Costa do Sol

This article describes a coastal area in Brazil. For a similarly named coastal area in Spain see Costa del Sol .

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Praja Grande in Arraial do Cabo

Costa do Sol (German: "Sun Coast") is aholiday areaapprox. 160 km east of Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , and is also known as the "Região dos Lagos" (lake area) because of its (salt) lakes.

Cabo Frio and Búzios

Boats on the Canal do Itajuru in Cabo Frio

The largest town in the region with around 250,000 inhabitants is Cabo Frio . However, Brazil's most popular seaside resort, Búzios, on the hilly peninsula of the same name, which has a large number of romantic bays and beaches, has become the “pearl of the sun coast” . As a group, the latter are even considered to be the most beautiful in Brazil (Dumont travel guide). Only eight Brazilian metropolises ( São Paulo , Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte , Salvador da Bahia , Brasília , Recife , Fortaleza and Porto Alegre ) host more foreign visitors per year than the tiny town of Búzios with 28,000 inhabitants ( 2008 ) there is not a single house with more than two floors. Instead, small hotels and hostels dominate, of which there are over 300 in the city.

Environment and traffic

Pontal_do_Atalaia peninsula in Parque Estadual da Costa do Sol

All the other seaside resorts in the region (Araruama, Arraial do Cabo , Barra de São João, Rio das Ostras, São Pedro da Aldeía, Saquarema), also with beautiful beaches, have in some cases not been able to control the demographic and economic-tourist development in urban planning terms, so that next to Buzios they are often seen as second and third class. These places live largely from the tourism of the weekend visitors, mainly from Rio.

With the expansion of a motorway in 1999 and its connection to the Rio-Niterói Bridge between Rio de Janeiro and Niterói, the "Costa do Sol" gained great importance as a top holiday area that can be reached quickly and easily. A particularly stable climate, in contrast to other holiday areas in the state of Rio de Janeiro, with relatively little rain also contributes to this. The travel time from Rio de Janeiro International Airport is e.g. B. to Búzios only about two hours.

After tourism, fishing remained the second most important of the region's traditional industries. In addition, there are large salt pans between Saquarema and Arraial do Cabo that use the salty water of the Laguna de Araruama , which has a salt content of about 5.2%, for salt production. Brazil's largest alkali producer and importer, Cia. Nacional de Álcalis, has its headquarters in Arraial do Cabo and still handles its ships in the romantic port there.

Sports

Sea turtle in the Atlantic off Arraial do Cabo

Saquarema is considered the Brazilian surfer's paradise, Búzios is the country's windsurfing and sailing paradise, and has Brazil's best championship golf course. The marine areas in front of Arraial do Cabo and Búzios, with their many islands, are very attractive diving areas in the region. Both places have numerous diving centers .

Easily confused with

• the Spanish Costa del Sol .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Knoppers BA, Bidone ED, and Abrão JJ (1999) Environmental geochemistry of coastal lagoon systems of Rio de Janeiro. In Geoquímica Ambiental, Vol. 6, pp. 210. Programa de Geoquímica
2. ^ Arraial do Cabo - Excellent Diving and Amazing Beauty