THE COCOA COAST
Cocoa Coast is an area of extraordinary scenic beauty that it still conserves natural landscapes little altered - true ecological paradises - always marked by the exuberant presence of the Atlantic forest, considered by the world scientific community as one of the richest ecosystems in biodiversity of the planet.
Cocoa Coast has the municipal districts of Ilhéus, Itabuna, Uruçuca, Itacaré, Una, Canavieiras and Santa Luzia. Scenery of dense historical and cultural significance that it permeates three great circles of the history of Brazil: the one of the brazilwood, the one of the sugarcane and of the cocoa, it shelters a charming landscape, that it sometimes makes to remember the primitive lands that the Indian had to give to the Portuguese settler in the century XVI. They are forests, rivers, waterfalls, trails, beaches, growth of mangroves, mountains, grottos, observatories, cocoa farms, ecological reservations, thematic parks and areas of environmental protection that it composes one of the areas of the state more appropriate for the encounter with the nature. And all this benefitted by the abundance of the sun. To the side of that diversified scenery, an important cultural legacy should be increased: the historical ranches, with their old big houses, their chapels and churches; the old mills; the popular parties, the religious traditions, the rich craft, and the habits of us of the earth, including a typical cookery the base of fish and shellfishes. But, there is more: the stories and legends conserved in the collective memory of the people of the area, and transmitted through generations by the oral tradition: the baianos have historians' soul.
How Cocoa Coast to Arrive
Leaving Salvador, it is followed by BR - 324 and, before Feira de Santana, it is BR - 101, proceeding, towards the south until the BA-262, through Uruçuca. Of Uruçuca to Ilhéus are 40 Km.
There is still option of using the system Ferry-Boat, Salvador – Bom Despacho (Island of Itaparica), and to proceed for the BA-001 until the city of Camamu, traveling 180 Km. Then they are 42 Km even Travessão. To leave of that place it is proceeded more 47 Km for BR-101 until the crossing point BA - 262 (Uruçuca-Ilhéus). Of that point even Ilhéus, going by Uruçuca, they are 50 Km.
Coming of the south, through BR - 101 until Santa Luzia's crossing point, it is followed by the BA-270 and BA-001 even Ilhéus.
Coming for BR - 415 (Vitória of the Conquest-Itabuna-islanders) they are 260 Km.
The city of Ilhéus, besides federal and state highways, has airport that receives regular domestic flights of great load. Comandatuba also has airport of same load. Canavieiras and Itabuna possess paved airports, though of smaller load, and for now without activity.
Ilhéus has an international port, with capacity to receive ships of big quiet, besides marine cruises.
It blooms and Fauna
The Atlantic forest is considered by the world scientific community as one of the richest ecosystems in diversities of animal species and vegetables of the planet and the threatened second. For this fact, UNESCO (Organization of the United Nations for the Education, the Science, the Culture), it elevated the Atlantic forest to the category of reservation of the Biosphere, being one of the three larger priorities of conservation of the planet. The strip understood among the rivers Jequitinhonha and Contas, it conserves the most significant portion of the Atlantic forest in the Brazilian northeast.
In the coast of the south of Bahia, Cocoa Coast preserves true tropical ecological shrines with dozens of kilometers of shaded beaches for dense coqueiral, great growth of mangroves areas and beautiful cocoa farms, whose planting system to the shadow of the great trees would make possible the preservation of the Atlantic forest. In that area they are also present sandbanks, fluvial and marine islands, enclosed ponds of vegetation, picturesque rivers and beaches little competed, wide and of clear sands.
They stand out vegetable species and rare and threatened animals of extinction, such as: Jacaranda black (Dalbergia nigra) and Sucupira (crimson Diplotropis), among the trees; Frogs (Ceratophys aurita, Cycloramphus migueli, Leptodactylus spixi), Jaracuçu (Dipsas neivai) False Coral (Siphlophis pulcher) Hummingbird (Ramphodon dohrnii), Anteater-flag (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), and Capuchin monkey-lion-give-face-gold (Leontopithecus chrysomelas), among the animals. In that area, there is, still, Areas of Environmental Protection (APAs) as the one of Lagoa Encantada and the one of Itacaré/Serra Grande. Biological reservations, are also part of this scenery, among them she Reserves it Zoobotânica of CEPLAC, the Biological Reservation of Una, besides the Park of Conduru and of Ecoparque of Una.
