# Other Places Around The World > Mexico, Central & South America >  >  TRANSOCO

## Reed

Just finding some interesting details on this Brazilian paradise.  I hear that it is "like SBH 20 years ago".  Wondering if anyone has been there.  Rent is less and it seems like a good vibe.  I have never been to this part of Brazil and would be very interested in hearing what others have to say.  Considering a research trip in October and maybe splitting up time between here and SBH.  Mike R, I would be interested in hearing if you have heard anything about this area.  Former fishing village that allegedly hasn't gotten built up yet.  Seems like we could rent there around 75 % less than we do on SBH.  Just a recently interesting place that has passed by our way. kr

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## JEK

I think Mike worked a fishing boat there in the 80s. Or was that Houston?


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/tr...anted=all&_r=0

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## MIke R

correction...I worked for a company based in Houston which had assorted work  and dive boats all over the world....hence the many fun assignments to fun places....but not Brazil

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## JEK

KR,
Sounds like Nikki beach!

During the peak season, which goes from about December through February, Trancoso feels like a vampire town. During the day, the Quadrado is eerily quiet, with most stores and restaurants shuttered until about 3 p.m. But at night, it springs to life: multicolored lights sparkle from low-hanging trees, friends sit at outdoor tables on the dusty edge of the grass, and art galleries stay open well past midnight.


Open later are the beach bars and clubs. While a few places feature forró, traditional Brazilian dance music, Trancoso’s night life feels more like an expensive São Paulo nightclub — beach style. Young women wear high-cut party dresses, the men body-hugging Italian shirts and Bermuda shorts. And instead of strappy Jimmy Choos or Diesel tennis shoes, almost everyone wears sandals, the better to dance on sandy dance floors pumped up by high-end sound systems and European D.J.’s.


At 3 a.m. on a Saturday at the Pink Elephant, young women in tight pink outfits with white feather headdresses pranced through the club with Champagne bottles and sparklers. The wooden deck shook, with some clubbers tossing their sandals to dance on the moist sand next to the D.J. booth. By 4:30 a.m. the sun was rising behind a low gray cloud over the water, melding yellow sunlight with the pink lights of the club.

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## Reed

Yes,

Saw this piece.  Funny, this description is what I normally steer clear of on SBH with the rare exception of going out for a "fun" lunch.  Seldom do we venture out at night for dinner nor do I own a pair of Diesel sneakers.  I lived 2 doors down from Le Ti and didn't go but once (for 15 minutes) in 6 months.  Was not interested in this place for the party vibe but for the beauty.  Found a 3 bdr. beach house for around 100 bucks a night.  Interesting..... was that I mentioned this town to a well heeled friend who winters on SBH and it was already on his radar screen.  Only problem...........I only drink on islands.............it's not an island :Frown:

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## MIke R

reading that makes me want to run from it...not to it

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## katva

I did a very quick Google, and found this T & L article---the place sounds GREAT!!!  Written in 2009, though--maybe it has changed.  I definitely would go!  Sounds very, very laid back and magical.  Here's some of the text, and a link to the article (Kimberly--you've probably seen this)"But that’s not why you want to go. You want to go to Trancoso because it is one of the strangest and most singularly beautiful places in Brazil. We fell hard for the town on that first visit, and ever since have found it impossible to shake from our heads, like some disturbingly vivid dream: Were we all on drugs?Did it really look like that?Last fall I returned to Trancoso—via the dirt road, of course—to find it all magically and improbably intact"..........and more:"Like Goa and Ibiza before it, Trancoso would seem to be at the tipping point between high freak and high fashion, hippies and hipsters. Yet despite recent incursions, Trancoso is curiously glamour-resistant—high-end shops are usually dead-empty, and besides, nobody wears heels on the Quadrado. Here the dominant pretension is the lack thereof. “Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the rich from the nonrich,” notes André, a Paulista who moved here in 2006. “Back home they shop at Daslu [the swank São Paulo department store], but when they come to Trancoso they all dress like fishermen.” Ostentation just won’t cut it here. Two years ago a nightclub opened near the Quadrado, complete with a velvet rope and goons holding clipboards. Suffice it to say this didn’t go over well. “Everyone in line is wearing sandals, and here’s this huge guy in a tie saying, ‘Not on the list!’ ” André recalls with a laugh. The club closed within months.
From the first morning of that first visit, our crew fell into an easy routine taking us back and forth between the beach and the Quadrado. Trancoso’s languorous rhythms nudge travelers to adjust their goals accordingly. Our daily activities roster: (1) count _bindi_ marks; (2) count plastic surgery marks; (3) frolic in the surf at Estrela d’Água and work up an appetite for ceviche and grilled octopus; (4) walk up the hill and buy another coconut from Raimundo; (5) see how off-tempo the hippie drumming combo on the Quadrado gets the more the players smoke; (6) marvel at Professor Diney’s hyperathletic capoeira troupe and wish we had abs; (7) forget about abs and order more passion-fruit caipirinhas; (8) look at that _moon_; (9) look at those _stars_; (10) look for more Havaianas.
The Havaianas became something of an obsession. We had 14 orders for Brazil’s beloved flip-flops from friends back home. We realized that the farther we strayed from the Quadrado, the more the prices dropped, until we found the Supermercado Nogueira, in Trancoso’s dusty commercial ghetto on the edge of town. Here was the mother lode: among the diapers and canned hearts of palm we found dozens of Havaianas at only $6 a pair (a fourth of the cost on the Quadrado). We schemed to start up our own sandal-importing business, with a sideline in hearts of palm."  Here's the link:http://www.travelandleisure.com/arti...rancoso-brazil  Sounds like Cassidian should make a trip too (shoe shopping!):)

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## JEK

A more current article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/de...-Trancoso.html

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## Reed

Thanks Kathy and John,

This place is looking more and more worthy of a go see.  k.

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