Our four days of touring the Lençóis Maranhenses landscape!

Wow, just wow. Honestly, I don’t know where to start this post, because I still feel at as much a loss for words as I did when I first laid eyes on the stunning landscape of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in the north of Brazil.

This literally has to be one of the most beautiful and unique and breathtaking places I have ever seen, and so just one post will not do it justice. I’ll start with this one, an overview of our time and all the amazing natural beauty we were able to see. Then I’ll write at least one or two more with more pictures and a guide on how to visit Lençóis Maranheses. It look a lot of research for us to even understand the basics of it, and so I think writing up what I learned for others will be helpful.

What is Lençóis Maranhenses?

To give a quick overview, Lençóis Maranhenses (which I will just call Lençóis from now on) is located in the north of Brasil, and runs about 75km wide by 25km deep. It became a national park in 1981 and tourism picked up only about 10 years ago. It still feels like a “hidden gem” landscape of Brasil, and we can only imagine what it will look like 10 years from now when it is more developed.

The reason that the Lençóis landscape is such an attraction is because of the unique and gorgeous scenery within the park. The park is made of hundreds (maybe thousands) of undulating sand dunes and the area gets its names from this white, wavy landscape, as lençóis means ‘bedsheets’ in Portuguese. These dunes stay empty in the dry season, but during and after the wet season they fill with rainwater. The water is “filtered” (and thus becomes clearer) by the dunes, and collects in the basins between the dunes, because there is impenetrable rock below the sand.

Because of this process the water is nearly crystal clear, and the lakes are in beautiful colors of blue and green. There is some plant and fish life in the lagoons that form, from species that can remain dormant in the dry season and from the life that lives in a river that intersects some of the lagoons during the height of wet season. These factors, plus a gorgeous blue sky make the landscape at Lençóis like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Day 1 (Thursday): Arriving in Barreirinhas

Since Lençóis Maranhenses is a National Park, you aren’t allowed to stay inside of it. There are three towns that visitors base themselves out of to visit Lençóis – Barreirinhas (the “biggest”), Atins and Santa Amaro. We stayed in Barreirinhas, which gets a bad rap in the guidebooks (which, by the way, are quite outdated on how to visit Lençóis!), and thought it was better than depicted.

To get to Barreirinhas we flew to Sao Luis airport, rented a car and then drove about five hours. Most people take a full Lençóis tour that includes airport transfers but we wanted to have our car for the drive down the coast (we ultimately will end in Recife). The drive was pretty easy, with well-paved roads, until we got to town. Then, because of the recent rains we had some issues getting to our hotel but a local tour guide helped us out.

We stayed at the Porto Preguiças Resort, and we loved it! It is a couple of kilometers out of the town itself and a little more expensive (about 350 reais or US$106 a night) but it was so worth it! We knew as soon as we entered through the gorgeous flower archway that we were going to enjoy our time there.

Because of our long journey to get here (almost 24 straight hours from New York!) we spent the rest of the day, evening and night just napping and relaxing. We definitely had a great place to do it though!

Day 2 (Friday): Lençóis landscape tour – Lagoa Bonita (and more)

Entry into Lençóis Maranhenses National Park is highly regulated, in a good way (it reminded us of how well tourism is run in Bonito). As such, you have to sign up with tours to go into it and see the different lagoons. We signed up with Belaturismo to go on an afternoon/evening tour of one of the most famous lagoons – Lagoa Bonita. We were picked up by our tour agency on an open-air 4×4 truck at about 2pm and we were the last to be picked up (which we were happy about!). We met the 8 other travelers on the tour that day and headed off.

We drove for about 10 minutes and then came to a river crossing. The Rio Preguiça goes between Barreirinhas and the National Park, so we had to load all the 4x4s (from multiple agencies) and all the people and then head across the river. The crossing was only about 100m long and took just a few minutes. Then we reloaded on the other side and went to the dunes!

The drive to get to the dunes is about an hour. It is super bumpy (this is not one of those I’ll-take-a-nap-on-the-ride kind of drives), but I thought it was fun (as long as you heeded the warning to keep arms/legs/everything inside the vehicle – the passages are small and the branches vicious!). We pulled up to the side of the dunes, which is covered in trees and climbed up a pretty steep hill to the top.

You can’t see anything when you are heading up, but as soon as you pass the apex and you get a view of what’s on the other side, it is jaw-dropping. I literally stopped in my tracks and took a big gasp in and just said “Oh. My. Gosh.” while I stood there staring. This was the first view I had of the landscape of the Lençóis Maranhenses.

Motorized vehicles like 4x4s and ATVs aren’t allowed in the park, so you go on foot with the guide. We visited four lagoons that day: Lagoa Maçarico, Lagoa Do Clone, Lagoa Do Descanso and Lagoa Bonito. Lagoa Maçarico was a little smaller and felt a bit “newer” as it had bunches of algae in it (which the guide told us would go away as the season gets drier).

Lago Do Descanso was wider but shallower, so we mostly took in the vista there instead of swimming.

Lagoa Do Clone was a bit bigger and had some really nice high dune walls.

And then we came to Lagoa Bonita, the big kahuna! This lagoon was big and with crystal clear water and we jumped right in to swim across and watch the sun go down across the stunning landscape. A feature of this tour is to get to see the sunset and start of night over Lençóis’ landscapes, and it was as beautiful as promised!

As it started to get dark it was time to head back down the other side of the dune. There were local vendors selling tapioca sandwiches, coffee and handmade crafts and then we got back on the 4×4 and we took the one-hour ride (and ferry crossing!) back to our pousada. It was a breathtaking first day at the dunes and we were so happy to know we had many more days of seeing these beautiful sights in front of us.

Day 3 (Saturday): Lençóis landscape tour – Atins over the dunes

While we were in town we knew we wanted to see Atins, one of the other little towns that people stay in while visiting Lençóis Maranhenses. So we signed up for a full-day tour on another open-air 4×4 for Saturday. This tour takes you to Atins, where you drive around the town, swim on the beach, eat at a local restaurant and then head back.

To get to Atins on this tour you usually drive through the forest and mud trails (similar to the ones that took us to Lagoa Bonita the day before), because you aren’t allowed to drive over the dunes of the National Park. However, because of the rains (we are here about 3/4 of the way through the rainy season) some of the trails were too flooded to pass and so we were allowed to drive over the dunes. Now, I definitely am not in the business of ruining nature, but was happy about this silver lining of heading to Atins on quite a rainy day.

On the way we first stopped at a couple of Lagoas that are unnamed because there usually aren’t visitors to them. It was really neat to see these up close and with only our tour visiting it.

Then, we headed to one of the beaches, named Canto do Atins, a bit north of the town of Atins. Along the way we passed lots of goats and cows and donkeys grazing on the grass that grows on the edges of Lençóis Marahenses park, and then drove along the beach for a while. Unfortunately this is where the weather started to turn – dark clouds and dark skies. We were still really excited when we got to the beach though – the water was warm and the waves were big. We played there for about 30 minutes and would have stayed longer but didn’t want to hold up our tour group too much!

After that we headed to lunch! There is a little famous place to eat called Restaurante do Sr. Antonio about 7km outside of Atins, so we stopped there and all put in our orders (almost everyone did grilled shrimp or grilled fish). Then, while the restaurant prepared out food we went out to another lagoon nearby, called Lagoa Sete Mulheres (Lagoon of Seven Women). The sun had come out again and we had a really fun time at this one! A giant lagoon with clear, cool waters and big sand dunes to run up and down on kept us entertained until lunch was ready.

We then headed back to lunch and it was delicious. A huge grilled fish filet, rice, beans and farofa kept us eating straight for 30 minutes! Damian also bought a bathing suit from the local woman selling on site. There was an awesome little area next door with tons of hammocks but we sadly didn’t have time to enjoy that. So, maybe next time!

After that we were off to Atins (prounounced Aah-cheens)! When they say little town, they mean little town. It was really cute, with little pousadas here and there, and some nicer lodging popping up for the foreigners that are starting to come to town. The best thing to do in Atins would be to just lounge on the beach (it is actually located where the ocean and river meet) and laze your days away. The surrounding area is so cute and the vibe is super chill. Unfortunately it was still a bit grey and rainy while we were there so we more just hung out outside of a little bar for a bit, drove around to see the area and headed back.

By now it was late afternoon and time to end the tour. It was still dark and more rainy, so the tour group was a bit more subdued, which I think happens anyway after a long day of fun! Because of the rains all day the roads were even more full of water, and as we passed one turn off a guy ran up to us asking for help. Another 4×4 had gotten stuck so we drove on over, tied the two together and bailed them out. You can see how deep the water is that these jeeps can (almost) get through!

After that, we crossed back over Rio Preguiças, got dropped off at our hotel, showered and zonked out as quickly as humanly possible!

Day 4 (Sunday): Lençóis landscape tour – Chilling at the resort

Phew, that was already a lot of activity in just a couple of days! So, to make sure our batteries were recharged, and to take advantage of our awesome hotel, we decided to spend this day just relaxing. We slept in (well, I did, Damian got up earlier and swam), read, got massages, did crosswords, and just had an awesome day! I mean, look how cute even the little church that is in the pousada is (our room was behind the church, to the left)?

The resort had three separate pools – one “regular”, one with “regular” water and a sand bottom – to simulate the lagoons, and then one with freshwater supplied by the river. We swam in them and I had the best time just sitting under an umbrella next to one, reading a guidebook and dreaming about our future travels. Not a bad day eh?

Day 5 (Monday): Lençóis landscape tour – Lagoa Azul (and more)

This was sadly our last day in Lençois. We needed to leave in the afternoon to not be driving (too much) in the dark to our next destination, but still had one more major landscape to see – Lagoa Azul. We took off on a morning tour and it started the same way as the others – pick up around 9am, short drive to the river, crossing over the river, and then about an hour drive on a 4×4 to the dunes.

On this trip we visited four Lagoas: Lagoa Preguiça, Lagoa S, Lagoa Azul and Lagoa dos Toyoteiros. I am having trouble at this moment figuring out which pictures go with which Lagoas, and I figure it doesn’t matter right now so much anyway, so I’ll just include them randomly here and then try to parse out each landscape better in another post!

We had to have Damian do some gymnastics in front of this landscape and thought it would be extra fun for him to run up this dune and do it up there. Can you see the little speck of Damian doing a handstand and a backflip??

The guides on the trips also love doing these optical illusion pictures. And when I say love, I should say love. I mean, you can’t hand one of them your camera to ask for a “regular” pic without them art directing you to at least two, if not three, of these optical illusion pictures. But, we do like being silly so we had our fun partaking in them. And one of them turned out extra beautiful I think!

I’m really glad we got one fully sunny day to explore the Lençois landscape, and this morning tour was the perfect end to this little portion of our Northeast Brasil roadtrip!

There are a bunch of things we decided not to do on this trip Lençois, namely a boat tour down the Rio Preguiças and a flight over the dunes. And I’m sure those things are really great as well, but I cannot imagine having a better trip to Lençois Maranhenses. I’m so glad we were there in the slow season so it was much less crowded, and even a little bit of rain was worth the tradeoff for that. I could see us coming back next time and doing a 3-4 day hike across the dunes, sleeping under stars and really being immersed in the Lençois landscape. But man, this trip? One of the best I’ve ever had and I wouldn’t change a thing!

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Read more about our time in Brazil using the links below:

• Brazil Country Recap – What we loved (and didn’t love) in our six weeks there
• Iguazu Falls
• Exploring São Paulo
• Exploring Bonito
• Touring in Bonito (river snorkeling and waterfall hiking)
• Rio de Janeiro: Our first three days in Rio
• Rio de Janeiro: “Professor-ial” thoughts on attending a game at Maracana
• Rio de Janeiro: Volunteering with Project Favela
• Three days in the beach paradies of Ubatuba!
• Rio de Janeiro: Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain
• The amazing landscape of Lençóis Maranhenses (you are here!)
• Three days in the hippie beach town of Jericoacoara
• Why we had to skip Canoa Quebrada and go to Natal instead
• Six days in Praia da Pipa (my favorite beach town)
• 24 hours in Olinda