This is a day that earns its destination slowly — a long coastal drive south that crosses a state border by boat, threads through the near-wilderness of Sergipe's Pantanal Norte, and arrives at a compact, unhurried capital just in time to see it from the air.
Down the Alagoas Coast
The day begins with an early departure from Maceió, south along the AL-101 through beach towns and cane-field flats until the landscape opens and thins toward the state's southern edge.
The target is Piaçabuçu by mid-morning — the ferry across the São Francisco leaves on the hour, and the aim is to make the 10 am crossing. The town sits at the mouth of the Rio São Francisco — the "Velho Chico,", the river that runs 3,000 kilometres from its headwaters in the Serra da Canastra in Minas Gerais through five states before giving out here at the sea. The name Piaçabuçu comes from Tupi for great piaçava — a palm that dominates the landscape — and the town holds the distinction of being the only place name in Portuguese with two cedilhas. The setting is extraordinary: the river spreads wide and brown, the dunes on the far bank catch the morning light, and the fishermen's canoas are already out. For those with a day to spare on another trip, the full Rota Dourada combines buggy travel across the golden dunes with a river passage to the point where the São Francisco meets the Atlantic — but today the ferry is the thing.
The crossing to Brejo Grande delivers you into Sergipe on the far bank — this is where Alagoas ends and Sergipe begins, the São Francisco doing what it has always done: marking a boundary, moving everything.