The hippie village SANA - the most peaceful and green place in Rio de Janeiro state

Few days before NYE I went to Sana. A lot of people recommended me to go there, to this „hippie village”, where you find nothing but nature.

I have to admit, Brazil isn’t easy to travel. Sana is located just 64 kilometres from Cabo Frio, however it took me 5 hours to get there (and 4 on the way back). I had to take a bus to Rio das Ostras, then get the bus to Casimiro de Abreu so I could take the bus to Sana.

First time since the end of August when I went to „interior” – which just means a place that isn’t on the seaside.
After spending these few months on the beach, I barely can imagine spending more than a week in another place, but Cabo Frio got so crowded on Christmas (and then it was just getting worse), that it was just perfect idea to go there then.
On the bus from Casimiro to Sana our bus got stopped due to police control. The „hippie” fame of Sana makes it perfect place for the ones who do drugs, but guess who was the one to get inspected…

My friends that I went there with, even though they are Brazilian, they look really „gringo”. What pretty scared me was the fact that instead of checking us and our stuff inside the bus (as they did with another guy), they asked my friends to leave the bus. After asking them if I was also with them, I had to join them too.

And that was pretty bad experience. They checked everything – our backpacks, clothes, tents, sleeping bags – and thanks God the only thing they didn’t look at was a small, hidden pocket in my backpack where I had my camping knife (which is pretty much just a camping knife but I guess I could get into trouble because of that).

I spoke English with guys during inspection not to give them more suspicions (a gringo that doesn’t even speak Portuguese looks pretty much just like a tourist, while gringo who speaks Portuguese fluently doesn’t seem so gringo and Innocent anymore).

And it all lasted around 20 minutes. I got so mad – the only people who got inspected were us and one more guy who had pretty alternative look.

Police in Brazil is ridiculous. They do these controls in such a peaceful places like Sana, where is no crime, meanwhile 120 kilometres away in Rio de Janeiro, people are killing each other due to drug crime, they walk with the guns on the streets of Lapa, the most popular place for nights-out, and everybody knows that, but you barely gonna meet any police officers there during the night.

Anyway, Sana is so peaceful. We stayed on the camping which was by the river. The camping had WIFI but there was no signal in the village. All the places were full of banana trees, rivers, waterfalls, and natural pools. I swear, I’ve never seen so much green area and such a intensive green in my life.

In such a place all you want to do is relax, listen to the nature, swim in the river and then lay on its rock… Read a book and forget there is another world.

I stayed there unfortunately just 1 night, but the experience was amazing. Just check out the pics!