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The Todos os Santos Bay and its recesses are an immense amphitheatre, where nature, history and culture come together to form a beautiful setting for nautical tourism and ecotourism activities.
This grandiose setting is made up of a vast expanse of calm waters, from which 56 islands emerge .
There are beaches, forests, trails, rivers, waterfalls, rapids, mangroves, ecological reserves, ruins of sugar mills, old churches and old convents, testimonies to the opulent wealth of the sugar cane plantations that sprouted from the massapé lands.
Dominating the landscape is the city of Salvador, on the Bay of All Saints, which for more than two centuries was the capital of Brazil and the most important city in the Americas.
A city of art, with its baroque excesses, Salvador’s colonial architecture was reflected in the towns and cities that sprang from the sugar mills of the Recôncavo Baiano, in which we can recognise the urban ideals of Renaissance Portugal.
Alongside these strong marks of colonisation, a unique miscegenation between European, African and indigenous cultures made possible the emergence of a rich folklore, unparalleled cuisine and artistic manifestations that combine the influences of the three races in just the right measure.
In order to ensure the protection of its islands, organise socio-economic activities in the region and preserve sites of great ecological significance, the Baía de Todos os Santos Environmental Protection Area was created in June 1999.
Todos os Santos Bay
- HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS
- A TREASURE TROVE OF BEAUTY AND HISTORY
- NAUTICAL TOURISM
- ECOTURISM
1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS
- Legend of the Creation of Todos os Santos Bay
- First European Explorers
- Ponta do Padrão and the Fort of Santo Antônio da Barra
- Geography of Todos os Santos Bay
- Indigenous Presence and Colonisation
- Relationship between the Tupinambás and the French and Portuguese
- Arrival of Christopher Jacques and the Fight against the French Corsairs
- Legend of Caramuru
- Founder of the Captaincy of Bahia de Todos os Santos
- Tupinambá Revolt
- Transformation of the Recôncavo Baiano and the legacy of sugar cane
1. Legend of the Creation of Todos os Santos Bay
An Indian legend recorded by the chroniclers of the early days of the settlement of Brazil narrated that, at the beginning of the world, a great bird with very white feathers set out from far away and, flying nights and days without stopping, reached the coast of an immense land where, exhausted from the long journey, it fell dead.
Its long, white wings, spread out on the ground, turned into white beaches.
At the place where the heart beat in the earth, a large and deep depression opened up, which the waters of the sea invaded, and its shores were fertilised by the blood of the legendary bird.
This is how the primitive lords of the land – the Tupinambás – believed that Kirimuré was born, the vast bay of gentle waters and its Recôncavos, which white Europeans would later call the Bay of All Saints.
2. First European explorers
As little as the records tell us, the first European to penetrate these sheltered waters seems to have been the Portuguese navigator Gaspar de Lemos, commander of the supply ship of Pedro Álvares Cabral‘s squadron, who was tasked with taking Pero Vaz de Caminha ’s letter with the happy news of the discovery to the king of Portugal, Manuel the Fortunate.
This messenger ship, which set sail from Porto Seguro on 2 May 1500, bound for Lisbon, probably anchored in Todos os Santos Bay on 5 May.
However, the official discovery is credited to the Florentine cosmographer Amerigo Vespucci, who entered the wide bar of this bay on the first of November 1501 in one of the six ships of the exploratory expedition of Gaspar de Lemos, the same pilot as the messenger ship.
3. Ponta do Padrão and the Fort of Santo Antônio da Barra
It was customary at the time to name the places where you docked after the saint of the day on the calendar, and so it was called Baía de Todos os Santos, the great gulf ‘capable of sheltering, without confusion, all the squadrons in the world’, as a foreign traveller visiting Bahia described it centuries later.
Gaspar de Lemos ‘ expedition stayed here for about five days.
On a rocky point of the bar that separates the bay of safe waters from the open sea, a stone column was set up – a standard – which the Portuguese used to place in places they discovered, as a mark of possession and dominion of the land.
For many years the site was known as Ponta do Padrão.
Between 1583 and 1587, the Fort of Santo Antônio da Barra, or Forte da Barra, was built on the spot where the monolith with the Portuguese coat of arms was located, and its lighthouse still warns ships of the presence of rocks and parcels at the entrance to the bay.
The place came to be called Farol da Barra (Barra Lighthouse), a name it still has.
Turning round at Ponta do Padrão, you come face to face with Todos os Santos Bay in all its vastness.
An immense amphitheatre with an outline of approximately 200 kilometres, cut out by inlets, lagoons and a small bay, Aratu.
4. Geography of Todos os Santos Bay
The opening, the large mouth facing south, between Ponta do Padrão and Ponta do Garcez, is about 18 nautical miles (33km) long. Its length in a straight line is 50km, from the opening to the town of São Francisco do Conde; and 35km, in a west – east direction, from Paripe to the mouth of the Paraguaçu river.
Within the bay are 56 islands of various sizes: Madre de Deus, dos Frades, Maré, do Medo, Grande, Cajaíba, Bimbarras, das Vacas, Maria Guarda, das Fontes, Bom Jesus dos Passos, Pati and, in the south-west, the largest of them, Itaparica, with an area of 246km.
Halfway round the western edge of the bay, the Paraguaçu river flows, an indigenous name meaning big river. Some 36 kilometres south of the mouth of the Paraguaçu, the Jaguaripe River (or yaguar-y-be, ‘river of the jaguar’) flows into the place known as Barra Falsa da Baía de Todos os Santos.
5. Indigenous Presence and Colonisation
At the beginning of colonial times, the bay and its recôncavos were populated by the Tupinambás Indians who, not long ago, had expelled the Tapuias, the primitive masters of the land, to the hinterlands.
In Bahia, the Tupinambás dominated along the coast, from the mouth of the São Francisco River to beyond the Jaguaripe River, where the Tupiniquins‘ territory began.
The vast waters of the Todos os Santos Bay offered ships a safe anchorage, earning the preference of sailors on the extensive Brazilian coastline.
French privateers had been visiting the unguarded coasts of Bahia since 1504. They were mainly attracted by the lucrative clandestine trade in brazilwood, the red dye of which was consumed on a large scale by the textile industries in the Flanders region.
This trade reached such proportions that at one time it took precedence over the trade of the Portuguese, the masters of the colony.
6. The Tupinambás’ relationship with the French and Portuguese
The French knew how to make alliances with the Tupinambás, facilitating barter. Eduardo Bueno ‘s interpretation in his book Capitães do Brasil: a saga of the first colonisers is lucid: ’The Tupinambás didn’t need long to realise that the Portuguese were different from the French.
Unlike the French, who came to Bahia just to collect brazilwood – exchanging their goods like friends and, like friends, leaving without arousing suspicion – the Portuguese had arrived to stay and, as well as taking possession of the land, they were prepared to enslave the natives’.
In other words, the French didn’t inspire suspicion in the Tupinambás, unlike the Portuguese, who were prospective masters.
For many years, the Bay of All Saints did not have a single Portuguese settlement, and trade prevailed with the French, who befriended the Indians who inhabited its shores and islands.
7. Arrival of Christopher Jacques and the Fight against the French Corsairs
In 1526, a Portuguese squadron commanded by Cristóvam Jacques was sent to Brazil to sweep the French privateers off the coast.
When this coastguard squadron entered the Bay of All Saints, it encountered three French ships carrying brazilwood in the Paraguaçu river, at the entrance to the Iguape lagoon, in the place that to this day is called the island of the French.
The battle took a whole day. The French were defeated and 300 of their crew were taken prisoner.
8. Legend of Caramuru
The clandestine trade in brazilwood found a kind of mercantile agent for the French in Bahia: the Portuguese Diogo Álvares Correia, who went down in history with the legendary name of Caramuru.
He was shipwrecked on a possibly French ship which, in 1509 or 1511, crashed into the reefs and rocks on the ocean shore one kilometre to the north of the bar of the bay, at the place known today as Mariquita beach, the name being a corruption of the Tupi word mairaquiquiig or ‘shipwreck of the French’.
The fact that it emerged from the sea among the rocks led the Tupinambás to call it Caray-muru, which in the language of the Tupinambás means a fish with an elongated body like an eel that lived among the rocks.
Some authors prefer the name to have come from, ‘the wet or drowned white man’.
However, legend has it that the shipwrecked man, coming out of the sea, shot a bird with the rifle he had collected on board, leaving the Indians so perplexed that they called him ‘the son of fire’ or ‘the son of thunder’.
Caramuru lived among the Tupinambás for 47 years, marrying and leaving numerous offspring with the famous Indian woman Paraguaçu, daughter of the powerful chief Taparica, lord of the cannibals on the island of Itaparica. They married in France, probably in 1525, where the Indian was baptised and given the name Catharina, in honour of Queen Catharina de Médicis.
Legend has it that on Caramuru ‘s departure for his overseas wedding, an indigenous woman threw herself into the waters of the bay and swam after the French ship, which was carrying her ungrateful beloved, until she met her death. Her name became legendary: Moema, mbo-em in the language of the Tupinambás, ‘the faint-hearted one’, ‘the exhausted one’.
In the Bay of All Saints it is difficult to separate history, based on documents, from story, a fantasised expression of the facts.
Caramuru ‘s influence was great in the early days of settlement. It is curious that French pilots, smugglers of brazilwood, called the place at the entrance to the bay known to the Portuguese as Ponta do Padrão Pointe du Caramourou.
9. Founder of the Captaincy of Bahia de Todos os Santos
At the end of 1535, the nobleman Francisco Pereira Coutinho arrived in Bahia to settle the captaincy that had been granted to him by King João III, through the letter of donation signed in Évora on 5 April 1534.
The Captaincy of Bahia (Capitania da Bahia de Todos os Santos) was fifty leagues (300km) long, stretching from the mouth of the São Francisco River to the tip of the Bay of Todos os Santos, including the Recôncavo Baiano of the latter, including any islands that might be found, and towards the hinterland and the mainland, as far as the limit of Castile, the Meridian of Tordesillas.
The captain-donee settled near the site where Caramuru lived, with his Indian wife, his Mameluk children and his sons-in-law.
On the site, now known as Porto da Barra, Pereira Coutinho built a settlement by the sea to be the official seat of the Captaincy, Vila Velha or Povoação do Pereira.
About a year later, the grantee had a letter of donation drawn up granting Caramuru a sesmaria, thus confirming the lands he had occupied with his people.
10. Tupinambá Revolt
It didn’t take long for the Tupinambás to realise that this new invasion of settlers, who had come with the grantee, was gradually taking over their lands, their forests and their rivers.
What’s more, they oppressed the people into slavery, even selling them to other captaincies. This oppression could not have had any other outcome: the Tupinambás rose up en masse against the invading whites.
The trigger for this revolt was the death of the son of one of the indigenous chiefs, attributed to a relative of the donatory himself.
It is true that Caramuru helped the newcomers by supplying food and facilitating relations with the Indians, but he was not an ally of all the Tupinambás. Nor could he have been.
There were many Indian villages scattered along the coast and in the Recôncavo, divided into various tribes, each with its own chief, guarding their forests and fishing grounds.
And it was quite common for them to wage war against each other, taking prisoners who they roasted and ate at great feasts, or sold as slaves to outsiders.
The Tupinambás banded together and, with around six thousand warriors – their faces dyed black with jenipapo, alternating with the bright red of urucum, which gave them a terrifying appearance – they burnt fences, destroyed mills, killed several Portuguese and besieged the survivors in Povoação do Pereira.
‘It was five or six years, spent in great hardship,’ reported the mill owner and historian Gabriel Soares de Souza in 1580, “suffering great famines, diseases and a thousand misfortunes and the Tupinambá people killing people every day”.
As well as this war, the grantee also faced the treachery of some convicts and settlers who, due to internal rivalries in the captaincy, allied themselves with the Indians, inciting them to fight.
As for Caramuru, it seems that he didn’t take a stand against the Indians who besieged the seat of the captaincy. However, it seems that he was the one who led the old grantee to flee to the Captaincy of Ilhéus. As a result, the Tupinambás devastated the town.
While the Captaincy of Bahia was adrift, the French, friends of the Indians, were plotting to settle there, spurred on by their ambition to turn Brazil into a French possession.
This threat of possible French domination motivated Francisco Pereira Coutinho to return to his domains. It was Caramuru himself who persuaded the grantee to leave Porto Seguro, where he was taking refuge, and return to Bahia with the promise of peace offered to the Indians.
In 1547, on the return journey, the ship carrying Pereira Coutinho crashed into the treacherous Pinaúnas reefs at the southern tip of the island of Itaparica.
This tragic episode was described by Eduardo Bueno: ‘The donatário and most of his companions were saved, but were taken prisoner by the Tupinambás. When they realised that Pereira himself was among the prisoners, the Tupinambás decided to kill him.
The one who brandished the club was a five-year-old Tupinambá boy, the brother of a native whom Pereira himself had ordered killed. In the ritual sacrifice, the boy was helped by an adult warrior to deliver the blow that ended Francisco Pereira Coutinho‘s life.
The tribe then devoured the donatory‘s body in a noisy anthropophagic feast.
Almost nothing remained of the nine years of Pereira Coutinho ‘s administration. The mills that had been set up in the Recôncavo were burnt down by the Tupinambás. Pereira’s Vila Velha, what was left of it, returned to its original condition as a ‘simple nest of Mamelukes’.
The tragic death of the old and ruined Francisco Pereira Coutinho precipitated a complete overhaul of Brazil‘s administrative system, which had long been under study in Lisbon. In general, the whole system of hereditary captaincies had failed.
On 29 March 1549, a Friday, before the sun disappeared behind the island of Itaparica, the prows of three large ships, two caravels and a bergantim, entered the still waters of the Bay of All Saints.
Commanding the Portuguese armada was Tomé de Souza, ‘Captain of the settlement and lands of Bahia de Todos os Santos and Governor of the lands of Brazil’, titles he had held since his appointment on 7 January 1549.
He had come to found ‘a large and strong fortress and settlement’, the city of Salvador da Baía de Todos os Santos.
A few months before the Governor‘s arrival, an emissary from the king sent a letter to Diogo Álvares Caramuru announcing the arrival of the armada and, above all, that he should stock up on supplies for Tomé de Souza and his entourage.
With the death of the donatory, Caramuru had become the most important man in the Captaincy and had already obtained a promise from the Tupinambás to co-operate with the ‘new’ colonisers.
Although the skirmishes with the Indians did not stop, the Governor managed, with Caramuru‘s help, to start establishing peace between the settlers and the Indians.
Further into the bay, to the north, just under half a kilometre from Vila do Pereira under one of the bluest skies in the world, the Governor planted the fortress city on top of an escarpment, facing west, dominating the Bay of Todos os Santos.
The Indians co-operated with the numerous craftsmen who, under the orders of Master Luis Dias, built the city.
At first, mud huts, then came the stone and lime houses, and the city would rise with arrogance, seventy metres high, looking out over the bay; and it would become a city of art, with its baroque excesses and its animist cults, the metropolis of the Bay of All Saints and its Recôncavos, the city of Bahia, seat of the Portuguese colonial government for 214 years.
Eight years after the founding of the city of Salvador, in 1557 death ended the troubled life of Diogo Álvares, Caramuru.
It was up to Mem de Sá, the third Governor General of Brazil, to pacify the wild Indians with the help of Jesuit missionaries.
11. Transformation of the Recôncavo Baiano and the legacy of sugar cane
When it became necessary, the Governor did not hesitate to invade the lands of the uprising tribes and destroy the villages that tried to resist. More than one hundred and thirty villages were destroyed. Mem de Sá was a great promoter of sugar cane cultivation in the region.
He even built a royal sugar mill with its water wheel to receive sugar cane from farmers who didn’t have their own. Sugar mills flourished on the land of massapê, a deep clay that sticks to shoes.
The cultivation of sugar cane and the manufacture of sugar became typical and basic activities in the Recôncavos.
The sugar cane plantations and mills lined the entire bay, from Salvador to Barra do Jiquiriçá and the lands of Jaguaripe, where Gabriel Soares set up his mills; they spread across the Santo Amaro and São Francisco do Conde tabuleiros, and up the flowing Paraguaçu.
In the last quarter of the 16th century, the Recôncavo was already home to a good number of owners of vast sesmarias and well-equipped sugar mills, with a large number of slaves. These sugar mills weren’t just farms, they were settlements.
From them, the towns and cities of the Recôncavo were born.
For a long time, communication between these towns was exclusively via the Bay of All Saints and the rivers that flow into it.
Then came the railways and motorways that broke the isolation. The sugar mills became sugar factories.
Tobacco occupied the lands of the Cachoeira – São Félix – Maragogipe area. In the 20th century, the tall silhouettes of oil wells dotted the fields, where before the wind had whipped the cane fields. Industries sprang up.
A new era of transformation. The prosaic sloops and steamers gradually gave way to schooners, sailboats and catamarans.
Cars now ply the waters of the bay in the belly of ferries.
However, evidence of the past persists in the austere architecture of the colonial mansions, with their façades adorned with Portuguese tiles, and in the monumental churches that mark the landscape.
The silence of the convent cloisters echoes ancient stories, while the water wheel of the mills reveals the production cycle that moulded the region.
The silver implements and imagery of the altars bring out the cultural and spiritual richness of Bahia.
In addition, ships and caravels lie beneath the water, harbouring memories of past navigations.
The cannons of the old forts still watch over the horizon of the bay, bearing witness to the history that unfolded there.
All this is interwoven in the mestizo memory of the people of Bahia de Todos os Santos, who carry within them the legacy of a time full of transformations and traditions.
2. A TREASURE OF BEAUTY AND HISTORY
Bounded at its extremities by the Barra Lighthouse and Ponta do Garcez, Todos os Santos Bay blends beauty, history and culture, visualised in its handicrafts, typical cuisine and architecture, making it a great setting for nautical tourism and ecotourism.
This scenery is made up of 1,052 km² of calm waters, home to islands, beaches and the fresh waters of countless rivers and streams, the main ones being the Paraguaçu, Jaguaripe and Subaé, as well as having the first capital of Northeast of Brazil and the largest in the Northeast: Salvador da Bahia.
Surrounding it are the municipalities of Itaparica, Vera Cruz, Jaguaripe, Nazaré, Salinas da Margarida, Maragogipe, São Félix, Cachoeira, Santo Amaro, Saubara, São Francisco do Conde, Madre de Deus and Candeias, among many others that make up the Recôncavo Baiano.
In Bahia, the word Recôncavo gained a new dimension, with a capital letter, to identify the region around this bay.
In order to ensure the protection of its islands, organise the socio-economic activities present in the area and preserve sites of great ecological significance, the Baía de Todos os Santos Environmental Protection Area was created by State Decree 7,595 of 5 June 1999.
The APA covers an area of approximately 800 km², including the bay’s waters and islands, which are home to remnants of the Atlantic Forest, mangroves and sandbanks, and a diverse fauna and flora.
3. NAUTICAL TOURISM
- History and Investments in Nautical Tourism
- Nautical Infrastructure
- Traditional competitions and regattas
- Attracting Nautical Events
- Shipwrecks and Hidden Treasures: Exploring the Depths of Todos os Santos Bay
1. History and Investments in Nautical Tourism
In the past, Todos os Santos Bay was the largest seaport in the Southern Hemisphere. Today, it is the target of major public and private investment, with the aim of increasing nautical tourism and ecotourism in the region.
2. Nautical infrastructure
A large private marina has already been set up near the Lacerda Lift, offering 300 spaces for boats of any size, with modern infrastructure.
In addition, the Bahia Nautical Centre, an initiative of the state government, not only houses boats, but also promotes and coordinates various nautical activities in the state.
3. Traditional Competitions and Regattas
Among the most notable nautical events are the traditional regattas, such as the João das Botas Sailboat Regatta and the famous Aratu – Maragogipe Regatta. International regattas such as the Rally les Iles du Soleil and the Hong Kong Challenger are also part of the programme.
During the summer, the Mar Grande – Salvador crossing is the main competition, forming part of the Bahian Open Water Circuit with races in places such as Salinas, Itaparica, Ponta de Areia, Itacaranha, Ribeira and São Tomé de Paripe.
4. Attraction of Nautical Events
The Bay of Todos os Santos has a rich history, from the arrival of ships and caravels to the present day, hosting ocean-going sailing ships, luxury liners and even the yacht of England’s Queen Elizabeth.
Procession of Senhor Bom Jesus dos Navegantes
The biggest and most important annual event on the waters of the bay is the Procession of Senhor Bom Jesus dos Navegantes, held on 1st January.
The boat Gratidão do Povo takes the image of Bom Jesus on a long journey from the Quay of the Port to the Port of Barra and then to the Church of Boa Viagem, accompanied by hundreds of boats.
5. Shipwrecks and Hidden Treasures: Exploring the Depths of Todos os Santos Bay
Another unique aspect of Todos os Santos Bay is the combination of the beauty of the natural and historical scenery hidden beneath its waters. These sceneries reveal surprises for diving enthusiasts, who come across the formation of coral reefs and the wreckage of ships that were wrecked during its colonisation.
It’s good to know that in front of Porto da Barra, at a depth of 12 metres and with a visibility of 10 to 15 metres, there are beautiful coral reefs. For experienced divers, the outer corals or ‘Parede’ are in the middle of the Bay, between Itaparica and Salvador.
The walls, a mile from Salvador, are between 25 and 45 metres deep and, at high tide, visibility varies between 15 and 20 metres.
The coral formations and reefs near the Maré islands have a maximum depth of 11 metres and visibility of up to 15 metres horizontally.
In front of the harbour pier, on the north breakwater, there is an interesting spot for night dives with lots of marine life. In front of Aratuba beach in Itaparica, the Pontinha and Caramunhãs coral reefs, two miles off the coast, offer a rich underwater landscape.
The ghosts of history have also become a target of interest for divers in search of treasure, research or curiosity.
Between battles, invasions and storms, several ships have sunk in the Bay of All Saints, and the best known and historically recorded are:
- The ship Nossa Senhora de Jesus, 1610 – attacked by Dutchmen from the Companhia das Índias, it sank in front of Forte de Santo Antônio da Barra, at the entrance to the Bay;
- Seven Portuguese ships, 1624 – were set on fire and sank in front of the slope of what is now Avenida Contorno;
- Two Flemish and one Lusitanian ship, 1627 – went to the bottom of the sea at Preguiça beach during a battle between the Portuguese and the Dutch for possession of the city of Salvador;
- Two Dutch and one Portuguese ship, 1647 – sank after another sea battle near Monte Serrat Fort;
- The ship Santa Escolástica, 1648 – sank on the way out of the Bay;
- The galleon Nossa Senhora do Bom Sucesso, 1700 – sank in front of Preguiça beach;
- Spanish galleon San Pedro, 1714 – sank in the same place;
- The galleon Nossa Senhora do Rosário, 1737 – sank off Monte Serrat, laden with jewellery, gold, crockery, amber and pepper;
- The wreck of the ship Bretanha, known as ‘Navio de Dentro’, is near the Farol da Barra, protected by coral reefs, and is an ideal spot for baptism dives.
4. ECOTURISM
The verb conjugate is always present when talking about the Baía de Todos os Santos: combining sea and land, old and new, legends and history. This is how ecotourists’ “discovery” gaze comes across the possibilities of visiting its islands and the Recôncavo Baiano region, where the marks of Portuguese colonisation and miscegenation between European, African and indigenous cultures are strong.
The 56 islands that make up the Baía de Todos os Santos archipelago have common characteristics, such as beaches with crystal-clear waters, calm seas, dense vegetation, predominantly mangroves, coconut groves and banana plantations, as well as traces of the Atlantic Rainforest.
The main islands of Todos os Santos Bay are Itaparica Island, the largest island in the bay, known for its calm beaches and reefs; Frades Island, famous for its crystal-clear beaches and natural pools; Maré Island, a popular destination for its quiet beaches and exuberant nature; Cajaíba Island; Bimbarras Island; Vacas Island; Canas Island; Bom Jesus Island; and Ilha do Medo.
Bahia’s Recôncavo, rich in folklore, cuisine and the arts of its dark people, shows the marks of its past in the historic towns and almost 400 old sugar mills that populated the region during the colonisation of Brazil.
It harbours a past of riches and heroic deeds by its people who, practically unarmed, fought against foreign invasions and sugar mill owners united in support of D. Pedro I, bravely fighting against the Portuguese for Brazil’s independence.
To visit the Recôncavo Baiano is to be dazzled by the baroque architecture of the 18th century in towns such as Cachoeira, São Félix, Santo Amaro, Jaguaripe and Nazaré, which were born, developed and experienced luxury and opulence during the sugar cane, tobacco and cattle cycles.
With the abolition of slavery in Brazil, the economy of the Recôncavo fell into decay and the mill owners went bankrupt.
The big house families moved to the provincial capital, leaving behind towns, cities, beautiful colonial buildings and the massapé lands. A world of memories that has crumbled over time.
It’s also about indulging in the typical cuisine that combines the influences of the three races in just the right way in dishes flavoured with palm oil and the most varied sweets, liqueurs and brandies; it’s about discovering the natural beauty hidden in the Paraguaçu and Jaguaripe rivers throughout the area of influence of their estuaries in Todos os Santos Bay, in the Iguape lagoon and on the beaches of Saubara.
Religiosity, mysticism and history are the hallmarks of the Recôncavo, which is framed by extensive sugar cane plantations, rich mangrove swamps and what remains of the rainforest.
All Saints Bay History and Tourism
