I would describe the track as easy-moderate, there are long sections without much shade so if you decide to do this, take plenty of water and don’t forget the sunblock.

Walking the trail on towards Praia do Meio.

After an hour and twenty minutes we came to the first two beaches – Praia de Buzios and Praia do Perigoso. Praia de Buzios isn’t much more than a little strip of sand, so we headed to the scary sounding Perigoso. It wasn’t exactly busy, but it certainly wasn’t deserted either, so we carried on to Praia do Meio.

On the way, we passed the very well named Pedra da Tartaruga (Turtle Rock).

Praia do Meio was gorgeous and almost completely deserted. A few intrepid travellers had brought tents out with them and were camping in some shade away from the beach, but the other dozen people were just doing a day trip.

No rented umbrellas or beer sellers here – take everything you need because you’ll be on your own!

Not sure if this guy actually caught anything, but it made for a nice picture.

We never made it on to Praia Funda or the hellish Praia do Inferno – we were perfectly happy on Praia do Meio. If you’re looking for a more adventurous, less crowded beach experience, this could be the place for you.

As we returned to Barra de Guaratiba, our dry throats called for something cold and thirst-quenching.

Of course at the end of the day you have to walk your way back to Barra de Guaratiba – a hot, dusty walk back to civilisation. But the good thing about civilisation is that they have ice cold beer!

Normally I wouldn’t be happy about having a semi-frozen beer, but on this occasion it was perfect. It didn’t last long!