Salt pans
Salt like snow.
Pablo Soares — CC BY-SA 3.0 · O desembargador — CC0 · Isabelle Allet-Coche — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Carla Salgueiro from Brasil — CC BY 2.0
Galinhos is a small fishing town on a peninsula on the northern coast of Rio Grande do Norte, 160 km from Natal, surrounded by dunes, salt pans, mangroves, beaches and a river, with about 2,100 residents. Cars do not enter: they stay on the mainland, and visitors continue by boat and then by buggy or cart. The paved road ends at Pratagil, with a car park, a bar and a pier, from where a boat crosses in about ten minutes through mangroves and salt pans. Boats leave once eight passengers are aboard, at about R$5 a person, or about R$30 to hire the whole boat. The highlight is a buggy tour through the salt works, where white mounds of salt look like snow under the equatorial sun, then on to the dunes and Lagoa do Capim, where the salty water makes floating easy. The drive from Natal takes about three hours, so a night's stay is worthwhile.
Salt like snow.
Ten minutes by boat.
Easy floating.
Galinhos peninsula, northern coast of Rio Grande do Norte, 160 km from Natal
Drive about three hours from Natal to Pratagil, then take the ten-minute boat, about R$5 a person once eight passengers are aboard.