Day 81 - 24 Feb.2012 - Itamaraju

As usual in Brazil, the breakfast is always fantastic and this hotel was no exception. We had our feast up on the top floor of the hotel with a beautiful view over the bay and the sea.
We left Mehaípe and drove back to the BR-101 which we followed for the rest of the day. We made the decision not to drive to Proto Seguro at the Bahian cost as it would be a 140km detour but instead just continue our way north in order to maximise the time we would like to spend at the beach in Pernambuco at the rest of our journey. We drove past Victória and crossed jet another state to enter Bahia. The north of Espirito Santo and south of Bahia is pretty much dominated by Eucalyptus plantations. And consequently a lot of slow driving trucks with three trailers full of wood are on the road. As they are about 26m long, they are a real challenge to overtake.
Further north into Bahia the first plantations of sugar cane started to appear - a sign that we were driving towards the Northeast of Brazil. The steep hills of Rio and the south of Espirito Santo gave way for more flat planes with monoculture.
The town, Itamaraju, where we stop for the night today was not of much interest, although it is the starting point to go to one of the National reserves along the Costa de Cacao, the Cocoa Coast. It was as well here where the Portuguese came first to enter Brazil, to be more precise it was close to Porto Seguro.
As we approached Itamaraju, we were lucky to find a lovely hotel right next to the main road where we booked ourselves in for the night. For dinner it gave yet another chicken breast, always the safest option as with red meat, the cook can often get it wrong and it would end up like a shoe sole.