Dunas da Joaquina

From the house to the Atlantic Ocean its only a short walk down a cobble stone path and over some dunes. Each house we pass is as different as the next in color, architecture, and landscape but each one has its token barking dog. "Cheaper than an alarm," Ben explains. I guess...

Lucy, Ben's half-schnauzer/half-mutt, is our sound off for danger. She has endearing brown eyes and long brows and whiskers. She stays at home since her greatest motivation for a w-a-l-k is to bark at her nemesis Margo, a pit bull mutt maniac who lives in the house before the gate to the dunes.

The gate out of the community leads into a strip of Mata Atlântica (The Atlantic Rainforest). The light is soft and mostly green, having been diffused, reflected and assimilated by layers of vines, shrubs and forest canopy. A small bridge crosses a creek to a set of board stairs with silken white sandy steps. Steeply, the stairs climb out of the green tunnel.

Now the path is only soft white sand.

There is this scene in the movie Gidget (a 1959 flick about a girl who wants to learn how to surf and then falls in love--we didn't have t.v.), where Gidget is walking towards the ocean. The camera pans down to her feet sinking into the soft sand. Soft, not too wet and not too dry, sand. Sand as soft as a perfectly baked brownie, but more in the ocean sense.

That scene made an impact on me and I may have become quite the connoisseur of soft mediums to sink my toes into due to it.

So, when I say the sand is soft. My goodness, is it soft.

The vegetation surrounding this soft sand is dense and from the top of the first dune you can see out to the Atlantic Ocean. These dunes are known as Dunas da Joaquina and the beach is named Praia da Joaquina, after a princess who threw herself off the rocks and into the surf. (Ben Miller 2007) Some of the vegetation was used for pasture 10 or 15 years ago (Rick Miller 2007). Now it is a collection of bromeliads (spiny and smooth), flowering shrubs, orchids, peas, dune berries and many other odd plants. I wish I knew their names.

Each dune supports a much different set of plants; a succession of vegetation in varying microclimates. The last dune supports the most diversity. In this case, no one knows why.


Birds, cicadas, and frogs answer to one another. Their sounds flow through the peaks and valleys of the dunes in waves. Like very small bottle tops being pressed in a chorus, the frogs' song fill a wetland area in one of the dune valleys.


A ring of strange flowers circle an area that was at once a wet pond. The ring marks the level of inundation the flower could tolerate. A tongue of sand pokes through the dense vegetation of the last dune.


At the last dune, the path tightens through high shrubs and small trees till it crests.

Falling, the path disappears into the last stretch of smaller rolling dunes that lead to the sea.

The hardiest vegetation grows here.
Tolerating the salinity, exposure and moving sand banks are grasses, low vines and other low leafy herbs.

For the last 10 feet, we either throw on our flip flops or run with pointed toes as fast as possible to avoid the sharp burs from the killer grass.

Although the plants may be tough, they are also beautiful. A cover of white and pink flowers are a pleasant surprise. The flowers appear to be taking advantage of the salt and wind protection the lee side of the dune offers.






Et voila! The Atlantic Ocean!
The south shore is named Praia do Campeche. The island off the coast is an ecological reserve named Ilha do Campeche where there are rock petroglyph, trails to rocky overlooks, and soft beaches perfect for snorkling. We will take a boat to visit Ilha do Campeche.

To the north is the more visited section of Praia da Joaquina where surf competitions are held and there is dune boarding down the large sandy dunes. It is nice to walk up the beach to get a coconut drink from a small vendor and sit to watch the people--both the small bikinis and the surfers.

Let's go swimming! The END.