Things to do
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Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses
A dune field the size of a small country, protected since 1981, where rain collects between the ridges in thousands of freshwater lagoons. The water arrives with the wet season and stands through the middle of the year, then drains away, so the park is a different place either side of it.
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Atins
A village of sand streets at the eastern edge of the park, reached by boat down the Preguiças or by four wheel drive along the beach. It has become the place travellers stay to walk into the dunes at dawn, and the wind brings kitesurfers from June onward.
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Caburé
A spit of sand at the mouth of the Preguiças with river on one side and open Atlantic on the other, a few hundred metres of dune between them. A handful of pousadas and beach huts sit on it, and the boats stop for lunch.
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Farol de Mandacaru
A lighthouse above the fishing village of Mandacaru, climbed by a narrow spiral stair for the view that explains the whole trip: the river bending to the sea on one side and the first ranks of dune on the other. It is a standard stop on the river boats.
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Lagoa Azul dos Lençóis
One of the largest and closest of the dune lagoons, reached from Barreirinhas by four wheel drive over about an hour of sand track. The water is warm, waist deep and clear to the bottom, and the ridge above it holds the view over the field.
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Lagoa Bonita
Reached by climbing a dune wall straight up from the track, a hard few minutes in loose sand that opens onto one of the biggest lagoons in the park. Guides time the trip for late afternoon, when the sand cools and the light goes flat gold.
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Porto Preguiças Resort
The largest hotel on the river bank at Barreirinhas, with gardens, pools and a jetty of its own that the dune and river trips leave from. It is the comfortable base for a traveller who wants the park by day and a full service hotel at night.
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Rio Preguiças
The river that carries the day trip out of Barreirinhas to the coast, running past sand banks, palm stands full of macaws and the villages on its lower reach. Boats leave in the morning and work back upstream against the tide in the afternoon.
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Santo Amaro do Maranhão
The western gate to the Lençóis, a small town on the Rio Alegre with a fraction of the traffic Barreirinhas carries. The lagoons on this side, Gaivota and Betânia among them, are reached in under an hour and are usually met without another vehicle in sight.
