Sana is a specific place. Probably you remember when I went there in the end of December, that time it was just for 1 night tho and I didn’t get to feel the energy of that place.
Sana is located around 60 km from Cabo Frio, in Rio de Janeiro state. However, it takes 4/5 hours to get there by public transport, as you have to take 3 buses.
Another thing is that last 20 km there is no decent, asphalt road.
So why Sana is so special? Maybe because it’s located in Mata Atlântica – or in another words – Atlantic Forest (but I wouldn’t call it by forest, more by a jungle). It’s a place of hippies, artists. Place where on the weekends you can find bars with live forró and reagge, place, where people are closer to the nature than most of world population, as they have to learn how to adjust to it.
Mountains, waterfalls and silence – this is what is it all about. Once you visit all waterfalls, most people just chill by the river, as there is nothing else to do, but simplicity is the key to happiness there.
This time I took another road than the last time. So I went to Macae where I was about to take the bus to Sana for just 1 real. But only on the bus I found out, that I had to take another bus in the last destination. The problem was that there wasn’t any bus to Sana anymore on that day.
So it was around 6 p.m. Me, and my friend Nathalia who was working with me in hostel in Cabo Frio. Two blond girls thinking what they’re gonna do at the night in some small town (6 p.m. is already night here at this time of the year).
So our options were:
a) To hitchhike
b) Ask for help some strangers and also people in the chuch
c) Spend a night at some guest-house and take the first bus early in the morning
d) Wild camp.
Getting to Frade, we met an Argentinean guy who lost the bus and also wanted to hitchhike to Sana. The thing is that there were no cars passing over there.
After 2 hours of trying hitchhiking and asking some strangers to give us a lift, we started to ask people if they didn’t know anybody who had a car and would like to take us there for some little money. So they started to offer us a lift – but for 100 reais (and it’s a distance of 18 km between Frade and Sana). Luckily one of those people agreed to take us there for 60 reais (20 per each one).
The road was without any lighting, full of holes, no asphalt. But what was amazing, was the sky. At one moment we asked to stop in the middle of the road. We got off the car and looked at the sky. Sky full of stars. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful skies full of stars in my life. But that time… I cried. I cried coz it was one of the most breath-taking things I’ve ever seen.
After 1,5 hour, finally we got to Sana. We went to the camping where the Argentinean guy is working at.
So that was our adventure on the way to Sana.
And Sana…. We relaxed, we camped, we had a lot of time to think about many stuff. We met different people. We looked at the stars and we went to waterfalls. We were walking barefoot in the jungle and picked a lot of fruit straight from the trees – like lemons, avocados, figs, tangerines. Briefly, that’s how looked like my stay in Sana.
On the way back, we missed the bus, and the next one was only 3 hours later. As I didn’t want to get home too late, we started hitchhiking, this time for real. And after 2 hours, we got the ride (during these 2 hours probably there passed only like 10 cars). People who offered us a ride live in Sana. So we asked:
Can you tell us how is it to live here?
Well, it’s amazing, very calm. There are very interesting people here, we make a lot of projects all together. But of course, the fact of being so isolated from all the world can cause some problems. Once a week we have to plan to go to the city, to buy all we need, as here we don’t even have a gas station. There is no service of a postman, you have to go to the post office (and there is just one) to ask if there aren’t any letters for you. But sometimes letters don’t arrive here, once it lasted 4 months. And when it’s raining without stopping, we are basically cut off from the world.
So what do you think? Would you like to spend some time in a place like that?
very intriguing / peace