Foz do Sao Francisco

The Sao Francisco runs two thousand eight hundred kilometres from Minas Gerais through the dry interior before reaching the sea here, on the line between Alagoas and Sergipe, and the mouth is a shifting arrangement of sandbars, dunes and channels rather than a fixed opening. Boats run from Piacabucu down the last stretch, and buggies cross the dunes on the Alagoas side to the point where fresh water and salt water meet, a visible line in some conditions. The Cabeco lighthouse stands offshore in the water, half swallowed - the village of Cabeco behind it was abandoned as the sea advanced, a change local people connect to the sediment held back by the dams upstream. Mangrove channels and coconut groves line the approach.

What you actually see

• The mouth of the Sao Francisco - the end of a 2,800 km river across dry Brazil.
• The drowned Cabeco lighthouse - standing in the sea off an abandoned village.
• Shifting dunes and sandbars - the mouth rearranging itself rather than fixed.
• The fresh and salt water line - visible where the river meets the Atlantic.

When to go

September to March. A day.

Honest expectations

Access is by boat and buggy, both weather dependent. The site is exposed with no shade. What you see changes with the sandbars, so photographs from other years may not match. There is little infrastructure at the mouth itself.

Nearby

Penedo is upriver in Alagoas; Aracaju is south in Sergipe.