Mostardas → Chuí

Mostardas → Chuí

Date: Thursday, February 25, 2027 · Distance: ~250 mi · Driving time: ~5h 15m (excluding stops) · Open in Google Maps

Road surfaces
Asphalt · 245 mi · 98%
Water · 3 mi · 1%
Paving stones · 2 mi · 1%

The southernmost leg crosses the litoral gaúcho, the strip between the Lagoa dos Patos and the Atlantic: a ferry crossing, lunch in the state's oldest city, a pause in the Taim wetlands, and the run to the end of Brazil.

The Crossing

The day begins at 8:00 am from Mostardas, heading south through country settled by Azoreans in the 18th century. The BR-101 ends here at the ferry terminal, tracing the isthmus between the Lagoa dos Patos and the ocean, past towns rooted in Portuguese outposts, fishing villages, and quilombos, through flat rice fields, lagoons, and restinga under a wide sky.

At São José do Norte, F. Andreis and Becker Transportes run the thirty-minute ferry crossing over the Canal do Rio Grande, which feels more sea than lagoon, departing hourly, boarding mid-morning. On the far bank, Rio Grande appears through the haze of its port.

Lunch in Rio Grande

Rio Grande, the oldest city in Rio Grande do Sul, was founded 19 February 1737 by Brigadier José da Silva Paes at the mouth of the Lagoa dos Patos, a foothold against Spanish pressure from the Río de la Plata. His fort, Jesus, Maria e José, anchored the region's first Portuguese settlement; today the port handles some of Brazil's largest cargo volumes.

The historic centre: Praça Sete de Setembro marks the original fort's site, ringed by 19th-century buildings from its commercial boom under German, English, and Portuguese merchants. The Alfândega, a neoclassical customs house now the Museu Histórico da Cidade, is among the state's finest; the Sobrado dos Azulejos, clad entirely in Portuguese tiles, is unique in southern Brazil.

Taim

South of Rio Grande, the BR-471 enters the Estação Ecológica do Taim, a federal reserve between the Atlantic and the Lagoa Mirim. Established in 1986 and later a Ramsar wetland site, it protects banhados, dunes, lagoons, and grassland sheltering over 250 bird species and thirty mammals — capybaras, caimans, otters, maned wolves. The black-necked swan, cisne-de-pescoço-preto, is its emblem.

A stop at Estacionamento Capilha marks the trailhead of the Trilha da Capilha, passing a fishing community, a stretch of the Estrada Real, and the Capela de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, older than the reserve itself. Even the drive alone is flat, wet, and alive with birds.

Arrival: Chuí

Fuel at the Posto Ipiranga before settling in for the night. Chuí, the southernmost sede municipal in Brazil, sits on the Arroio Chuí, where the Uruguay border was contested since the 18th century. The Portuguese post founded by Cristóvão Pereira de Abreu was destroyed and rebuilt amid struggles over the Campos Neutrais, settled only in 1851.

What remains is a town of about six thousand, split from its Uruguayan twin, Chuy, by one avenue — Avenida Uruguai on one side, Avenida Brasil on the other — whose width alone is the frontier. Residents cross freely; Brazilian supermarkets and Uruguayan free shops serve both sides, and Portuguese, Spanish, and portuñol mix daily. A Palestinian-Brazilian community adds its own mosque.